Synopses & Reviews
Synopsis
Aboard the S.S. Kroonland, Valentina Meyer, a beautiful, mysterious woman wearing a white evening gown, admits to being a stowaway on the ocean liner headed toward Ellis Island. Now a passenger with a secret and an uncertain future, she becomes the central figure around whom the lives of a small group of first-class passengers revolve. Henri is a sculptor who unexpectedly falls in love with Billie, a young lady dependent upon a "gentleman" to support her. But Billie has a secret that will change her life and that of William, the gentleman upon whose "generosity" she relies. Thomas, traveling with his sister Victoria, falls desperately in love with Valentina, resisting his sister's attempts to prevent their relationship. Lily, a sharp, analytical young woman bound to a wheelchair, befriends Henri as she observes the goings-on. A symbolic journey that investigates the natural transitions between phases in our lives, She Wore Only White explores the deepest recesses of the human heart.
Synopsis
At the turn of the twentieth century, five thousand people a day arrived at New York's Ellis Island, their journeys to America signifying a new beginning. But the ocean crossing also has a deeper symbolic meaning: there comes a time for us all when we find ourselves afloat, between phases of our lives, where we say goodbye to our past and move on to new horizons.
For Valentina Meyer, harboring a deep secret of tremendous guilt and pain drives her to board a trans-Atlantic voyage as a stowaway, searching desperately for a new life on a distant shore. Accompanying her is a varied cast of eccentric and unique individuals, each in search of a new and better life. Finding solace--even love--in the companionship of their fellow guests, their arrival in America puts an abrupt end to their camaraderie as Valentina's future is immediately put in jeopardy. A probing, affecting exploration of the hidden corners of the human heart, She Wore Only White is literature at its finest.