It’s 1915 in the heat of WWI. Two friends heading to England aboard the British ocean liner, RMS Lusitania, meet and fall in love with a charismatic woman. After battling for her affection, Rachel Williams makes her decision, beginning a journey that no one can predict or soon forget. For the next 30 years, Rachel is forced to live with the choice she made, as the dominoes fall around her, sequentially.
Is there a sinister force at work? Who can Rachel trust? Will Rachel ultimately regret her decision when she learns how it impacted others?
Set in America and Europe, history and fiction intertwine, commencing with the sinking of Lusitania. Historical events like the Russian Revolution, Prohibition, the Great Depression and World Wars I and II also play important roles in the lives of the characters and the decisions they make to love, betray, forgive, and reconcile.
Excerpt
January 3, 1946 Rachel Johnson jumped out of the car and ran towards the pier. The cold January wind from the sea cut through her coat and chilled her to the bone. Voices were calling for her to slow down, but she paid no attention to them. People were running past her in the same direction, and she tried to keep up with them. For them, it was a happy occasion. However, Rachel was not sure what lay in store for her. She had been dreading this moment ever since she received two telegrams the previous month. She had not revealed the contents of one of the telegrams to anyone. Was it a mean trick? She would soon find out. Rachel saw her friend, Martha, and she ran to stand next to her. There were cheers from the crowd, as the shape of a ship became visible on the horizon. People around her had waited four years for their loved ones to come back from war torn Europe. The person she was waiting for was coming back after twenty-three years. Rachel felt two hands on her shoulders. She did not flinch, as she knew they belonged to her son whom she loved very much. She had almost lost him three times. Rachel wondered what his reaction would be since he had never met this person. It was on a ship like the one approaching that her story began. A shy girl from Hartford, Vermont, had met two men who would change her life forever. From a timid, naïve girl, she was now the owner of a hotel empire. Thirty years had passed since that fateful transatlantic journey which originated from the same harbor. Oblivious to the noise around her, her mind went back to the events that occurred thirty years ago.
