Salt to the Sea by Ruta Sepetys

I received this gorgeous package and posted the unwrap on Twitter.  

So gorgeous! Can't wait to read. Thank you @RutaSepetys @PenguinClass @PenguinTeen pic.twitter.com/NfwLpuPd8p

— Barbara Moon (@moonb2) October 13, 2015

Of course I was intrigued.  Yes, It was exciting to untie the bow and find the cover reveal.
Yes! Yes! It is thrilling to find a new title from Ruta Sepytus.
Yes! Yes! Yes! It is historical fiction detailing a heart-wrenching episode in history. However I was not prepared for my husband's reaction. He generally looks down on YA literature, but the cover copy hooked him. 
He immediately whisked the book away and located it on his nightstand. ​
The verdict: the man who never reads YA loved it!

In the winter of 1946 four individuals are brought together by forces beyond their control. Each carries his/her own secrets and pain. Each struggles to escape both a harrowing past and a fear filled future.

Joana  "Guilt is a hunter."

• "War had rearranged my priorities. I now clung to memories more than goals or material things."
• "The hole in the ice spread farther, sending a deep crack running directly toward me."
• ​"Four years rose to the surface. And I started to cry."

Florian ​"Fate is a hunter."

• ​"There was something else I couldn't deny. Time was running out."
• "The Gustloff was my only hope, as well."
• "The fear never disappeared, but with each year it retreated slightly, a tide of memory sliding back out to sea."

Emilia "Shame is a hunter."

• "'Per aspera ad astra, Papa, ' I whispered. Through hardships to the stars."
• "Two warring nations gripped Poland like girls fighting over a doll. One held the leg, the other the arm. They pulled so hard that one day, the head popped off."
• "The Wilhelm Gustloff was pregnant with lost souls conceived of war. They would crowd her belly and she would give birth to their freedom."

Alfred "​Fear is a hunter."

• "I will finally be at sea, traversing the waterways into the ocean..."
• "I imagined myself home in Heidelberg when the war was over. Crowds of women and children would flock around me while I doled out oranges from burlap sacks."
• "I pity the man who cannot overcome his cowardice, who cannot step on the neck of his own weakness...Death, it seems, has a mind of its own."