The luxury cruise ship Transylvania takes six days to cross the Atlantic - just enough time for the passengers to find their sea-legs and lose their heads.

Whether it's husbands pining for their mistresses back on shore, stewards with a raging cabin fever or mothers sweating to outshine their daughters, they transform the Transylvania into a floating purgatory of Pacific proportions.

S.O.S. is Joseph Connolly's brilliant boat-bound comedy, a novel of holiday-makers and holiday-haters running aground on each other's lives and loves. 'Getting away from it all' is hopeless - and hilarious - when you've brought it all on board with you.