THE MAGIC SHIP

by Sandra Paretti ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 27, 1979

A gauzy, shamelessly romantic idyll, perfumed lavishly with nostalgia--all about that guttering season in Bar Harbor, Maine, in 1914, when the officers and crew (over 650) of a German luxury liner made that opulent resort a summer festival. Polack, captain of the Cecilie, a man wedded to his ship and proud of his contented passengers, has sailed grandly into Maine's happy, safely neutral shore at the outbreak of the war, much to the delight of vacationing nebs and natives. Especially pleased is Temperance C. Butler--a passenger of imperious ways, a Bar Harbor resident, and a madcap grandmother who can gamble, flirt, and dance with the best of the globetrotting crowd; she's all set to do some matchmaking. While Polack and his new American friends crack bottles-of-the-best in various hideaways (Maine is a dry state), Temperance observes with approval the mutual regard of her granddaughter Anne and the Cecilie's Second Mate Fred Vandermark. Competing for Fred's affections--he's a ladies' man--is wealthy young widow Gloria, who confesses to a bizarre childhood as stooge for her adored gambling-man father, who worked the liners. Fred courts Anne in blueberry woods but makes love to Gloria on shipboard by the light of fireworks. And meanwhile, as the chandeliers dangle sadly in the ship's grand salon, Bar Harbor comes to life with fairs and dinners and dances and Germania. Finally, inevitably, alas, the nasty world outside calls--and with the last Captain's Dinner, the doomed queen of the seas leaves forever, bearing Polack to an uncertain fate. From the reliably shimmery author of The Wishing Tree: a slumberously atmospheric fantasy--thoroughly mindless and very endearing.

Pub Date: July 27, 1979

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: St. Martin's

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1979

Categories: FICTION