Excerpt from Luck of the Titanic by Stacey Lee, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

I figured the hardest part of this endeavor would be getting on without Mrs. Sloane. Never could I have foreseen this complication. What now? I need to be on that ship, or it could be months, maybe years, before I see Jamie again.

Something skirts over my boot and I recoil. A rat. They are certainly bold here, called by the peanut peddlers and meat pie hawkers. I shrink away from a pile of crates, where the rodents are making short work of a melon rind. The river slaps a rhythm against the Titanic's hull, and my heart beats double time with the slosh.

Taking the American's advice, I make tracks for the third-class entrance farther down the quay toward the bow. Unlike in the first class, passengers crowd the gangway, tightening the queue as I near. I straighten my jacket. "I'm sorry, I just need to check if my brother made it through. Please let me pass."

A man with a dark mustache chastises me in a foreign tongue, then jerks his head toward the end of the line. Heads nod, cutting me suspicious glares, and people move to block me. Seems wearing first-class clothes will not gain me any advantage here.

Perhaps things would be different if I looked less like Ba and more like Mum. I exhale my frustration, a wind heated by a lifetime of being turned away for no good cause. Then I continue farther along the quay to the end of the line, passing dockworkers manhandling ropes and a navy uniform shining a torch into people's eyeballs. They don't check the first class for disease.

Beyond the nose of the ship, a couple of tugboats line up, ready to tow the Titanic from her mooring. Voices rise as people look up to a massive crane on the bow lowering a hoisting platform onto the quay ten paces away. A horn honks, and the queue shifts, making way for a sleek cinnamon-red Renault motorcar. It stops right before the hoisting platform.

It could take an hour to reach the gangway from here. But even if Jamie has boarded, they still won't let me on that ship without papers. Then the Titanic will leave, and he will be lost to me, possibly forever. His letters to me will be undeliverable at the Sloanes', and I will have no way of knowing which new route he was assigned. Jamie is the only real family I have left. I won't let him idle his time on a steamship when he is destined for better things. Great things.

A woman with large nostrils glances at me, then pulls her son closer, spilling some of the peanuts from his paper cone. A rat slithers out from behind a crate and quietly feasts. "Stay away from that one. I've heard they eat dogs."

Barely glancing at me, the boy returns his attention to the Renault.

A crewman gestures at the dockworkers positioned on either side of the car. "Easy now. Load her on."

I am getting on that ship, by hook or by crook. Jamie is there, and I won't let him leave without me. As for the Chinese Exclusion Act, put out the fire on your trousers before worrying about the one down the street. But how will I board?

The hoisting platform sways on its hook, the stage just big enough to hold the motorcar. A crewman reaches up and guides it the last few feet to the quay.

By hook.

I flex my back, my muscles twitching. There are more ways onto the Titanic than the gangways.

Excerpted from Luck of the Titanic by Stacey Lee. Copyright © 2021 by Stacey Lee. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.