Bliss Remembered, The Book
 Bliss, Remembered is the saga of Sydney Stringfellow's life from 1934, when she was a lonely 16-year-old innocent growing up in the Depression in a small town on The Eastern Shore of Maryland, until 1942, when war with Germany has begun and she finds herself personally caught up in it in a way she could never have imagined.
Sydney tells this story to her son, Teddy, in 2004. By then, she is an old woman, dying of cancer, but she is still charming and feisty and determined to finally let her son know of the fascinating events that so changed her young life –– and all that followed.
The saga she recounts begins when, almost serendipiously, she discovers that she has an exceptional talent for swimming and makes the U.S. '36 Olympic team. Abroad, at the infamous Berlin Games, she falls in love with a handsome German college student, Horst Gerhardt. He is the sophisticated son of a Nazi diplomat, and so, as enchanted as Sydney is in the thrall of her first real love, Horst presents a mixed picture. There is joy for the gorgeous girl he has found, but agonizing conflict for what is happening to his country.
Ultimately, the romance between the beautiful young American and her dashing German beau must become a victim to both distance and the horror of the time. But as Teddy listens, amazed, to the travails of his mother's glamorous first love, Sydney's life takes a stunning twist which will surprise the reader as much as it does the son.
Bliss, Remembered is the story of a glorious passion that we all wish we could have had, while Sydney, we discover, is as courageous and intrepid in danger as she was bright and beguiling in the eyes and arms of her lover. |
