Ticket to Paradise

Judith Tempest, a British reporter, is searching for the Truth. But when it starts to spill out in her brilliant front page reportage of Middle East suicide bombing in retaliation for Israeli tanks mowing down innocent Palestinian women and children, both 'Tempest' and 'Truth' start to spell 'Trouble'-- with a capital 'T', joke her friends and colleagues. At age 37, Judith's biological clock is ticking fast. Torn between career and family, the young reporter is determined to have both . . . a dilemma that has caused many successful young career women to end up in the hot seat instead of the hot tub-with Mr. Wrong. Tempest rides the storms of passion from lovers and fiancs who promise her the world yet give her enough reason to believe that "World" is laced with all the trappings of deception-and betrayal. Mohammed Khalaf is her lifeboat, her hero. A Muslim import-export Palestinian residing in London, Mohammed slowly reveals his tragic past as the two fall deeply in love. At last, Judith feels she has found a man who treats her as an equal, a man whose love and fidelity she can trust. The story unfolds in a non-stop mystery thriller that begins two days before America's tragic 9/11 in a marble bathtub decked with candles, coke and champagne at New York's Regent Hotel and tears along at a reckless pace of passion, betrayal, adventure and espionage. Tempest/Ridley's message at the end is clear: This is a fiction work laced with the truth about today's current global crisis written by one of the world's most courageous journalists who has learned that sometimes fiction is the best way to deliver that truth.