Maurice and Maralyn is based on a true story, one of courage, fortitude and love. The couple met and married in the 1960s and embarked on life together in Derby. However, not content with domesticity and the day to day grind of daily life, they decided to sell their bungalow and build a boat, one that would sail them across oceans. Several years later they are ready to set sail and they have a merry time until a whale strikes the boat and it sinks, leaving them to bob around the Pacific on just a life raft and a dinghy.

This is an incredible and almost unbelievable story of survival. Knowing it all really happened just makes it even more shocking and it proves just how much the human body can endure. The vast wide open space of the ocean made me shudder to think about it and I can barely come close to imagining what four months of it must have felt like. Maurice and Maralyn had very different personalities, him quite cautious and often tending towards pessimism, with Maralyn being optimistic to the point of sometimes seeming unrealistic. Although opposites in many ways, they also complemented each other and it's this that made them strong enough to survive their ordeal.

Sophie Elmhirst's story is a memorable one and is beautifully written. Whilst the recounting of details gives it a matter-of-fact feel, it has been fictionalised in such a way that it also drew me in completely as any good novel should. I found it such a compelling and extraordinary story of a brave couple's life before, during and after their astonishing voyage. It moved me, it surprised me and it enthralled me. It's such a swell (forgive the pun) book. ( )