Susan Meissner is a multi-published author, speaker and writing workshop leader with a background in community journalism. Her novels include A Fall of Marigolds, named to Booklist’s Top Ten Women’s Fiction titles for 2014, and The Shape of Mercy, named by Publishers Weekly as one of the 100 Best Novels of 2008.Her Meissner dreamcasts an adaptation of her latest novel, A Bridge Across the Ocean:
A Bridge Across the Ocean is a story about two European women who meet aboard the RMS Queen Mary in 1946. They are bound for America on a ship full of other war brides to be reunited with their servicemen husbands. Both women survived the hell of World War 2, but only one of them, a Parisian named Simone, is an actual war bride; the other, Annaliese, is a German ballerina pretending to be a Belgian war bride to escape a terrible situation. Annaliese’s secret is laid bare on the voyage however, and the last day of the voyage is anything but peaceful. Meanwhile in the current day, thirty-something Brette just wants to live a normal, uncomplicated life but the family gift of being able to see ghosts is making that impossible. When Brette visits the famed and notoriously haunted RMS Queen Mary, now a floating hotel in a California harbor, she comes face to face with the ghostly echoes of that 1946 crossing and is soon on a quest to uncover the truth, right an old wrong, and maybe figure out how to live in peace with the way she is.Visit Susan Meissner's website.
The ideal cast:
For Simone, who is a daughter of a murdered French Resistance spy, I pick the talented Melanie Laurent, the French actress who played the courageous and devastated Shoshanna in Quentin Tarentino’s Inglorious Basterds. For Annaliese, the German ballerina married to a Nazi monster, Brie Larson, who stole the show as the abducted teen in Room, and who I think has the skill to pull off a German accent. For their cabinmate Phoebe, Daisy Ridley of the Stars Wars movie, The Force Awakens. For Annaliese’s brute of a husband, Jack Gleeson, who played evil Joffrey in Game of Thrones so well, and for Simone’s American pilot husband, Josh Hutcherson, who won our hearts as Peeta in The Hunger Games trilogy. Lastly, for Keith, who is Brette’s even-keeled gem of a husband, Aaron Staton, better known as Ken Cosgrove on AMC’s Mad Men.
Coffee with a Canine: Susan Meissner & Bella.
My Book, The Movie: Stars Over Sunset Boulevard.
--Marshal Zeringue
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