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A Novel
by Jennifer E. Smith
An indie musician reeling from tragedy and a public breakdown reconnects with her father on a weeklong cruise in "a pitch-perfect story about the ways we recover love in the strangest places" (Rebecca Serle, bestselling author of In Five Years)
Right after the sudden death of her mother—her first and most devoted fan—and just before the launch of her high-stakes sophomore album, Greta James falls apart on stage. The footage quickly goes viral and she stops playing, her career suddenly in jeopardy—the kind of jeopardy her father, Conrad, has always predicted; the kind he warned her about when he urged her to make more practical choices with her life.
Months later, Greta—still heartbroken and very much adrift—reluctantly agrees to accompany Conrad on the Alaskan cruise her parents had booked to celebrate their fortieth anniversary. It could be their last chance to heal old wounds in the wake of shared loss. But the trip will also prove to be a voyage of discovery for them both, and for Ben Wilder, a charming historian, onboard to lecture about The Call of the Wild, who is struggling with a major upheaval in his own life. As Greta works to build back her confidence and Ben confronts an uncertain future, they find themselves drawn to and relying on each other.
It's here in this unlikeliest of places—at sea, far from the packed city venues where she usually plays and surrounded by the stunning scenery of Alaska—Greta will finally confront the choices she's made, the heartbreak she's suffered, and the family hurts that run deep. In the end, she'll have to decide what her path forward might look like—and how to find her voice again.
"The power of the Alaskan scenery breathes through the pages, and Greta's grief about her mother's death is palpable...Readers of Evvie Drake Starts Over will enjoy this book. A well-told story with evocative prose that bares—and bears—the ragged emotions that accompany a journey to healing." - Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"YA author Smith enters the adult field with this uplifting novel...Readers of Debbie Macomber and Robyn Carr will love how unsinkable Greta proves to be." - Library Journal (starred review)
"Smith delivers a story of love and grief with her satisfactory adult debut...Smith does a great job with her characters, particularly Greta, eliciting her charms and flaws in equal measure. There's not a whole lot to write home about with this, but it gets the job done." - Publishers Weekly
"Beautiful, moving, hopeful: I loved this book from beginning to end, and will be thinking about it for a long time. It's a total triumph." - Emily Stone, author of Always, In December
"These characters are drawn with a generosity that allows them to be wrong but also right, loving but also prone to missteps, and ultimately deserving of a resolution that's full of hope. And while The Unsinkable Greta James is not your typical adventure on the high seas, it's a cruise-ship story with a vibrant sense of its unusual setting." - Linda Holmes, New York Times bestselling author of Evvie Drake Starts Over
"Warm, funny, and bursting with heart, [it's] exactly the book you want to read: a pitch-perfect story about the ways we recover love in the strangest of places." - Rebecca Serle, New York Times bestselling author of In Five Years
This information about The Unsinkable Greta James was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Jennifer E. Smith is the author of nine books for young adults, including The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight and Hello, Goodbye and Everything in Between, both of which have been adapted for film. She earned a master's degree in creative writing from the University of St. Andrews in Scotland, and her work has been translated into thirty-three languages. She currently lives in Los Angeles.
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