Elizabeth Sails - Softcover

Owens, Kristin

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1998076555 ISBN 13: 9781998076550

Verlag: Rising Action, 2024

Inhaltsangabe

For fans of The Bookish Life of Nina Hill and The Jetsetters, Elizabeth Sails is a shipboard cozy mystery that features an unintended quest for self-discovery, forgiveness, and an awesome buffet.

Beth Schiff ghostwrites autobiographies for politicians, despite her own life not warranting a footnote. Excitement for her is re-watching classic movies with a Whitman’s Sampler. But when her adventurous Aunt Ethel dies, Beth must scramble out of her comfy sweatpants and into some Spanx to find the missing will aboard a luxury cruise ship.

Figuring out which fork to use at dinner becomes the least of Beth’s worries. The will isn’t lost ... it’s hidden. Aunt Ethel has devised an elaborate scavenger hunt, and each port stop forces Beth to confront her list of insecurities to get the next clue. If she fails, Ethel's millions will revert to a much-hated relative, Max, who is responsible for her dismantled family.

When someone starts trying to sabotage her search, the game becomes personal and her energetic septuagenarian tablemates rally to help. But Beth must make the puzzle pieces fit before the cruise ends or Max will get his greedy hands on the money destined for charities.

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Kristin Owens, Ph.D. is a full-time writer based in the United States. She has over a hundred bylines with celebrated magazines such as Writer’s Digest, Wine Enthusiast, and 5280. Her personal essays have won Honorable Mention for the 2018 New Millennium Writing Awards, awarded finalist for the 2019 New Letters’ award in nonfiction, and are included in RISE! Colorado’s 2020 Book of the Year. She holds certifications with the Court of Master Sommeliers and Cicerone, and travels the world writing about wonderful wines, beautiful beers, and surprising spirits. You can find her working and playing on cruise ships. Elizabeth Sails is her debut novel.

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

Chapter 1

October 25th

Ethel Papadopoulos Lorenzo Birnbaum steered her Go-Go Electric X5 mobility scooter down the ship’s passageway, bumping into door frames along the way. Her sequined beret glinted in the overhead lights and, with red lips pursed, she tried to focus on the task at hand ... but failed miserably. Giggling, she throttled back but not before wedging herself into a corner.

“Oopsie Daisy!” she hooted and collapsed over the handlebars in laughter. After some herky-jerky movements of forward and reverse, she extracted herself and motored on. Her ship’s ID card opened the door to cabin #10007. With a practiced movement, she whipped out her cane from the scooter’s basket and propped the door open. She rolled inside. The door closed behind her with a muted thud.

Ethel took a deep breath. Too much wine. And more tired than usual. Besides a headache coming on, her chest felt constricted and her legs ached too. She felt her age, all eighty plus years of it. But in spite of her ever-growing list of maladies, she giggled again.

Dinner tonight had been a formal affair (a Roaring 20s theme) and guests arrived bedazzled in their finery. Men sported black tuxedos and white ties, while women festooned themselves in sparkles and feathers. Pretending to be someone else, if only for a few hours, indulged their escapist fantasies. Costumes helped. Ladies laughed freely, holding champagne flutes while their husbands kissed them more often. Photographers snapped away to commemorate the events. Live music added to the low-grade hum of excitement. Ethel smiled. She had attended dozens of parties. Hundreds. Familiar, even routine, but it still never got old ... the feeling of being young again.

She inspected her cabin, her home. It was tidied, as usual, with her bed turned down, and a breakfast menu perched on her pillow. So silly. Ramie knew her usual order, which never deviated in the past few weeks: two eggs sunny-side up, two strips of bacon, and a pot of coffee. Yet, high service criteria dictated the card be placed there nightly. Cunard required exacting standards and uncompromising quality. Ethel loved it.

It was after midnight. Ethel quickly readied herself for bed; she soaked teeth, removed makeup and brushed hair, and placed her jewelry into a chipped I Love Rome ash tray. She pulled the covers up to her chin and glanced at the bedside table. A small silver frame held a photo of two young women, each the mirror opposite of the other. One, tall with golden hair and blue eyes, the other short with dark brown and hazel. With their arms squeezed tight around each other, the girls’ wide smiles beamed at her. Ethel smiled back, whispered a little prayer, and sank immediately into a deep, dreamless sleep.

#

Cabin steward Ramie announced himself promptly at eight o’clock the next morning by knocking on the cabin door. Without waiting, he carried the breakfast tray inside, careful not to spill on his crisp, white uniform.

“Madame Birnbaum? Time for breakfast.” He placed the tray on the coffee table while surprised to see her still in bed. “Madame Birnbaum?” Ramie sat down next to her on the bed and reached for her hand. It was cold. He sighed, “Oh, madam.”

After a few minutes, he got up and went to the safe inside her closet. He punched in the combination. It clicked open. He pushed aside jewelry cases, stacks of cash, and found a thick envelope. Ramie read the address. A lawyer in New York City. He stared at the envelope until tears blurred his vision.

Chapter 2

“Uh-huh.” Beth held the phone in the crook of her neck while dangling a glittery pompom from a string in front of her white cat. Grendel batted it half-heartedly with his one remaining front paw. If asked, he’d rather lounge undisturbed in the sunspot on her desk. “Uh-huh,” Beth repeated. “Governor Sharp, I was going to submit it. Now we’ll miss the deadline.” She made the cat toy bob and dance, just out of Grendel’s reach. “Yes, I know how important your story is ... yes ... yes, I understand.”

She groaned silently. The all-important timeline was now doomed with another last-minute change. Her publisher had strategically scheduled Sharp’s book for the winter holidays, just in time to support her election campaign the following year. At this rate, it would be next spring before it would see the light of day. The publication date (and Beth’s enthusiasm) was getting pushed further and further away with each of the Governor’s panicked phone calls and her selective memory of past events.

“What exactly do you want to add?” Beth reluctantly put down the cat toy. She took notes. After thirty minutes listening to a new angle of a tired old campaign story, she said, “Okay. I’ll need to check with Frank. Can I call you back Monday?” She hung up and put her head down on the desk, defeated. Grendel gently tapped her hand with his paw.

This project just wouldn’t end.

This book was her third politician this year and Governor Laina Sharp’s autobiography had dogged Beth for almost six months. She didn’t know how much of Sharp’s story was true, embellished, or fictionalized. Beth was a ghostwriter and, thankfully, not a fact-checker. If she got paid by the eye roll, her publisher would owe her a fortune. A typical assignment was exasperating, but Governor Sharp took maddening to a whole new level. Late night phone calls, excessive handholding, the Governor’s tedious stories beginning with “I” and ending with “me” were routine. Beth was tired of Sharp’s ego. Plus, all the revisions.

Beth sat pouting in the squeaky chair in her office, which was really a corner in the living room in front of the only window. She leaned forward and pressed her nose against the cold glass. The lone tree in the small garden on Fulton Street below had changed from luxe velvety green to brittle gold and brown. By next week, its remaining leaves would be on the ground. Fall had arrived. Another season and she still wrote other people’s stories.

She called her editor, Frank, and left the message, “You owe me!” on his voice mail. Then she released a loud, frustrated sigh sounding like a fog horn. Annoyed, Grendel blinked his green eyes and trotted to the kitchen for the comfort of his food bowl.

While she waited for a return call, Beth cleaned up her desk to help temper the unresolved issue. She tucked her hair behind her ears and organized old notes, interviews, and previous drafts of Sharp’s manuscript. She shuddered as she backed-up computer files and wondered how politicians ever got elected in the first place. Although premature (and wishful thinking), she shoved Sharp’s paperwork into a file drawer labeled COMPLETED.

On one wall hung framed prints of her bestseller book jackets, her name nowhere to be found on the covers. On another wall, hung her college degree. Bachelor of Arts in English, University of Pennsylvania, 2007. Four years of blissful reading and writing. Ghostwriting was not exactly the career Beth expected. But she was good—hell, great—at it, even though she was currently losing patience with inane clients.

She ambled to the kitchen, about six steps. The recycling container overflowed with crusty Marie Callender pot pie boxes. The inside of her microwave looked like a Jackson Pollock painting. But her oven was spotless. Next to an empty Wonder Bread bag, she found a rogue twist tie on the counter. She secured it around a messy braid on the left side of her temple. That was better. Her hair now out of her...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Rising Action
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2024
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 1998076555
• ISBN 13: 9781998076550
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 368
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Simon and Schuster Netherlands BV; info@simonandschuster.nl; ; Herculesplein 96; Utrecht; 3584 AA; Niederlande