Passions of the Grande Dame Hotel : a novel set at the Breakers of Palm Beach
(Book)

"The intriguing history of Palm Beach's glorious Breakers Hotel includes its conversion to a World War II army hospital, where over a dozen babies were born. Passions and fires, both figurative and literal, will forever change the lives of three women, whose heartrending journeys weave through the time line of the resort. It is February 1942, just months after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Addie, the daughter of the assistant manager of the most beautiful resort in America, actually lives at the Breakers Hotel. She and her older friend, Natalie, are bemoaning their world becoming devoid of its young men entering the service. And then they witness an explosion. German submarines have begun torpedoing Allied merchant ships right off the Atlantic shore, sending debris and even bodies to its pristine beaches. Soon, the area becomes one of the most active military centers in the nation, with thousands of soldiers stationed right at their doorstep in Palm Beach Country. In February 1975, Manhattanite Beth Morgan is distraught over a broken engagement. Her society mother dismisses her problem and insists that Beth accompany her to Florida. Kathryn Morgan needs to resolve something upsetting from her past, but she will not say what it is. When they join an historical hotel tour while waiting for their suite at the Breakers, Beth's mother has a strange reaction to the handsome docent's words, and Beth begins to wonder if that is why they have come. Could she have been one of the babies born at the Breakers Hotel? From the story of Addie's alluring mother, Rebecca, a Russian Jewish immigrant in the early 1920s whose fiancé disappears when she follows him to America, to the heartbreaking tragedy of Natalie's boyfriend in WWII, it is a tale of love and loss, separations and reunions, guilt and absolution. It is a rich, multilayered piece that alternates time periods. It is the story of the American Dream and the power of passion. While Kathryn seeks forgiveness and closure for the past, Beth finds a surprising door has opened for her future. And Addie, who felt so young and ineffectual in the war years, fulfills her mother's prophesy that she would be the one to bear witness to what went on and make sense of it all one day." -- page [4] of cover