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Fiction books set on cruise ships?


taffy12
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CAN'T BELIEVE i LOST THIS REPLY THREE TIMES.

 

DARK VOYAGE Alan Furst spy freighter in the Med. WW2

 

Operation Mincemeat Ben McIntyre true story of how M I 5 planted a body off the coast of Cadiz and fooled the Germans about the invasion plans. The film is called The Man Who Never Was.

 

The Group Mary McCarthy's best selling 50s novel about eight Vassar grads who at one point take a NY-Southampton Crossing.

 

And finally, you will laugh out loud:

 

SKINNY DIP by Carl Hiaasen Hubby throws (swim champion) wife overboard off the coast of Florida, she swims to shore and wreaks hilarious revenge on the cad. Fun, easy read.

 

Serious literature and a wonderful Portuguese novel which you can usually find as a used paperback:

EQUATOR by Tavares. A Lisbon dandy is asked by the king to sail to Sao Tome off the coast of West Africa to administer the island that has slave plantations. There is some (great) steamy romance to color this serious historical novel. Setting is 1860s I think.

 

OH a favorite, too, is THE CATS TABLE by Michael Ondatje (English Patient) a coming of age novel about a boy sent from home in Sri Lanka back to his mother in England. High adventure and a mix of amusing characters.

Cheers,

Susan M

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Another vote for the Cat's Table by Michael Ondaatje.

 

Beautifully written, vivid descriptions of ship board life as young 11-year old boy journeys form Sri Lanka to England on board the Oronsay.

 

You'll feel as if your traveling along on this classic voyage. If you love traveling by ship you will love this novel it is really terrific.

 

The_Cats_Table_Ondaatje.jpg

 

Jonathan

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  • 3 months later...

The latest in the Alvirah and Willy Meehan mystery series by Mary Higgins Clark is set on a cruise ship.

 

All By Myself, Alone

Fleeing the humiliating arrest of her husband-to-be on the eve of their wedding, Celia Kilbride, a gems and jewelry expert, hopes to escape from public attention by lecturing on a brand-new cruise ship, the Queen Charlotte. On board she meets eighty-six-year-old Lady Emily Haywood, “Lady Em,” as she is known throughout the world. Immensely wealthy, Lady Em is the owner of a priceless emerald necklace that she intends to leave to the Smithsonian after the cruise. Three days out to sea Lady Em is found dead—and the necklace is missing. Is it the work of her apparently devoted assistant, Brenda Martin, or her lawyer-executor, Roger Pearson, and his wife, Yvonne, both of whom she had invited to join them on the cruise? Or is it Professor Henry Longworth, an acclaimed Shakespeare scholar who is lecturing on board? Or Alan Davidson, a guest on the ship who is planning to spread his wife’s ashes at sea? The list of suspects is large and growing. Celia, with the help of her new friends Willy and Alvirah Meehan, who are celebrating their forty-fifth wedding anniversary, sets out to find the killer, not realizing that she has put herself in mortal danger before the ship reaches its final destination.

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There is a forthcoming book set on a cruise ship The Alexander Inheritance due to be released on July 4th. The publisher's web page for the book [with sample chapters] is at http://www.baen.com/the-alexander-inheritance.html

 

Cover Blurb:

Twice before, mysterious cosmic catastrophes have sent portions of the Earth across space and back in time—first, with the Grantville Disaster in West Virginia, and then again with a maximum security prison in southern Illinois.

Now, the planet is struck with yet another such cataclysm, whose direct impact falls upon the Queen of the Sea, a cruise ship in the Caribbean. When the convulsions subside, the crew and passengers of the ship discover that they have arrived in a new and frightening world.

They are in the Mediterranean now, not the Caribbean. Still worse, they discover that the disaster has sent them more than two thousand years back in time. Following the advice of an historian among the passengers, Marie Easley, they sail to Egypt—or, at least, where they hope Egypt will be.

Sure enough, Egypt is there—ruled over by Ptolemy, the founder of the Ptolemaic dynasty and one of Alexander the Great’s chief generals.

Alexander the Great, it turns out, died just two years ago. The western world has just entered what would become known as the Hellenistic Period of history, during which time Greek civilization would spread around the Mediterranean and beyond. But the first fifty years of the Hellenistic Period was the Age of Diadochi—the Time of the Successors—when Alexander’s empire would collapse into chaos. By the time the Successors finished their strife, every single member of Alexander’s dynasty would be murdered and only three of the generals who began that civil war would still be alive.

That is the new world in which the Queen of the Sea finds itself. Can Marie Easley and Captain Lars Flodden guide the crew and passengers through this cataclysm? Fortunately, they have some help: a young Norwegian ship’s officer who forms an attachment to Alexander’s widow; a French officer who is a champion pistol marksman; a canny Congressman from Utah—and, most of all, many people of the time who are drawn to a vision of the better world of the future.

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I'll have to check out that Harry Harrison book. Sci-Fi fans might also like the classic from Robert Heinlein "Job: A Comedy of Justice" :halo:which begins on a cruise in the South Pacific. The Cruise Director certainly is not who she appears to be. :evilsmile:

Jobcomedy.jpg

 

Huge Grantville fan here so I'll definitely check out The Alexander Inheritance" that sounds great. Very similar the the S.M Stirling Emberverse series.

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I'm reading a book I bought on the Queen Mary when I stayed on it recently. It's called Cooking for Ghosts. It takes place aboard the QM ship as it is today, docked in Long Beach. Kind of "fluffy," but a decent vacation read. [emoji3]

 

 

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...

As far as a book about Europe, Mark Twains =A Tramp Abroad. Not a light read, but turns out it makes a lot of sense, you learn alot about the 1800's in Europe, and made Ship of Fools understandable...

A Tramp Abroad is one of my all time favorite books, maybe it is time to reread it. Again. Twain's Following the Equator, about his 1895 around the world sailing trip,is similarly wonderful.

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"Skipping Christmas" is not set on a cruise ship, but the planning of a first cruise. While I'm not a big John Grisham fan, this was a fun little book to read. BTW, the book was a whole lot better than the movie.

 

Visit your local bookstore, there is a whole travel section with many choices regarding European travel at our local Borders.

 

 

I read that one too! It's not a typical Grisham novel.

 

 

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  • 1 month later...

Michael Ondaatje author of the English Patient wrote a wonderful novel set on an ocean liner. The Cat's Table follows the adventures of an 11 year-old boy traveling from Sri Lanka to England via the Suez Canal.

 

This is a terrific, beautifully written story with vivid descriptions of ocean travel. If you want to get into cruise pick this one up.

 

Jonathan

 

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Apologies if this has been mentioned - I did not read through the whole thread. But for anybody who will be spending even a day in Venice, read 2-3 Donna Leon novels set in that city. It will give you a resident's perspective, quite interesting. And fun books as well.

 

Stan

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Not a novel, but a fun read for any cruise aficionados. "Burning Cold" by Paul Jeffers. The story of the Prinsendam sinking in October 2008. I was half way though it on a HAL cruise a few years ago when I heard a male voice say "REALLY"??!! I looked up and it was the captain. He just shook his head, smiled, and walked away.

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Not a novel, but a fun read for any cruise aficionados. "Burning Cold" by Paul Jeffers. The story of the Prinsendam sinking in October 2008. I was half way though it on a HAL cruise a few years ago when I heard a male voice say "REALLY"??!! I looked up and it was the captain. He just shook his head, smiled, and walked away.

 

 

It was 1980, true story. All the passengers were rescued.

 

 

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Not a novel, but a fun read for any cruise aficionados. "Burning Cold" by Paul Jeffers. The story of the Prinsendam sinking in October 2008. I was half way though it on a HAL cruise a few years ago when I heard a male voice say "REALLY"??!! I looked up and it was the captain. He just shook his head, smiled, and walked away.

 

 

Ha! That's hilarious.

 

 

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Not a novel, but a fun read for any cruise aficionados. "Burning Cold" by Paul Jeffers. The story of the Prinsendam sinking in October 2008. I was half way though it on a HAL cruise a few years ago when I heard a male voice say "REALLY"??!! I looked up and it was the captain. He just shook his head, smiled, and walked away.

 

Reading a book about a ship sinking while you are on a cruise !!:eek: It's a bit like watching programmes about airplane crashes just before you are due to go to the airport.

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