Jake Saunders, a middle-aged artist and enthusiastic horticulturist from Georgia, while teaching drawing and painting classes on board a luxury cruise ship becomes captivated by Rose, a nineteen-year-old beauty. The relationship that develops shows all the pitfalls of their age difference and the generation gap that it reveals, but is lovingly supported by Rose’s affable mother, Marianne Paulsen, who is herself attracted to Jake.
Set in exotic locations in Iceland, Europe, Georgia, Minnesota and New York the story shows the development of Jake’s relationship with both these women and the different kind of love each fosters. When Marianne is diagnosed with cancer, the garden of her home on Lake Minnetonka in Minnesota becomes the bonding ground between her and Jake-a garden that at first Jake had started to restore for his upcoming wedding to Rose, but which ultimately becomes the means for his personal growth and Marianne’s spiritual transition.
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Peter Longley graduated with an honors masters degree in Theolgy from Cambridge University in England in 1970. For many years he was a licensed lay-reader and preacher in the Anglican Episcopal Church both in Ireland and the USA. In 1988, he began writing a series of fictitious novels on the life and times of Mary Magdalene, one of which, LEGACY OF A STAR, was published by Durban House Publishing Co. Inc., in 2003. In 1995, Peter wrote a contemporary and introductory story for these Magdala novels that was published by The Hovenden Press in 1996 and titled TWO THOUSAND YEARS LATER. Meanwhile, following current scholarship in the Jesus Seminar and other sources, Peter revised the Magdala novels forming them into a Trilogy of which A STAR’S LEGACY is the first volume. Two volumes will follow, BEYOND THE OLIVE GROVE and THE MIST OF GOD. In 2003, his contemporary novel, LOVE IS WHERE YOUR ROSEMARY GROWS was published through i Universe Publishing.
Brought up in England, Peter lived in Ireland from 1966-1977 and was the Estate Manager of Tullamaine Castle. Since 1977 he has lived in the United States in Georgia, Minnesota and Missouri. Many of those years he was at sea as a Cruiise Director, notably on board Cunard’s QUEEN ELIZABETH 2. In this capacity he traveled the world and managed shipboard entertainment. This is a theme that is echoed in his contemporary novels.
Horticulture has always been a major hobby and has led to his retirement career where he now designs and maintains gardens for Springfield, Missouri’s future Botanical Center.