‘Fateful’ by Claudia Gray Book Review

This book has been on my shelf for a little while now, It was a thrifty find from one of my favourite second-hand stores, and even though this book is no longer in print, I thought I would share some thoughts on it anyway because I feel that it’s important to give all books some love and appreciation, not just ones that are currently trending in the bookish community.

I quite enjoyed this book, though it did take a while to get started because I was having trouble reading at the time, I was contending with some blurry vision because of some medication I’ve been taking so I had to wait for it to settle down a bit before I could get started, but once that settled down and I finally got into it I pretty much breezed straight through it.

‘Fateful’ by Claudia Gray

‘Fateful’ by Claudia Gray is set on the Titanic. It’s a historical fiction novel centred around a ladies-maid named ‘Tess‘. Tess works for a wealthy English Viscount and his family. She is a ladies’ maid to the Viscount’s eldest daughter ‘Irene‘.

This novel pairs historical real-life events with a bit of supernatural fiction. Werewolves on the Titanic who would have thought that was possible, but in this novel apparently it’s a thing.

In ‘Fateful’ Tess unknowingly gets herself mixed up in a supernatural feud between a wealthy young man and a large werewolf cult called ‘The Brotherhood‘. Who are pressuring him to join their ranks.

This sequence of events is already set on course before she even boards the Titanic. In which she will be joining the ‘Lisles‘ (the family she works for) on its maiden voyage. And It certainly makes things a little more interesting and perhaps a tad more chaotic.

All Tess wants is a new life in New York where she can stand on her own two feet and leave the family she has served behind. But she never expected to fall for ‘Alec Marlow‘ the son of a wealthy American business man or get mixed up in a supernatural feud.

She knows that they can never be together, she is doomed to a life of service, there is no way a servant and a man of wealth can be together, it’s just not possible.

This book was an enjoyable read. Though I did find myself wondering when certain events would happen through-out its duration. When would the events that happened in real-life history come to pass or is this an alternative timeline where the Titanic finishes its maiden voyage and reaches its intended destination.

Most of the time I had to remind myself of the time it was set and the location because for the most part it could have been on any ship. Then certain events started to match with those of real life. And then I knew that heartbreak and devastation was coming. Those parts definitely welled up some emotions inside me, thinking of all those people in real life too who lost their lives because of this tragedy.

It seems to me that the author did her research well but also took some definite artistic licence. By creating some new characters and merging their stories with that of real-life events. While the characters are mostly fictional, I felt that she portrayed fairly accurately what it may have been like for someone in a life of service or a life of luxury during that time.

Would I Recommend This Book?

I would definitely recommend this book, even if supernatural stuff isn’t your jam I felt like the melding of historical and supernatural fiction in this book was fairly well done, in my opinion. Though I’m not a history expert, so you may feel differently. But I felt that it was done in a way that things didn’t feel too disjointed. Definitely remember though that this is historical and supernatural fiction so here and there the author may have taken some artistic licences, you know like werewolves, lol.

While it is something I would recommend, it may be harder to track down, there are a few links on the author’s website, and I have found a couple of other places but it seems like this book may not be in print anymore. So you may need to hunt down a second-hand copy on E-Bay. I will include some links below that I have found incase you are interested in finding a copy.

Where can I find this book?

These links are sourced as of October 2023, they are available as of this time, but this is subject to change. When searching for a copy of an out-of-print book, please be careful, because some people will sell them for extreme prices. It’s not worth it and it could potentially be a scam.) The links provided below are not affiliate links.

Claudia Gray’s Website (includes a couple of links to potential places to purchase a copy.)
Barnes and Nobles (includes paper back and e-book. It seems to be available but you may need to check for yourself.)
ThriftBooks.com (extremely limited stock, I assume these are second-hand copies)
thereallygoodbookshop.com.au (extremely limited stock, may be second-hand copies)
Ebay.com.au (this is a listing search page on Ebay for copies of this book. This will be subject to change depending on what is available. )

I hope that you enjoyed this book review. I feel that it is important to share older books as well as new ones, so while this book may not be as readily available as the latest hyped novels trending on social media I wanted to show it some love.

There was a time where I thought that I didn’t want to do book reviews anymore because I felt like I had to over analyse them and that wasn’t joyful to me, but as I’m getting immersed back into my reading I feel that its something I want to dabble with a bit more.

I probably won’t do reviews for everything that I read but when one in particular calls out to me then I might be compelled to share my thoughts. I also want to go through some more of my old ones and pick out a few to share as a standalone book review.

But until then, I hope you all have an awsome day.

Erin.

Disclaimer – This post is not sponsored and doesn’t contain any affiliate links, links included are for reference only in case your interest in checking out anything mentioned in this post. Read full Disclaimer here.

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