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Kristina O’Donnelly wonders: Are American unions going the way of dinosaurs
Tuesday, March 15, 2005 8:33:00 AM
by Kristina O'Donnelly
| Arts/Entertainment |
| BELOVED ENEMY (Print title Ride the Eagle), Kristina O’Donnelly’s novel about Love confronting Principles, debuts at Fictionwise.com http://www.fictionwise.com/ebooks/eBook29824.htm |
"Tensions Explode during New York City Newspaper Union Strike As Passions War With Principles!"
BELOVED ENEMY is a powerful, unique novel for every woman caught between her principles and the man she loves. “…I will always remember, with a smile, my comrades at Local 3, Newspaper Guild of America, and my brothers and sisters who walked the New York City picket lines with me. This strike was a turning point in the labor relations history of The New York Daily News, The New York Times and The New York Post," Kristina states. "Today, as a former member who'd been active in the frontlines, I feel sad to see the steady decline in union memberships."
Excerpt: Tensions are running high as striking workers continue to picket the New York Mirror, the nation’s largest daily newspaper. Thirty-something Caroline Keller, born a genteel Southern-belle now a tough-as-nails New Yorker gal rising fast in the Citadel of Corporate Power, takes her place at the bargaining table. She’s the Labor Relations Representative for the New York Mirror, and negotiations between Management and Newspaper Guild have deadlocked. Lester Gordon, the President of the Newspaper Guild, of Cherokee ancestry and renown as the champion of the underdog, is the man making sure the demands of the Guild are heard, and met. Seated at opposite sides of the table, locked in confrontation, Caroline and Lester grow more and more voluble and more and more aware of each other’s presence. Both know that it is foolish to become involved with each other. Both know it can ruin their careers.Yet neither of them can resist the flow of emotion and crescendoing passion. Caroline and Lester are compelled to enter into a relationship surely destined for heartbreak. Caroline knows their affair can undermine her employer’s confidence in her. She isn’t sure she can keep her feelings for Lester apart from the issues they must resolve, and that she’ll be able to maintain the integrity and detachment vital to the negotiations. Caught between loyalty to her mentor, the profession to which she has dedicated many years, and Lester Gordon, the man she loves, Caroline’s final choice will have to be as defining as the Great Newspaper Strike which is dividing them with its raging flames!
Introduction: "A strike in any business has a tremendous effect on lots of people, more so when it drags on into months. When it goes that long, union bosses and management are generally miles apart, and haggling over major issues. Such is the case at the “New York Mirror” where Lester Gordon, the union president, and Caroline Keller, the Mirror’s labor relations representative, have their respective negotiating teams at odds with each other. Kristina O’Donnelly has not only put together an excellent plot, but has managed to write this novel with great passion, preciseness and emotion. She writes so well that you can feel the tension in the conference room where union and management are locked in heated negotiations; brings out the emotional upheavals that go on in such confrontations, the anger, frustration that almost triggers violence between two of the key players, even the tension of crossing a picket line. You can even feel the tautness in Caroline’s body as she slips and slides across icy sidewalks on a windy, cold, snowy night, trying to get to Lester’s office to deliver a talk from the heart as negotiations are at a crucial junction. O’Donnelly also develops a very heated, exciting, but controversial romance between Lester and Caroline, and you can feel the underlying concerns of both as they fall more deeply in love, and grow more physically attracted to each other, unable to quell the fires that burn within. While you wonder what happens to the Mirror’s strike, whether or not the shutdown of the newspaper and the intimacy between Lester and Caroline will have a bearing on their futures, she makes you wonder if their relationship will brilliantly flourish, or finally go down in flames. Kristina O’Donnelly makes you feel all the emotions involved, to want to keep reading on, anxious to get to the end for the climax, and once you’re there, to keep going on and on. Ride the Eagle is an excellent, highly recommended book, a real five-star effort by Kristina O’Donnelly! Dan Murr, Author of "A NEED TO KNOW." Website: http://www.danlmurr.4mg.com/
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Born in Rome, Italy and raised in Istanbul, Turkey, Kristina O’Donnelly was a journalist both in Europe and the United States. Also, she was an active member and later an officer, of the Newspaper Guild of America, for 12 years. Author of six novels, her works have been published in the United States as well Europe and Turkey. Currently four of her novels are available in convenient, reasonably priced electronic format, via FictionWise. Click here: http://www.fictionwise.com/servlet/mw?t=author&ai=17774
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