“The Last Lifeboat” is the latest of several recent releases set in WWII Britain. In this gripping historical fiction, author Hazel Gaynor immerses us in the action from the very first page. She has us feeling the lash of the icy rain and the storm-riled waves that are tossing about the lifeboat in which one of the main characters, Alice King, has landed. Then Gaynor leaves us hanging as she abruptly takes us back in time to show us how Alice ended up in that lifeboat in the middle of the Atlantic during a terrible storm.

There are two women whom we meet and come to like: Alice King and Lily Nichols. They come from different social classes, and their lives are quite different, but both are admirable women who, at the start of the story, do not realize the depth of their inner integrity and strength. They do not know what they are capable of when pushed. They don’t know how heroic their actions will be in the near future.

We are fortunate to witness this transformation through the beautiful crafting of this novel which Gaynor created from a real incident, and which includes some characters who are loosely based on real historical figures. Alice King, teacher and librarian, feels compelled to break out of her “safe” life and do something different, something for her country. She volunteers to be a escort for children who are being evacuated from London to Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and other former British colonies. Her ship is headed to Canada, and the parents and most on the ship believe that there will be a military convoy accompanying the ship to Canada.

We also meet Lily, a widow and mother of two children, who must decide whether to send her children to safety and away from London, where bombs are falling, destroying neighborhoods and killing families caught in the maelstrom. She ultimately decides to send them to safety, as she balances the dangers of both traveling over the ocean versus staying in London.

Reading about these women and the others we meet in these pages, we gain a better understanding of the breadth of feelings of the British citizens during the war. This is the first time I’ve read about a conscientious objector during WWII, and we see the spectrum of feelings about the war.

Between Lily living in London and worrying about bombs and Alice in the last lifeboat that left the sinking ship, the action is nonstop. We become immersed in their lives as we see them call upon reserves of strength that were previously unknown. The ending is bittersweet as not everyone survives the days adrift in the ocean, but it is realistic and upbeat. Gaynor lays bare the mistakes that were made in sending children overseas, the decisions that, as events unfolded, endangered them. Her ability to fictionalize an actual historic event and make it real to us is brilliant, and this novel is truly a read in which the pages turn almost on their own as we keep reading to find out how these women, who have become important to us, fare as they struggle to survive.

This review was first posted on Bookreporter.com.