Excerpt from Luck of the Titanic by Stacey Lee, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

I bound forward on the balls of my feet, muscled from years of tightrope practice. Ba started training Jamie and me in the acrobatic arts as soon as we could walk. Sometimes, our acts were the only thing putting food on the table.

The severe officer watches me pull my ticket from my velvet handbag.

Mrs. Sloane, my employer, secretly purchased tickets for the two of us with her dragon's hoard of money. She didn't tell her son or his wife about the trip, or that she might stay in America indefinitely to get away from their money-grubbing fists and greedy stares. After her unexpected demise, I couldn't just let the tickets go to waste.

"Afternoon, sir. I am Valora Luck."

The officer glances at the name written on my ticket, then back at me, his steep cheekbones sharp enough for a bird to land on. His navy visor with its distinctive company logo—­a gold wreath circling a red flag with a white star—­levers as he inspects me. "Destination?"

"New York, same as the rest." Is that a trick question?

"New York, huh. Documentation?"

"You're holding it right there, sir," I say brightly, feeling the gangway shift uncomfortably.

He exchanges a guarded look with the crewman holding the passenger log. "Luck?"

"Yes." In Cantonese, our surname sounds more like "Luke," but the British like to pronounce it "luck." Ba had decided to embrace good fortune and spell it that way, too. He'd intended the lofty-sounding name "Valor" for Jamie, and "Virtue" for me—­after a sea shanty about a pair of boots—but my British mum put the brakes on that. Instead, she named my brother James, and I got Valora. It's a toss-up as to which of us is more relieved.

"You're Chinese, right?"

"Half of me." Mum married Ba against the wishes of her father, a vicar in the local parish.

"Then at least half of you needs documentation. Ain't you heard of the Chinese Exclusion Act? You can't go to America without papers. That's just how it is."

"Wh-­what?" A pang of fear slices through me. The Chinese Exclusion Act. What madness is this? They don't like us here in England, but clearly, they really don't like us in America. "But my brother's on this ship, too, with the members of the Atlantic Steam Company. They're all Chinese. Did they get on?"

"I don't keep the third-class register. You'll need to get off my gangway."

"B­but my lady will be expecting me."

"Where is she?"

I was prepared for this question. "Mrs. Sloane wanted me to board first to make sure her room was ready." Of course, she had already pushed off on a different ship, one that wouldn't be making a return journey, causing me great inconvenience. "We had her trunk forwarded here a week ago. I must lay out her things." Mum's Bible is in that trunk, within its pages my only picture of her and Ba. At last, my family will be reunited, even if it is just with a photo of our parents.

"Well, you're not getting on this ship without the proper documentation." He waves the ticket. "I'll keep this for her for when she boards. Next!"

Waiting passengers begin to grumble behind me, but I ignore them. "No, please! I must board! I must—"

"Robert, escort this girl off."

The crewman beside the severe officer grabs my arm.

I shake him off, trying to muster a bit of respect. "I will see myself off."

The woman in the menswear suit behind me steps aside to allow others to go before her, her amber eyes curiously assessing me. "I saw a group of Chinese men enter the ship early this morning," she says in the no-nonsense tone Americans use. "Perhaps you can check if your brother was one of them."

"Thank you," I say, grateful for the unexpected charity.

A family pushes past me, and I lose the woman in a flurry of people, parcels, and hats. I find myself being squeezed back into the train depot, like a piece of indigestible meat. Mrs. Sloane would've never stood for this outrage. Probably a rich lady like her would have persuaded them to let me on. But there is no one to speak for me now. I descend the staircase, then exit the depot onto the quay. The glare from the overcast sky cuts my eyes.

Excerpted from Luck of the Titanic by Stacey Lee. Copyright © 2021 by Stacey Lee. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.