Gone but Not Forgotten

Gone but Not Forgotten is the first of a historical fiction trilogy set in America and Europe from 1914 to 1918. It chronicles the tale of the Gilded Age of pageantry through the end of the Great War. It is the story of the Champions, the Wagners and the Sterns, an epical saga of their lives, trials, and tribulations. The story opens at an outdoor wedding in fashionable Newport, Rhode Island. The heroines are beautiful twin sisters, Veda and Rose Champion. Veda is the spoiled American debutante with an iron will. Rose is the gentler beauty and is passively strong. Hans Wagner, the male protagonist, is a German immigrant who comes to America with the quest to live his dream. His best Jewish friend, Rudolph Stern, also arrives from Germany to study medicine. The toils of the Great War halt the hopes of both while ushering in a series of tragedies for the Champion family, including the sinking of the Lusitania, the death of the twins' brother, Marius Champion, on the battlefields of France, and the vicious murder of their grandparents in Verdon. The novel will be followed by two others, spanning 1918–2000. The trilogy is a portrait of the most significant events in the twentieth century.