Today it's the BlogTour A Shop Girl at Sea, the fourth part of the Pennington series, by Rachel Brimble.
Rachel lives with her husband and their two daughters in a small town near Bath, England. Since 2007, she has had several novels published by small US presses, eight books published by Harlequin Superromance (Templeton Cove Stories) and four Victorian romances with eKensington/Lyrical.
In January 2018, she signed a four-book deal with Aria Fiction for a new Edwardian series set in Bath’s finest department store. The Mistress of Pennington’s released July 2018, A Rebel At Pennington’s February 2019, Christmas At Pennington’s September 2019 and A Shop Girl at Sea April 2020.
Rachel is a member of the Romantic Novelists Association and Romance Writers of America and has thousands of social media followers all over the world. To sign up for her quarterly and new release newsletter, click here to go to her website: https://rachelbrimble.com/
Connect with @RachelBrimble @Aria_Fiction on Twitter, on BookBub, on Goodreads, on Instagram, on Amazon, And with Rachel Brimble on Facebook, Rachel's Readers Group on Facebook,Visit rachelbrimble.blogspot.com, Buy A Shop Girl at Sea
About the book
Bath, 1912.
Amelia Wakefield loves working at Pennington's, Bath's finest department store. An escape from her traumatic past, it saved her life. So when Miss Pennington sets her a task to set sail on the Titanic and study the department stores of New York, she couldn't be more excited – or determined!
Frustrated with his life at home, Samuel Murphy longs for a few weeks of freedom and adventure. Meeting Amelia on board the Titanic, Samuel can't help wonder what painful history has made the beauty so reserved. But he already has too many responsibilities for love.
Ruby Taylor has always kept her Pennington co-workers at a distance. Making sure her little brother is safe has always been her priority. But when that means accepting Victoria Lark's offer of sanctuary, more than one of Ruby's secrets is under threat of being revealed...
This is the fourth book in the Pennington series, and although there are some characters we meet again in every book these can all be read as standalone novels.
Amelia is a woman throttled by her past, but determined to overcome it. When Miss Pennington picks her to discover what the US department stores do to draw shoppers in she is thrilled. Ruby gets to step up in her absence, which brings a certain amount of jealousy from certain corners with it.
Samuel has landed a cushy sailing job on the Titanic, which Amelia will be boarding shortly, and both of their lives become linked forever as they experience a terrible tragedy.
It's a romance with poignant social issues of the era woven into the plot.
Brimble makes an interesting point about the way male survivors were treated in the aftermath of the disaster. Why did so many of them survive when others didn't, especially with women and children being the first to supposedly be rescued - except those in the lower classes of course. The guilt on top of the trauma of the event would have been a terrible burden made ten times worse by people who weren't there making assumptions and blaming them for surviving.
It was interesting how the author took the event, and the survival of Amelia and Samuel, and turned it into a message or a sign instead of something so dark it could potentially destroy their psyche. It becomes the turning of a corner if they allow it to be.
Brimble always endeavours to deliver a read that has important messages along with historical facts and a good feeling to it. She doesn't shy away from difficult or uncomfortable topics, despite having the genre platform to just give readers all the happy they want.
Buy A Shop Girl at Sea (Pennington's #4) on Amazon Uk or go to Goodreads for any other retailer. Publisher: Aria; 9 April 2020. Buy at Amazon com.
Read my reviews of Mistress of Pennington's, A Rebel at Pennington's and Christmas at Pennington's by Rachel Brimble.
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