The Journey of Miss Arian O'Brien

In April 1941 Arian O'Brien and her younger sister, Grace, embark from New York City on the Swedish liner, Kungsholm. With the recent passing of their father, Robert Lee O'Brien, a mortgage banker in Washington, DC, the two younger siblings, along with their older brother Lee, know that they will share in the family's estate. Against Lee's advice not to take a pleasure cruise to the Caribbean when the world is at war, Arian and Grace set out to find adventure and romance. As Sweden is a neutral country, the Swedish flag painted on the liner's hull offers protection. Although safe from German torpedoes, Arian falls under the spell of Alfred Walter, an American of German descent. Thirteen years her senior, he informs her that his first wife, Ruby, died of cancer and that he owns a house in California. Arian and Alfred marry; she leaves her family and friends behind in Washington, DC, and travels by auto across the continent, taking up residence in Los Angeles, California. She invites the mother of Alfred's best friend over to tea and is surprised to learn that Ruby did not die of natural causes. Alfred's handling of her inheiritance also raises concern. A journey can be the physical travel from one locale to another or an inward journey from innocence to experience. As strangers intervene to press her to divorce Alfred, Arian learns through bitter experience whom to trust. Arian's journey is a saga taking the reader from her sheltered childhood in Washington, DC, through her days at the finishing school of Bishopthorpe Manor, to diplomatic receptions at the White House, travel to Havana, Cuba, and finally through her struggle to survive in her new home in California. This novel keeps the reader entralled as the title character must overcome challenges she was never meant to face.