A Bridge Across the Ocean


Book Description

Wartime intrigue spans the lives of three women—past and present—in this emotional novel from the acclaimed author of The Last Year of the War. February, 1946. World War Two is over, but the recovery from the most intimate of its horrors has only just begun for Annaliese Lange, a German ballerina desperate to escape her past, and Simone Deveraux, the wronged daughter of a French Résistance spy. Now the two women are joining hundreds of other European war brides aboard the renowned RMS Queen Mary to cross the Atlantic and be reunited with their American husbands. Their new lives in the United States brightly beckon until their tightly-held secrets are laid bare in their shared stateroom. When the voyage ends at New York Harbor, only one of them will disembark... Present day. Facing a crossroads in her own life, Brette Caslake visits the famously haunted Queen Mary at the request of an old friend. What she finds will set her on a course to solve a seventy-year-old tragedy that will draw her into the heartaches and triumphs of the courageous war brides—and will ultimately lead her to reconsider what she has to sacrifice to achieve her own deepest longings. CONVERSATION GUIDE INCLUDED




Bridge Across the Ocean


Book Description

AN ACTION-PACKED, ADVENTUROUS MYSTERY WITH IP ESPIONAGE, TECHNOLOGICAL INNOVATION, AND MOST IMPORTANTLY, LOVE Bridge Across the Ocean: A Novel by Jack B. Rochester Jedediah Smith, Luke Lin, David Bondsman and Rick Saundersson have created the most innovative bicycle drive in history: The Spinner, a technologically advanced device that produces and stores its own energy without using batteries. It's 2011, and it's ideally positioned for the just-emerging city bike market, and the world's largest bicycle maker located in Taiwan is interested. Just before they are to leave for Taipei to discuss a licensing agreement with Joyful Bike, While cycling, Luke is struck and killed by a hit-and-run driver. Although heartbroken, the three friends decide to continue with their business travels, taking Luke's fiancée Suzie Sun with them. At Tokyo's Narita International Airport, the group encounters two Japanese agents of business espionage who don't know what they have, but nevertheless want to steal it. The "information worms" pursue the cyclists to Taipei, where the stakes grow even higher and a battle of espionage ensues. The guys begin negotiations with Joyful's director of business development, Jung-Shan Lai. She takes them cycling on Joyful bikes through Taiwan's breathtaking scenery as they continue to thwart the attacks of the information worms. Jed promptly falls in love with Jung-Shan, and she with him. Will the team be able to secure and finalize their business deal with Joyful Bike? Will the agents of business espionage ride away with the stolen bicycle drive intelligence? Will the three friends get justice for Luke's tragic death? Will Jung-Shan and Jed work out their cross-cultural love affair? An eclectic mix of genres, Bridge Across the Ocean breaks through fiction stereotypes, thanks to the author's engaging story that opens the door to a diverse readership. Bridge Across the Ocean [Brilliant Light Publishing/Media; September 2021; 978-0-9840369-6-7] by Jack B. Rochester is an action-packed, adventurous story fraught with its share of suspense and what-happens-next, IP espionage, business and technological innovation, and a moving love story. An avid cyclist for more than 30 years, author Jack B. Rochester combines his love of cycling with his love of writing in his fourth novel. "This is a book about love," he says. "It's a story about four intelligent business innovators' love of bicycles and cycling; the love by all parties of technological innovation; and a love between two people and the importance of unconditional love between all people." To support his message and bring awareness to cycling safety, Rochester will be donating all royalties from Bridge Across the Ocean to organizations promoting bicycling safety.




A Thread Across the Ocean


Book Description

Describes the successful laying of a cable across the Atlantic Ocean in 1866, exploring the physical, financial, and technological challenges of the project and assessing the impact of the cable on the course of twentieth-century history.




Trapped Under the Sea


Book Description

The harrowing story of five men who were sent into a dark, airless, miles-long tunnel, hundreds of feet below the ocean, to do a nearly impossible job—with deadly results A quarter-century ago, Boston had the dirtiest harbor in America. The city had been dumping sewage into it for generations, coating the seafloor with a layer of “black mayonnaise.” Fisheries collapsed, wildlife fled, and locals referred to floating tampon applicators as “beach whistles.” In the 1990s, work began on a state-of-the-art treatment plant and a 10-mile-long tunnel—its endpoint stretching farther from civilization than the earth’s deepest ocean trench—to carry waste out of the harbor. With this impressive feat of engineering, Boston was poised to show the country how to rebound from environmental ruin. But when bad decisions and clashing corporations endangered the project, a team of commercial divers was sent on a perilous mission to rescue the stymied cleanup effort. Five divers went in; not all of them came out alive. Drawing on hundreds of interviews and thousands of documents collected over five years of reporting, award-winning writer Neil Swidey takes us deep into the lives of the divers, engineers, politicians, lawyers, and investigators involved in the tragedy and its aftermath, creating a taut, action-packed narrative. The climax comes just after the hard-partying DJ Gillis and his friend Billy Juse trade assignments as they head into the tunnel, sentencing one of them to death. An intimate portrait of the wreckage left in the wake of lives lost, the book—which Dennis Lehane calls "extraordinary" and compares with The Perfect Storm—is also a morality tale. What is the true cost of these large-scale construction projects, as designers and builders, emboldened by new technology and pressured to address a growing population’s rapacious needs, push the limits of the possible? This is a story about human risk—how it is calculated, discounted, and transferred—and the institutional failures that can lead to catastrophe. Suspenseful yet humane, Trapped Under the Sea reminds us that behind every bridge, tower, and tunnel—behind the infrastructure that makes modern life possible—lies unsung bravery and extraordinary sacrifice.




The Bridge of San Luis Rey


Book Description

The story is based on a fictional disaster that occurred in Peru on July 20, 1714. A rope bridge woven by the Incas on the road between Lima and Cuzco collapsed when five people were crossing it. They all fell into the river from a great height and were killed. Brother Juniper, a Franciscan friar who was about to cross the bridge himself, witnessed the tragedy. Being deeply pious, he saw in what happened a possible divine providence. Did the dead deserve to have their lives cut short in such a terrible way? The monk tries to learn as much as he can about the five victims, finding and questioning people who knew them. As a result of years of investigation, he compiles a voluminous book with all the evidence he has gathered that the beginning and end of human life are part of God's plan... The Bridge of San Luis Rey won the 1928 Pulitzer Prize for the Novel, and remains widely acclaimed as Wilder's most famous work. In 1998, the book was rated number 37 by the editorial board of the American Modern Library on the list of the 100 best 20th-century novels. Time magazine included the novel in its TIME 100 Best English-language Novels from 1923 to 2005.




Into the Raging Sea


Book Description

WINNER OF THE MAINE LITERARY AWARD FOR NON FICTION NATIONAL BESTSELLER A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK AN NPR BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR ONE OF JANET MASLIN’S MUST-READ BOOKS OF THE SUMMER A NEW YORK TIMES EDITOR'S CHOICE ONE OF OUTSIDE MAGAZINE’S BEST BOOKS OF THE SUMMER ONE OF AMAZON'S BEST NONFICTION BOOKS OF THE YEAR SO FAR “A powerful and affecting story, beautifully handled by Slade, a journalist who clearly knows ships and the sea.”—Douglas Preston, New York Times Book Review “A Perfect Storm for a new generation.” —Ben Mezrich, bestselling author of The Accidental Billionaires: The Founding of Facebook On October 1, 2015, Hurricane Joaquin barreled into the Bermuda Triangle and swallowed the container ship El Faro whole, resulting in the worst American shipping disaster in thirty-five years. No one could fathom how a vessel equipped with satellite communications, a sophisticated navigation system, and cutting-edge weather forecasting could suddenly vanish—until now. Relying on hundreds of exclusive interviews with family members and maritime experts, as well as the words of the crew members themselves—whose conversations were captured by the ship’s data recorder—journalist Rachel Slade unravels the mystery of the sinking of El Faro. As she recounts the final twenty-four hours onboard, Slade vividly depicts the officers’ anguish and fear as they struggled to carry out Captain Michael Davidson’s increasingly bizarre commands, which, they knew, would steer them straight into the eye of the storm. Taking a hard look at America's aging merchant marine fleet, Slade also reveals the truth about modern shipping—a cut-throat industry plagued by razor-thin profits and ever more violent hurricanes fueled by global warming. A richly reported account of a singular tragedy, Into the Raging Sea takes us into the heart of an age-old American industry, casting new light on the hardworking men and women who paid the ultimate price in the name of profit.




A Bridge over Troubled Waters


Book Description

A Bridge Over Troubled Waters: Dispute Resolution in the Law of International Watercourses and the Law of the Sea offers novel comparative analysis from leading experts on the resolution of disputes concerning international watercourses and the oceans.




The Last Bridge


Book Description

"For ten years, Alexandra 'Cat' Rucker has been on the run from her past. With an endless supply of bourbon and a series of meaningless jobs, Cat is struggling to forget her Ohio hometown and the rural farmhouse she once called home. But a sudden call from an old neighbor forces Cat to return to the home and family she never intended to see again. It seems that Cat's mother is dead. What Cat finds at the old farmhouse is disturbing and confusing: a suicide note, written on lilac stationery and neatly sealed in a ziplock bag, that reads: 'Cat, He isn't who you think he is. Mom xxxooo' One note, ten words--one for every year she has been gone--completely turns Cat's world upside down. Seeking to unravel the mystery of her mother's death, Cat must confront her past to discover who 'he' might be: her tyrannical, abusive father, now in a coma after suffering a stroke? Her brother, Jared, named after her mother's true love (who is also her father's best friend)? The town coroner, Andrew Reilly, who seems to have known Cat's mother long before she landed on a slab in his morgue? Or Addison Watkins, Cat's first and only love? The closer Cat gets to the truth, the harder it is for her to repress the memory and the impact of the events that sent her away so many years ago" -- Publisher's description.




Shadowbridge


Book Description

Sprung from a timeless dream, Shadowbridge is a world of linked spans arching high above glittering seas. It is a world of parading ghosts, inscrutable gods, and dangerous magic. Most of all, it is a world of stories. No one knows those stories better than Leodora, a young shadow-puppeteer who travels Shadowbridge collecting the intertwining tales and myths of each place she passes through, then retells them in performances whose genius has begun to attract fame . . . and less welcome attention. For Leodora is fleeing a violent past, as are her two companions: her manager, Soter, an elderly drunkard who also served Ledora’ s father, the legendary puppeteer Bardsham; and Diverus, her musical accompanist, a young man who has been blessed, and perhaps cursed, by the touch of a nameless god. Now, as the strands of a destiny she did not choose begin to tighten around her, Leodora is about to cross the most perilous bridge of all–the one leading from the past to the future. Shadowbridge is the first novel in a two-book adventure.




Across the Sea of Suns


Book Description

From the Nebula Award-winning author comes a newly revised edition of this story in his classic Galactic Center series. 2076: Technology has propelled the world into a new age of enlightenment. Nigel (from In the Ocean of Night) has left Earth to explore space for alien life. But while on this captivating mission, humanity's birthplace has fallen prey to attack and its seas are seeded with alien lifeforms. Now, Nigel is left to search for the only savior he knows-the one who saved him once before-the alien machine called the "Snark." Having left the solar system and turned traitor to its alien masters, Nigel is unsure of the Snark's new allegiance. Is the Snark a friend? Or will it also turn on Nigel... proving to be a deadly foe?