Carolyn Jourdan - Nurse Phoebe 02 - The School for Mysteries
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“You will enjoy our passenger,” he said, “She can explain these things to you on the return flight.”
According to Christophe the individual they were to take back with them had become aware of significant impending events and been given a message from the spiritual world that needed to be discussed with Le Seigneur in person.
When they arrived at the Ritz to make the pickup, Phoebe discovered the seer was a glamorous lady named Caterina Abatangelo, who had to be in her seventies at least. The lady looked her age and was beautiful. Her most striking assets were her cheekbones, aristocratic nose, and a beautifully styled luxuriant mane of pure white hair. She reminded Phoebe of the legendary high fashion model Carmen dell’Orefice who was still working in her eighties.
Caterina and Christophe exchanged the ritual of four kisses that Christophe had assured her was the correct way to greet friends in France. Left cheek, right cheek, then repeat. The magnificence of the hair swishing during that kiss was sufficient to stop traffic throughout Place Vendome.
As she was getting into the car that would take them to the airport, Caterina took Phoebe’s hand. Then she looked up in surprise. She waited until Phoebe was seated next to her in the back, with Christophe and the driver in the front, then Caterina leaned over and whispered, “I realize this will sound silly, but I am quite serious. You will soon become involved with a tall dark stranger. Several of them in fact,” she said smiling and wiggling her elegant eyebrows. Then she tightened her grip on Phoebe’s hand and leaned even closer to whisper softly into her ear, “And one blond.”
Dedication
A big thank you to Fred Frishe for his scholarship and insights into the relationship between tariffs and the American Civil War; and also for his genuinely riveting tours of Cleveland, The Mistake on the Lake.
I am grateful to Austin Faulkner, M.D. for information about the PACS system. Thanks to Gary Turner for information on high-end private jets and flights to France, fellow authors Leighann Dobbs, Adriana Koulias, and Louisa Locke for their advice, and Margaret Moore and Kim Franklin for helpful edits.
Many thanks to Joyce Reilly for taking me all over New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut in high style, to the Frick twice, and especially for putting up with me bursting into tears each time I walked by the portrait of Sir Thomas More. I particularly appreciate her company at Biltmore, madcap sense of humor, and superb driving skills in New York City.
I am deeply grateful to Sandra Johanson, Ph.D. for her friendship, for putting up with my zany struggle to publish Bear in the Back Seat from her kitchen island (which was successful enough to make a #9 Wall Street Journal best seller), and for letting me stay with her, once during a blizzard when the power was out for days, forcing us to go to the Short Hills Mall to get warm. I’m pretty sure Hurricane Sandy was named for her.
Thanks to Bran Rogers for artistic guidance, Brian Pittman for architectural advice, John Plummer for four free tickets to Biltmore, and Janey and Brian Newton for a wonderfully peaceful place to get a first draft of this book completed.
And a big thank you to Courtney Lix for her expert editorial suggestions and for (accidentally) setting me off on a path of writing fiction.
Research Resources
The venerable and awe-inspiring history of the real Mystery Schools through the ages is detailed in two superb books: The Great Initiates: A Study of the Secret History of Religions, by Edouard Schure, and An Endless Trace: The Passionate Pursuit of Wisdom in the West, by Christopher Bamford.
Historical details about the Mystery School at Chartres are described in The Golden Age of Chartres: The Teachings of a Mystery School and the Eternal Feminine, by Rene M. Querido.
A superb version of O Magnum Mysterium by the Nordic Chamber Choir singing the M. Lauridsen arrangement is available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nn5ken3RJBo
Other Books
by Carolyn Jourdan
Jourdan’s memoir, Heart in the Right Place, is a Wall Street Journal Bestseller (#7 in the nation) and #1 on Amazon in Biography, Memoir, Medicine, and Science. It is on hundreds of lists of best books of the year, best book club books, and funniest books. It was chosen as Family Circle magazine’s first ever Book of the Month and won the Elle magazine Reader’s Prize.
“Heartwarming, funny and utterly appealing.” Fannie Flagg –Author of Fried Green Tomatoes
“This is a wonderful book. I would have enjoyed it even if Carolyn wasn’t a neighbor of mine in East Tennessee. She is a great writer.” Dolly Parton – Singer, Songwriter, and Actress
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B001FA0G9E/
Medicine Men: Extreme Appalachian Doctoring reached #1 on all of Amazon Kindle! It was also #1 in Non-Fiction, Biography, Memoir, Medicine, Science, and Doctor-Patient Relations.
http://www.amazon.com/Medicine-Men-Appalachian-Doctoring-ebook/dp/B00A9L3E62/
Bear in the Back Seat: Adventures of a Wildlife Ranger in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, Volume 1 is a Wall Street Journal Bestseller (#9 in the nation).
http://www.amazon.com/Bear-Back-Seat-Adventures-Mountains-ebook/dp/B00EW8TTQW/
Bear in the Back Seat II continues the national bestselling memoir of Kim DeLozier, Wildlife Ranger.
http://www.amazon.com/Bear-Back-Seat-Adventures-Mountains-ebook/dp/B00J7XP6CI/
Jourdan’s previous mystery, Out on a Limb, was ranked #1 in Medical Fiction, #1 Mystery, and #1 Cozy Mystery on Amazon. Reviewers describe this cozy, scientific, medical mystery as “No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency of the Great Smoky Mountains”, “CSI Meets Animal Planet”, and “An Appalachian Michael Crichton.”
http://www.amazon.com/Out-Limb-Mountain-Mystery-Phoebe-ebook/dp/B00B9FKLS6/
About the Author
Carolyn is a former U.S. Senate Counsel to the Committee on Environment and Public Works and the Committee on Governmental Affairs. She has degrees from the University of Tennessee in Biomedical Engineering and Law. Carolyn lives on the family farm in Strawberry Plains, Tennessee, with many stray animals. She is a popular speaker on television, radio, and in person.