3 out of 4 stars
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On a Sunday, December 5th, the Seattle Express – a 700-foot container ship – caught fire. Steve Procida, the captain, tried to salvage the situation. He tried to access the damage. According to him, from the information he had gathered from his crew, it was time to abandon ship. Would they make it ashore? If so, would they make it alive?
The owners of the ship, Buckhorn, had been informed of the mishap. They did send tugs. Yet, they weren’t the only ones. Louise smelled the weather and the money. Her husband, Larry, helped gather up a crew. They even called up their rivals – the Dark Cloud’s crew. Aboard the Warhorse, a 160-foot tug, they were going to dare to tow the ship. Would they make it before the Buckhorn tugs?
Adrift is one of the liveliest mariners’ tale I’ve read yet. It’s a standalone sequel to Strong Heart – I’d like to read that one too. Charlie Sheldon catches your attention right from page one. Then he doesn’t let go. The ending is sad. Sad because you don’t want it to end. The story is fast paced. The character development and interaction is commendable. There are quite a number of strong characters and they are all relevant to the narrative. This is not an easy fit to achieve. The prose is exemplary. As a result, the flow of the narrative is amazing. It is easy to connect the dots and hard to get bored.
The thing I liked most about Adrift was the part when William and Anne decided to go find help instead of the others. Some of the crew even thought it was far-fetched. This eventually cost them both. It’s this kind of sacrifice that makes humanity better. Again, there’s the part where the steward and the ordinary went to hunt seal for meat. This was courageous and daring. It’s the few who dare that support the most who wait. I didn’t like the fact that Buckhorn fired Steve just because they could. He had been with them for years only to let him go. Something has to be done about this.
Charlie Sheldon knows his stuff. This is one of the reasons the book was so interesting. With some experience at sea, he has done more than enough research concerning his plot. Even if one has read a tale at sea before, you’ll learn more on this one. Considering I have all these good things to say about this must-read, it would only seem fair it gets a perfect rating. This is not the case though. I found more than ten errors; some punctuation and others wording. For example, the last line of chapter 62 has no closing quotation marks. Then there’s this one at the beginning of chapter 7, at location 624: “Yeah. Wasn’t I was starting a week from Monday?” I still think it was well-edited, but it needs another round of proofreading. It is for this reason only that I give it 3 out of 4 stars.
Let’s get something straight. Adrift comes highly recommended. I recommend it to lovers of mariners’ tales. If you like sea stories, this one might be better than any you’ve read before. It’s a true to life adventure. The characters range from a 13-year old to a 69-year old. Therefore, anyone from any age group can relate with this one. If you wouldn’t want too much details on ships and crew, or prefer urban plots, you should probably pass on this one.
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Adrift
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