The Lives They Chose

By: J. D. Jensen

Narrated by: Virtual Voice

Hoboken, New Jersey, the morning of January 24, 1918.

Daniel Connolly, an Irish-American boy from Jersey City, is standing on the deck of the Liverpool-bound Tuscania, a luxury liner reserviced to transport American troops to fight the war raging in Europe. A few weeks earlier, Daniel, a young seventeen year old, had accepted a job as a cook in the ship's galley, only to learn that rather than preparing the meals, he would instead be washing the dishes.

As Daniel watches the soldiers boarding the ship, he searches for one person in particular, Brody Donaghie, hoping his childhood friend isn't on the ship, but knowing in his heart that he is. After all, it was Daniel who had helped Brody carry out his plan to board the Tuscania posing as the young serviceman from Iowa, James O'Shea.

Not meeting until the Tuscania is near the end of her journey, Daniel and Brody, the two former friends, now enemies, part ways, unaware that lurking far below the surface of the Atlantic, waiting for the perfect moment to strike, is a far more deadly adversary. And when it finally attacks, when its full destructive powers are unleashed, the two boys from Jersey City will be tested in ways they had never imagined.

Inspired by true events and set against the backdrop of the first world war, The Lives They Chose follows the diverging paths of Daniel Connolly and Brody Donaghie, two young Irish-American boys who are brought up very differently — one raised to be good and decent and the other raised to cheat and lie his way through life. It is a story of choices given and choices made and the lives lived as a consequence of those choices.