First pages: My novel in progress

Let me know, please, what you think!

Chapter 1

The sky was filled with stars and the sound of gulls. Someone handed her a battered leather portmanteau, followed by a guitar case whose handle was attached on one side by string. She placed them at her feet. The tender was rocking in the swell, knocking with a little sucking sound against the side of the ship. People on the topmost deck were shouting, “Goodbye! Goodbye!” and sending out streamers lit up by the masthead lights.

She sat chock-a-block with people she’d never seen before—some families but mostly men—all of them surrounded by luggage, all of them wearing heavy coats.

“Are you alright, lass?” one of the men asked her, leaning close. The rest of his words, for he seemed to be saying more, were drowned out by a blast from the ship’s airhorn.