White Magnolia

"White Magnolia" is a novel featuring four generations and takes place in Great Britain, Ireland, Italy, France, and the United States. The story begins in Russia with a literature professor. He meets Irish poet William Butler Yeats when he attends the professor's lecture series at Oxford University. The professor's daughter has a relationship with Yeats and is with him in France when he dies. At his funeral she meets Winston Churchill who is there to assist the French underground to help Jews and creatives to safety. She stays in France with the host family and works with French underground during World War II. She meets her husband at the farm in France where he is escaping Hitler's fury. The story unfolds in Brooklyn and San Francisco during the Vietnam War, and Los Angeles, Mexico, Hawaii and New Orleans as it brings in other family members and significant characters. This paperback novel has 244 suspense filled pages about love, hate, revenge, angst, prejudice, evil, goodness, mercy, suicide and murder. NOTE: When I published the novel Della Robbia several readers requested a prequel or a sequel to the story. I wrote White Magnolia with that in mind and it does revisit characters (mutual family friends) in Della Robbia so parts of it will be familiar although this story in completely independent. The author has published a total of 74 books (a biography of Grace Kelly; her own autobiography; a book of short stories in seven languages; a book of Carmel-by-the-Sea in three languages; a cook book with matching novel; a book of autobiographical prose, and a series about Winston Churchill and his friends). This book has many illustrations by the author/artist Chloe Dee Noble. "White Magnolia" is dedicated to the author's friend American musician Billy Joe Royal who died the day this novel was published - 6 October 2015.