Michelle Blanchard Ardillo

The Survivors Guild (yes, that is how it is titled, no apostrophe) by Gabriella Saab is another story based loosely upon the sinking of the Titanic.

This book however is less about the Titanic, less about those lost to the sea, and less about the unsinkability of that majestic ship. It is about the survivors, three specific individuals who were fortunate enough to survive this tragic event of April 14, 1912, and in one way or another, must rebuild what is left of their lives.

If you enjoyed The Lost Passenger by Frances Quinn which I reviewed on December 1, 2024, chances are you will enjoy this book, and perhaps, you may enjoy it a bit more. I enjoyed Quinn’s book and ended up with a 3/5 star rating. The Survivors Guild, which I enjoyed much more, I gave a 5/5 star rating.

These rating systems give me pause. When I look at my five star ratings just since the start of this year, I see Elizabeth Strout’s The Things We Never Say, Andy Weir’s Project Hail Mary, Marie Benedict’s Daughter of Egypt, Anne Tyler’s Three Days in June, and More Than Enough by Anna Quindlen. (2026 is proving to be a spectacular reading year for me!) Is this book in the same caliber as those? I don’t think so. Did I feel like it was when I clicked my Kindle to the last page? Yes, I did.

Often my star rating of a book is solidified by how I felt at the very end of the book. (Once again, Goodreads people, PLEASE give us half stars!!!) It’s only when I go back and really think about it and review the things I highlighted on my Kindle, that’s when I think maybe my ratings may be too high or too low. I am still rethinking my star rating of The Three Graces of Pearl Street by Elizabeth Wellington Rollins, which I gave a 4/5, but the more I think about that book and what has stuck with me, I may have to raise that to a 5/5. If you’ve read it, what do you think?

The Survivors Guild mainly focuses on three individuals who survived the sinking of the ship, although three other survivors step forward a bit later, a ladies maid and two men who are set to unravel everything that has been placed in motion.

Marguerite Ashby is new money, an only child, and female at that. She is engaged to be married to an English earl, to grant her new money family the next rung of the ladder to make it into Caroline Vanderbilt’s NYC society. Without a suitable marriage, Marguerite’s family and their money are persona non grata.

Nabiha (Bea) Nohra is a young Lebanese woman immigrating to America for a better life, for better opportunities, for her family to someday be together and prosper again. She is aboard the Titanic with her cousin Melhem, so the two of them can save twice the amount of money needed to bring both their families to America.

As the ship is sinking, both Marguerite and Bea end up in the sea, Bea holding on to a piece of wreckage, and Marguerite nearly drowning in the water from the weight of her fur coat and evening gown. Bea pulls Marguerite to her and saves her life. They are eventually pulled onto a lifeboat and a small baby is thrust into the arms of Marguerite by a Frenchman who implores her to save his baby. The baby, our third main character, is wrapped in a blanket that has “Rémy” embroidered in one corner.

From there they are rescued by the Carpathia, where Marguerite finds her ladies maid Lisette alive but delirious from shock. She also finds her fiancé the insufferable English earl, one of the small percentage (20%) of the male surviving passengers, who tries to take charge of Marguerite, prying the infant Rémy from her arms, as well as sending Marguerite away from Bea, the woman who saved her life.

The book takes off when they reach America. The small cast of characters include Marguerite, Bea, Rémy, the earl, Marguerite’s parents, and the household staff of her parents’ grand mansion.

Oh, yes, the mansion. From the description, it is the size of the White House, with not one but two ballrooms, a billiards room, a study, a library, two parlors, and accommodations for the large staff. And, after all of that, there are still ample rooms that are retrofitted to become the headquarters for Marguerite’s Survivors Guild.

It’s all very Gilded Age, except that the house across the street from the Ashby’s nouveau riche mansion, is another new money family, the Ralstons, trying to claw their way to suitability with the same fervor as the Ashbys.

For all the pressure to conform to society’s norms, this book is somewhat diverse. Marguerite has become fluent in French thanks to her French ladies maid. Bea, often tagged as an Arab, yearns to hear her native language, but she is also fluent in French thanks to her cousin Melhem teachings. Marguerite’s mother Antoinette is fluent in French because of her family’s lineage. The British earl comes along with his nobility baggage—a title and an estate but sadly, no money—and the Irish housekeeper, Mrs. McKane, has the maternal instincts Marguerite finds lacking in her own mother.

Even though this story is based upon events that happened more than 100 years ago, the women in this story face many of the same issues women of today still face. Marguerite struggles to create a life for herself, to shed the shackles of gender discrimination and to freely love whom she wants. Bea is an immigrant from a country where post 9/11 many are painted with the same brush, that of an Arab speaking no English, struggling to survive, struggling to find employment and housing. Antoinette along with her husband has managed to acquire great wealth and is still on the outside looking in. The mother of Rémy is a divorced woman fighting for custody of her own child, left with no means of support who is a member of the sandwich generation, caring for elderly relatives while caring for an infant. Even 19-year-old Madeleine Astor, another survivor of the Titanic tragedy, was gossiped about and scorned by the women of NYC society because she had married a recently divorced man 29 years her senior. She lost part of her inheritance from husband John Jacob Astor IV, Caroline Astor’s only son, the minute she, only 23 years old, remarried four years after her first husband’s death.

Along with Madeleine Astor, author Gabriella Saab weaves in the names of real people from this period of history: surviving passenger Margaret “Unsinkable Molly” Brown, and real-life NYC socialites Mamie Fish, Theresa “Tessie” Oelrichs, and Alva Belmont, referred to as the triumvirate of American society.

I really enjoyed this book, my first by Gabriella Saab. I’ve added her other three published novels to my TBR list. Saab, an American of Lebanese heritage, created a great addition to the already lengthy list of Titanic fiction.

Thank you to NetGalley, Harper Muse, and Gabriella Saab for the ARC ebook of this novel. Add it to your TBR today!