More of a two and half for me.As James Cameron said in Ghosts of the Abyss: "Titanic is like a great novel that actually happened."
Distant Waves? Not so much. I picked this up from my rec pages here on GoodReads, having a Titanic tag and Paranormal tag gracing my shelves, this seemed like a natural direction for me.
Props to Suzanne Weyn for mentioning some of the ships inhabitants because they are an integral part to any Titanic tale, but for the most part it's just name dropping and most of the interatcions of these characters takes place on dry land BEFORE the ship sets sail. Once the story jumps aboard the ill fated ship, the book is already three fourths done. We don't get a lot of ship life as we spend most of it following the heroine as she fawns over inventor Tesla and his assistant whom she develops a close relationship with, but keeps bringing up their age difference being a scandle. When the book finally kicks into high gear, the ship starts to take on water and through the miracle of science, we jump ahead two minutes after the ship sinks beneath the ocean and our heroine is left alone in the world after the disappearance of her sister and love interest. It's not until two years later that her sister and love interest show up, unchanged and unscathed. Wouldn't you know? She's now 18, the same age as her love interest, disaster and scandal adverted.
This leaves me to say that if you're looking for a novel that focus' on the sinking of the ship itself, or looking for new or interesting details documenting the ship, this may not be the book for you. The book more surrounds the paranormal then it does the Titanic.