It is early 1912 when teenage newlyweds Ian and Glynnis McLean decide to immigrate from Ireland to San Francisco. Slated to depart as first-class passengers on an American-owned ship, their plans suddenly change when that voyage is canceled due to a coal strike. After the McLeans trade in their tickets for second-class accommodations aboard the Titanic, they unknowingly transform the course of their lives forever. Only one of them survives that frigid April night. In her possession is her beloved diaries-the only things she saves besides herself.

In diary entries that begin in 1903, Glynnis details a childhood filled with cooking and sewing lessons, and a secret admiration for the neighbor boy, Ian. Glynnis records their journey together as Ian first rejects her advances and then eventually proposes marriage. As life leads them to step aboard the Titanic, fate intervenes, leaving Glynnis the survivor of one of the greatest tragedies ever known. But what she does not know is that when she provides testimony after the event, it is never entered into the record. Fifty years later, the truth is finally revealed through a lost deposition and excerpts from her cherished diaries.

In this historical novel based on true events, a widowed survivor of the Titanic disaster reveals her history as a young girl in Ireland and how love led her onto a ship destined for tragedy.