Dear Canada: That Fatal Night

It is May 1912, one month after the horrific sinking of the Titanic. Twelve-year-old survivor Dorothy Wilton has been sent home from school in disgrace for striking another student. Although she’s been expelled from school, her sympathetic teacher encourages Dorothy to write about her experiences on the ship, with the hope it will help Dorothy come to terms with her trauma.

So begins a truly remarkable story. Dorothy writes about visiting her bohemian grandparents in England before setting sail back home, about the luxurious rooms and cabins on board the Titanic, about a new friend she makes and the intriguing people they observe. However, a shadow lurks in Dorothy’s story: the secret she is too traumatized to acknowledge, one about her own actions that may have had deadly consequences on that fatal night.

Through young Dorothy’s eyes, award-winning writer Sarah Ellis expertly takes a unique perspective on the Titanic tragedy, exploring the concept of survivor’s guilt with devastating honesty.