Ten Degrees of Reckoning

Book: Ten Degrees of Reckoning by Hester Rumberg
Finsihed: December 2011
Pages: 247

From Amazon:
In 1993, Judith and Michael Sleavin and their two children set out to sail around the world. Three years into their incredible journey, a nearby freighter altered its course by a mere ten degrees-and everything changed...

After forty-four hours in the icy water clinging to an overturned dinghy, her back broken and paralyzed below the waist, Judith miraculously survived, winding up in a small community on the New Zealand coast. Gripping, unbelievable yet true, Judith's story of courage, survival, and retribution is alternately heartrending and uplifting. It's also a story of unbreakable bonds, of shattering loss, and of one woman reborn through the strength of friendship and the profound love of strangers who became family.

My thoughts:

Wow.
The story is haunting and heartbreaking--one that I could not stop thinking about in between reading sessions. I actually started this book last Spring, but I just could not finish it. I think I just could not stop thinking about the passages I had read revolving around the accident and those harrowing hours just after their boat sank, as they struggled to survive in heavy seas on an upside down dinghy.

But then, the other day I felt like picking it up again and finishing it. I am glad I did--in doing so, I honored the memories of little Ben and Annie, and their daddy, Michael. What happened to them should never have happened--and what Judith lived through while pursuing justice should not have happened either. The fact of the matter is that maritime law is a very tricky thing.

Another great release under the Amy Einhorn imprint of Penguin Group.