Karen Truesdell Riehl

Ghosts of the Queen Mary (eBook, ePUB)

• Format: ePub

Produktbeschreibung

Toots, a writer of sexy romance novels, and Max, both in their sixties, enjoy a weekend "cruise" on the Queen Mary, a ship docked for forty years in Long Beach, California and thought to be haunted. At dinner in Sir Winston's Restaurant, the couple experience a ghost sighting of their own. It's the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, who offer them a guided tour of the ship. The following day, as Toots and Max drive home to San Diego they're unaware the Duke and Duchess are riding along in the back seat. Back home, Toots and Max turn their attention to immediate problems: how to make the many needed repairs to their seventy-year-old mansion when they're broke; their nine-year-old grandson arriving with his parrot for an extended stay; their pregnant daughter coming back home, miserable because the baby's father won't marry her; and Toots getting an email message from a past lover who wants to come back into her life.

Review by Jack Magnus, for Readers' Favorites
*****
Ghosts of the Queen Mary is a humorous novel about Toots and her husband Max, who are having a romantic weekend aboard the historic, and supposedly haunted, Queen Mary, which was transformed into a floating hotel after its last voyage. The two of them enjoy dressing up in period clothes. The Queen Mary seemed the perfect venue for them. At dinner, they notice a couple dining in the corner of the room who strongly resemble the portrait of the Duke and Duchess of Windsor hanging in the ship's hallway. Gathering up more than a little courage, Max and Toots introduce themselves and accept the royal couple's invitation to meet the next morning for a guided tour of the ship.

Karen Truesdell Riehl's novel is entertaining and witty. Toots and Max have what seems to be a perfect relationship, based on amazing compatibility and Toots' need to try out lovemaking positions for the steamy romances she writes. Their insular world is shattered, first by their spectral uninvited guests, then their sullen grandson, then their jilted pregnant daughter. It's more than amusing to see how they respond. Riehl's story is well-plotted, her writing style breezy and casual. Ghosts of the Queen Mary is a lot of fun to read; it's also hard to put down. I found myself enjoying a long afternoon reading the heartwarming book, reminded of the madcap movies of the '40s and the old television series Topper, which is not at all a bad thing. Ghosts of the Queen Mary comes highly recommended.

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Produktdetails

• Verlag: Karen Truesdell Riehl
• Erscheinungstermin: 1. November 2014
• Englisch
• ISBN-13: 9781311035219
• Artikelnr.: 72339899

Autorenporträt

Karen Truesdell Riehl's writing achievements are remarkable, given the award-winning author's lifelong battle with dyslexia. She was unable to read until the age of ten. Her published works now include a 2015 San Diego Book Awards winner, Helga: Growing Up in Hitler's Germany. Her other books include a memoir, Love and Madness: My Private Years with George C. Scott, telling of her 30-year hidden liaison with the international film star, six novels, eight plays and a radio comedy series, The Quibbles, available from ArtAge Publications at http://www.seniortheatre.com/product/the-quibbles-radio-shows/. Her children's play, Alice in Cyberland, was an award winner in the National Southwest Writers Contest.

Helga was an elementary school librarian, a 1948 German immigrant, when the author met her in 1977. Asked about her experience during the war, Helga quietly revealed she had been a "Jugend," a member of Hitler's child army.Ten-year-old Helga was forced to join the Hitler Youth weekly meetings. Lies and treats were used to build her allegiance to the Fuhrer. As the war drew nearer to her home in Berlin, Helga was sent away to a Youth Training Camp. Her slow disillusionment and harrowing escape home, is a coming-of-age story of a young girl's survival of Nazi mind control. Helga: Growing Up in Hitler's Germany was a 2015 San Diego Book Awards winner.

In the romance novel, Hello Again, a finalist in the 2015 San Diego Book Awards, Shannon Taggert falls in love with Nate, a graduate student teaching assistant. But there's another woman in Nate's life, Tally, the daughter of Walter, his mentor and benefactor. Before meeting Shannon, as Walter lay dying, Nate promised to marry his daughter.

The Ghosts of Fort Ord was inspired by the author's month-long stay near the remains of the abandoned military base.

After having lived for several years in Terre Haute, Indiana, the author was inspired to write a story about scandals in a fictional small town, Freedom's Sins.

Saturday Night Dance Club, was inspired by a true story of four couples, from the 1900's to 1930's, touched by the Great War, organized crime, the Depression and the threat of another war, finding sanctuary in their weekly dance club.

Drawing from her personal experience, Karen wrote Bad Girl: A Play. The Safe Haven Home for Unwed Mothers provides shelter from a judgmental society, but reveals its hypocrisy as well. The young women from all l...