A NOVEL telling the stories of three Southampton women in the aftermath of the sinking of the Titanic will be released later this month.
The Titanic Girls comes from the pen of author and journalist Julie Cook, who previously wrote non-fiction book The Titanic and the City of Widows it Left Behind, which focused on the women widowed in the 1912 tragedy, including her own great-grandmother.
Emily Bessant from Freemantle was thrown into poverty when her fireman husband William died on the ship.
An entrepreneur ahead of her time, she launched various businesses to feed the couple's five children.
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Julie, a mum of two from Dibden Purlieu, used her extensive research to help form the three fictional leads in The Titanic Girls, best friends Lucy, Catherine and Susan.
Lucy, recently married and with a one-year-old child, is widowed when her stoker husband Joseph dies. With no breadwinner, she must fight to survive for her baby.
Feisty Catherine is engaged to Percy, a steward on Titanic, who comes home suffering with shock.
Can she cope with marrying a man the city now calls a 'coward' for surviving the sinking?
Susan, a teacher is a secret Suffragette and most of her pupils have lost their fathers on Titanic. When she meets a man she finally falls for, can she reconcile her desire for women's rights with her desire to fall in love?
Julie told the Daily Echo: "It's a subject which has always fascinated me and I felt quite a connection to my great-grandmother while writing the first book.
"When I was learning more about my own family history, I longed to write a novel with all the research I had at my disposal. The character of Lucy was loosely based on my great-grandmother and the others then wrote themselves really.
"The actual writing of the book took me only six weeks. I wrote eight solid hours a day and I felt it came easier that way to be totally immersed in it daily.
"It's very different from the previous book and is aimed at fans of sagas, rather than Titanic historians."
The Titanic Girls will be published by BLKDOG with a launch party due to take place in Southampton.
Julie has also had a history of girl guiding published this month.
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