The Beautiful Strangers
A woman’s quest to fulfill her grandfather’s wishes leads her on the adventure of a lifetime. The year is 1958, and Kate Morgan is stuck in a rut. Day in and day out, she works in her family’s restaurant in San Francisco. Although she knows there is more to life, she does not see any escape, as her family is not wealthy, and they need her to help put food on the table. Kate also loves the movies, a passion she shares with her adored grandfather. When her grandfather, who has dementia, begs her to go to the Hotel Coronado in San Diego and find the beautiful stranger, she makes an uncharacteristic and spontaneous decision to pawn an old family ring and head to southern California.
When she arrives, she falls in love with both the town and the hotel… and a man she meets on the ferry. To everyone’s surprise, Kate shares the same name as the ghost that is rumored to haunt the hotel. In addition to her hotel duties, she is assigned to serve Marilyn Monroe, with whom she develops a friendship of sorts. Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis also make cameos. As Kate slowly begins to unravel the reasons why her grandfather sent her on this journey, she starts to piece together a missing part of her family history as well as a missing part of her heart.
The narration shifts between the main character and Kate Morgan, the Hotel Coronado’s resident ghost, a lively and effective device that helps advance the plot. The author expertly evokes the post-World War II era and the beautiful southern California landscape. Part love story and part ghost story, the book is an utter delight from start to finish, with a gratifying conclusion.
