Best of Family & Relationships
Best of Family & Relationships
"So Many Books, So Little Time!"
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Book 1
The Necklace
What if you could travel back into the past to meet the man of your dreams at a time when it would be possible for him to fall in love with you?
Susan does just that when she meets two ladies from Haiti while on a cruise with her childhood friend, Lynn. Mika, the elderly of the two ladies claims she can see into Susan’s soul, and that if she sends her back in time to meet James, the man who Susan has dreamed of for fifty years, Susan will learn something important about him and about herself.
Susan travels back to the year 1962 in her 17-year-old body, where she meets James, age 20, who is part of a band that will one day become the most famous band of all time. Susan is stunned and delighted when James is instantly drawn to her, inviting her out for coffee and offering to walk her back to her hotel after the band quits playing for the night.
But much to her consternation, Susan’s 17-year-old hormones begin to play havoc with her 62-year-old brain, tempting her towards a relationship with James that she’s not really certain she wants.
Will James end up being the paragon Susan’s always thought him to be? Or, will she learn that sometimes when a dream comes true, it’s not quite what you expected?
Book 2
The Necklace II
It’s been five months since Susan and her best friend, Lynn, returned from their short journey to the past. While on a girl’s cruise, they’d met two ladies from Haiti, one who had “the sight.” She had instantly read into Susan’s soul, discovering an infatuation Susan held within herself for a certain person for almost fifty years. To cure her of this infatuation and make Susan realize that what she had in the present was far better than anything she would ever have had with James, she sent Susan back to the year 1962 to meet the real flesh and blood James.
The love affair that ensued between James and Susan was tempestuous and stormy. It wasn’t long before Susan realized that James wasn’t the perfection she’d made him out to be. As the seven-day journey came to an end, she felt almost relieved to return to the present.
One impetuous action, however, was to throw a complication into what Susan was intended to learn from the trip. Although she came back fully understanding that her present life was near perfection compared to anything she could have had with James, something keeps tugging at her heart, something that won’t allow her to fully let go of her feelings for him.
In desperation, she contacts the ladies from Haiti, only to find out that the ballerina necklace she left in the past with James is serving as a link between them and that the only way to break it will be to go back into the past again to retrieve it.
At midnight on a cold November evening, Susan is again transported back in time to November 1962, back to the Dusky Club, where James and the boys, who will one day become the most famous band of all time, are still engaged to play.
This time, she convinces her friend, John, to go with her, telling him it will be a quick trip and he can help her resist falling into a new love affair with James. It is not to be, however, when a girl from John's past, who he has been searching for since they first met many years ago, suddenly shows up and throws all into confusion. Kiyoko, disoriented and scared, doesn't understand where she is or why she is suddenly young again.
Will Susan be able to resist James, who has not forgotten her and once again declares his love for her? Will she be able to retrieve her necklace from the past and bring it back into the present? Will the link between her and James finally be broken?
Book 3
The Necklace III
Susan’s second time-travel adventure into the past to retrieve her silver ballerina necklace from James, a member of the most famous band of all time, ended in disaster. (The Necklace II – Back to Brighton, November 1962) Instead of trying to get the necklace back, which would have broken the link between them, she was once again swept into another affair, this one more stormy and full of passion than the first. When James falls even more deeply in love with her and proposes marriage, Susan is so stunned and taken aback that James realizes her duplicity, and his heart is crushed to pieces. Susan does manage to finally retrieve her necklace, believing the tie between them has been severed for good…that is, until she discovers her attorney husband, Donald, is having an affair with his new paralegal.
Devastated by the thought of an affair, after having been married to Donald for almost 45 years, Susan begins toying with her necklace once again, and as she does so, memories and unbidden thoughts of James begin to invade both her heart and mind. Dare she return to the past to be with James once more? Will he hate her for what she did to him when he proposed marriage to her? Or will they be able to start fresh and renew their love once more? Would it even…dare she think it? …be possible to stay in the past with him, to change history even…
Book 4
The Necklace IV
Book 4 of "The Necklace" series continues the passionate and stormy relationship between James, a former member of the most famous bad of all time, and Susan, the woman who has been obsessed with him for over fifty years. After Susan’s friends betray her on her last trip into the past, forcing her to return on her wedding day, the day she would have married James, she falls into a deep depression and can’t seem to shake herself out of it. Having James’s engagement ring on her necklace along with the silver ballerina slippers makes it even worse. Michelle, her level-headed and successful attorney daughter, decides to get to the bottom of Susan’s melancholy, and when she finds out the truth about her mother’s trips into the past, she determines to go with her on one more time-travel journey to end the link between James and Susan once and for all. She contacts Marta, the remaining Haiti lady, who sent Susan on her previous time travel adventures, and both mother and daughter are transported back to December 1999, where James is scheduled to make his first public appearance since his wife passed two years previously. Michelle’s well-intentioned plans go awry, however, when she encounters James’s son, an up-and-coming concert pianist...who is also a spitting image of his father...and gazes into his captivating eyes. Susan, wondering if she will be able to reunite with James once again, realizes he’s likely to have some serious trust issues concerning her due to her past deception. With her marriage falling apart back in the future, however, her heart’s desire is to somehow make him love her again and this time, stay in the past and change history. Will she be able to, though, especially when Hilary, a gold-digging ex-courtesan, enters the scene just as determined to make James her own? Is the love between James and Susan strong enough to thwart Hilary’s plans, or will Susan be forced back to the future to live out the rest of her life in despair?
Book 5
The Necklace V
After Susan and Michelle return in despair from their time-travel journey back to 1999, Michelle resigns herself to a life of loneliness, and Susan accepts the fact that she’s lost James forever.
James, a former member of the most famous band of all time, and Susan, the woman who’s loved him for over fifty years, were to be married in a double ceremony on Christmas Day, 1999, with Thomas, James’s son, and Michelle, Susan’s daughter. It was not meant to be, however, when a gold-digging ex-courtesan, determined to have James for her own, exposes Susan as already being married.
It’s now August 2016 when Thomas is preparing for a move from London to Los Angeles and discovers the mobile phone Susan left behind. The “mysterious object,” as he thought of it seventeen years earlier, is at the bottom of a box in his closet that he’d packed up with Michelle’s things shortly after she and her mother vanished.
When Brett, Thomas’s friend who works for Apple, examines the phone, telling him it’s an iPhone6 and there’s no way he could have had it for seventeen years, both men are puzzled.
Will the mystery of the phone be solved, and will it lead Thomas back to Michelle? And, if Michelle and Thomas are reunited, is it possible that Susan and James will once again find themselves in each other’s arms? After all, we know from Susan’s previous forays into the past that history could not be changed, but what about the future? Will there finally be a “Happily Ever After” for James and Susan?
Book 6
The Necklace VI
The year is 2017, and Susan’s lifelong dream to be with James has finally come true; they both see nothing but marital bliss in their future years together.
That is…until Diego, Conte di La Spezia, decides he wants Susan as his new Contessa, and his evil brother, Vicente, identifies Susan’s ballerina necklace as the one stolen from the family 200 years in the past. While Diego plots to capture Susan, Vicente schemes to retrieve the necklace. Playing against Susan’s jealous tendency, a plan is enacted to capture both Susan and the coveted necklace and destroy James’s and Susan’s marriage. Will it succeed, however? Or will Diego relent when he realizes Susan’s love for James is unshakable?
As the future unfolds, time moves into the 2020s, and Sherry, James’s young daughter from his second marriage, decides to pursue a career in dance. When Nygel, a principal dancer from a prestigious company in Holland, comes to London to choose who will be selected for roles in a production of “Giselle,” Sherry finds herself the target of his sexual advances, while her roommate, Carmen, falls in love with the heartless womanizer.
The years advance quickly on James and Susan as they find the need to cope with aging minds and bodies. As their love story comes to an end in the year 2037, they find peace and contentment in a relationship that has stood the test of time through time travel and the obstacles that prevented the past from being changed.
And the necklace that bound them together from the beginning keeps them bound together to the end.
Book 7
The Necklace VII
After crossing the rainbow bridge in 2037…and hoping to spend a new life together without the strife and heartbreak, they most recently experienced…James and Susan agree to travel back in time to 1815 Regency England, when Susan’s magical necklace was first created.
But after Susan enters the body of Lady Susanna Sheffield, daughter of the Duke and Duchess of Bradford, and James becomes Lord James Lynton, Viscount Hollingsworth, they discover, much to their dismay, that the difference in their social status is only one obstacle to overcome.
Susan is still the independent, stubborn, and impetuous female she was back in the future, and James has not lost his arrogant, bossy, and controlling nature despite their vow to change.
And in addition to the Duchess deciding a mere Viscount isn’t good enough for her daughter, a wealthy Italian Count decides he wants Lady Susanna for his Contessa and commissions a magical necklace from Alchemist Dr. Thaddeus Holloran that will bind her to him for life.
Will the Count succeed in placing the magical necklace around Susan’s neck? Will the Duchess be able to keep James and Susan apart?
But most important of all, will this fiery couple be able to adapt to the strict rules and conflicting morals of an era over 200 years back in time without creating new discord between them?
Book 8
The Necklace VIII
After the whirlwind of her first Season, her come-out ball, and surprise betrothal to Viscount Lord James Lynton, Lady Susanna returns to Bradford Park with her mother. During her brief stay at home, she meets her future mother-in-law, Lady Emily, before being unceremoniously whisked off to Brighton.
The cream of the ton follows the Prince Regent there, curious about his royal guests, a Persian Prince and two Danish princesses. Will Susan’s interference in the betrothal of Prince Zayan and Princess Petrina result in a royal scandal?
To Susan and James’s consternation, Lord Justin Pelman still determined to break their engagement and marry the rich heiress himself, also follows the nobility to Brighton to plot with Susan’s mother, who favors Lord Pelman over the Viscount. When the plot begins to falter, Justin enacts desperate means to obtain his goal.
Susan experiences a shock when her father, the Duke of Bradford, introduces her to Nigel and Caleb, her two half-brothers from Lady Harrington. But she is even more shocked when she discovers Caleb in a love affair with Sir William Campbell, a brilliant musician recently returned from Vienna, knowing the penalty for such a relationship could mean death.
Will Susan and James be able to overcome the machinations of Lord Pelman and the Duchess to break their betrothal? But most importantly, will they be able to endure the one-year waiting period imposed by the Duke before they may wed??
Book 9
The Necklace IX
As “The Necklace” series draws to an end, James and Susan encounter yet more obstacles to their plans for marriage.
Lady Emily falls into a coma when struck down by a falling tree in her garden. Lady Susanna’s stubborn vigil by her bedside creates tension between her and Viscount Lynton and her father, the Duke of Bradford. The duke recommends the engagement be broken due to Susanna’s outrageous behavior and lack of respect for her betrothed.
Then when an outbreak of Scarlatina overcomes Hollingsworth Manor and strikes down Susanna, James fears for her very life. With no antibiotics, he worries the disease will prove fatal.
In the meantime, the mystery of Jame’s father’s death in Vienna three years in the past comes to the fore when his demise is determined to be murder, not a carriage accident. His signet ring and fob watch that went missing are discovered to be a secret means to obtain valuable items of antiquity. Is Lord Stone, Earl of Blackthorn, a fellow collector to the senior Lord Lynton, responsible?
Adding to the obstacles thrown in the young couple’s path, Susan’s mother, the Duchess of Bradford, returns from her banishment to Scotland. Will she once again put a spoke in the wheel to prevent the marriage?
Book 10
Book 11
Book 12
Book 13
Book 14
Book 15
Book 16
Book 17
Book 18
Book 19
Book 20
Linda S Rice
As a child, Linda was mesmerized by storytellers, and her mother always made sure she had a supply of books close at hand while she was growing up. Sitting on her lap and listening to her read is one of her earliest memories. She recalls drawing pictures and then making up stories to go with them, and as she got older, her stories became longer and more fanciful.
At age ten, she began to write them down, and when she was twelve, she wrote her first “book,” all handwritten. During rainy days in gym class, she wrote when the students had to stay in the locker room and sit on benches. She had a small cult following of friends who waited for her to finish each page, which she would then pass down the row. When she got a typewriter for her thirteenth birthday, she typed up her “masterpiece” and put it in a 3-ring binder, then hid it away. The story was her first attempt at a novel but having a typewriter made it possible for her to write even more, which she did on almost a daily basis.
But, as happens to many young, aspiring writers, reality grabbed her, and when she graduated from high school and headed to college and then into the workforce, the dream of becoming an author washed away. It wasn’t until she turned 62 and experienced the 3rd job layoff that she decided to make her writing dream come true.
Writing has since become an addiction to Linda, and she’s finding that ideas for numerous scenarios and characters keep flooding her brain, with the characters screaming, “Write about me! Write about me!”
And, that’s what she intends to do.
Linda has ten self-published books, which include a 6-book time travel romance series with a 3-book follow-up series that takes readers further back in time. She has also published a dark romance.