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The Foreigner
Are You Drawn To Romantic Sagas? 'The Foreigner' will involve you instantly in the loves and losses of an unforgettable actress.Go with Marie Howard as Fate takes her onto the world's stage! Marie Howard dreams, in 1919, of being elevated from understudy to leading lady at the Tavistock Theatre. Not content with just dreaming, Marie schemes to replace temperamental actress Dolly Martin, oblivious to the possible consequences of so doing.
All too soon, loved by London audiences and adored by two very different men, Marie is forced by events into decisions that change her life more dramatically than any role she has played on-stage.
As Hitler rises to power in a Europe still scarred by the First World War, Marie contends with heartbreak as well as with the increasingly deadly enmity between her husband and his vengeful brother. Who will win the life-long battle being waged between them? And what shocks await Marie in war-torn London?
If you're a fan of family sagas that tug at your emotions, you need to read this book with its love story theme because you'll feel deeply involved with its memorable heroine and her triumphs and tragedies from beginning to end.
Scroll up and secure your copy today.
All too soon, loved by London audiences and adored by two very different men, Marie is forced by events into decisions that change her life more dramatically than any role she has played on-stage.
As Hitler rises to power in a Europe still scarred by the First World War, Marie contends with heartbreak as well as with the increasingly deadly enmity between her husband and his vengeful brother. Who will win the life-long battle being waged between them? And what shocks await Marie in war-torn London?
If you're a fan of family sagas that tug at your emotions, you need to read this book with its love story theme because you'll feel deeply involved with its memorable heroine and her triumphs and tragedies from beginning to end.
Scroll up and secure your copy today.
599 pages, Kindle Edition
First published December 1, 2009
About the author
P.G. Glynn
6 books1 followerP.G. Glynn lives in Poole, Dorset, close enough to the sad little village of Tyneham (featured in her novel OUT OF TIME) to re-visit it as often as she likes.
Pamela Glynn has written five novels and before embarking on these had success with short stories in magazines.
OUT OF TIME: Tyneham Revisited (set in the picturesque Purbeck village that died) was published in hardback before finding its way into Kindle Direct format.
SAM'S STORY: It's A Dog's Life is unusual in the sense that it's mostly written by the dog himself - Pamela's beloved Beardie - with just a little human help! Sam's book is now available in paperback as well as on Kindle.
Bringing THE FOREIGNER to fruition has been the fulfilment of her long-held dream, this being the fictionalized form of her beloved grandmother's life story. And what an extraordinary life it was - lived with passion through two world wars, as well as across several continents!
Pamela did not embark on this pleasurable task until after her grandmother's death and is convinced that she had help from beyond the grave. How else to explain the foreign words that mysteriously popped into her head when she needed them - and the fact that she re-created life in a Czechoslovakian castle she had never visited so accurately that a cousin who grew up there described its accuracy as 'quite uncanny'?
Pamela Glynn has written five novels and before embarking on these had success with short stories in magazines.
OUT OF TIME: Tyneham Revisited (set in the picturesque Purbeck village that died) was published in hardback before finding its way into Kindle Direct format.
SAM'S STORY: It's A Dog's Life is unusual in the sense that it's mostly written by the dog himself - Pamela's beloved Beardie - with just a little human help! Sam's book is now available in paperback as well as on Kindle.
Bringing THE FOREIGNER to fruition has been the fulfilment of her long-held dream, this being the fictionalized form of her beloved grandmother's life story. And what an extraordinary life it was - lived with passion through two world wars, as well as across several continents!
Pamela did not embark on this pleasurable task until after her grandmother's death and is convinced that she had help from beyond the grave. How else to explain the foreign words that mysteriously popped into her head when she needed them - and the fact that she re-created life in a Czechoslovakian castle she had never visited so accurately that a cousin who grew up there described its accuracy as 'quite uncanny'?
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
March 20, 2014
BOUND FOR BESTSELLERDOM
It was late in the evening when I finished the book I was reading. The next book on my list was The Foreigner by PG Glynn. I thought I’d have a quick peek at it before going to bed, just to see what it might hold for me. Big mistake! I was hooked immediately. So many questions I simply had to know answers to. I did eventually get to bed but it was in the small hours of the morning. PG Glynn has that enviable talent of forcing the reader to keep turning pages until exhaustion sets in.
The book is beautifully formatted, meticulously edited and free from irritating errors. The writing is pure, comfortable, enhanced by a formidable intellect and an immense fund of historical and general knowledge. Here is a writer who knows her subject, who understands drama and the love of the stage, who is steeped in the history and the social mores of the story’s era. And thus the plot is woven into a rich tapestry of historical fact which gives the whole an innately authentic feel. PG gifts us a novel with a broad sweep, a huge canvas, that sucks the reader into a world that sparkles and glitters despite its post-WWI ravages and the looming threat of Hitler’s insanity. Glynn’s descriptions of Vienna, Prague and the journey from there to Bohemia, with all their strange-sounding and romantic names, are mouth-wateringly vivid and I have determined that here are destinations that I absolutely must visit.
The writing flows easily, speeding the reader effortlessly through the pages yet, modern though the style is, it is redolent of the writing of yesteryear. It is pervaded by a subtle but discernible patina of the late nineteenth century novel, with something, indeed, of the style of Dickens whose work PG Glynn so justly admires. It is a style that is eminently appropriate for the era and theme of The Foreigner.
The Foreigner is wonderful story. It is peopled with many real and fascinating characters. The reader is drawn into the Berger family, into its history, into its rivalries and jealousies, and into the suspense of wondering if Charles is forever gone, wondering which way the evil Ludwig will turn, wondering whether the ever-tantalising love/not love relationship between Otto and Maria will survive and wondering whether or not Otto will have the good sense to flee Austria before he and his family fall victim to the Nazi atrocities that increase daily. PG Glynn is a mistress of suspense or, more accurately, many ‘suspenses’. So often does the story change direction with a slow build to a mini-climax; then another change with another slow climb to…where? Over and over we experience these small mountains while the narrative forges inexorably through the grim horror of World War II and its aftermath of austerity to its conclusion in the early 1960s. This is a great, sprawling saga that crosses countries and continents, that meanders its way through love and hate, that teeters from poverty to riches, from happiness to heartbreak, from blessing to tragedy, from life to living death. The reader’s every emotion is wrung to stretching point. Here are people and lives that will remain in the mind and heart long after the last page is closed.
I suppose I should comment on a couple of minor authorial quirks. In dialogue, a number of the characters tend to deliver lectures rather than simply converse but this is a quirk that does not detract from the story. I believe, too, that some editing of the occasional stage performances might be called for. Instead of giving the reader the full repertoire, it might be more effective to offer only a flavour of what was on offer in the interests of keeping the narrative flowing.
That said, I emphasise again that The Foreigner is a brilliant book that has absolutely no right to be anywhere but the top of the Amazon rankings. Readers will become aware of it eventually and, when they do, The Foreigner will charge into best-sellerdom. A wonderful, many faceted story, brought to us by a very accomplished writer. An absolute must-read for fans of the romance genre.
It was late in the evening when I finished the book I was reading. The next book on my list was The Foreigner by PG Glynn. I thought I’d have a quick peek at it before going to bed, just to see what it might hold for me. Big mistake! I was hooked immediately. So many questions I simply had to know answers to. I did eventually get to bed but it was in the small hours of the morning. PG Glynn has that enviable talent of forcing the reader to keep turning pages until exhaustion sets in.
The book is beautifully formatted, meticulously edited and free from irritating errors. The writing is pure, comfortable, enhanced by a formidable intellect and an immense fund of historical and general knowledge. Here is a writer who knows her subject, who understands drama and the love of the stage, who is steeped in the history and the social mores of the story’s era. And thus the plot is woven into a rich tapestry of historical fact which gives the whole an innately authentic feel. PG gifts us a novel with a broad sweep, a huge canvas, that sucks the reader into a world that sparkles and glitters despite its post-WWI ravages and the looming threat of Hitler’s insanity. Glynn’s descriptions of Vienna, Prague and the journey from there to Bohemia, with all their strange-sounding and romantic names, are mouth-wateringly vivid and I have determined that here are destinations that I absolutely must visit.
The writing flows easily, speeding the reader effortlessly through the pages yet, modern though the style is, it is redolent of the writing of yesteryear. It is pervaded by a subtle but discernible patina of the late nineteenth century novel, with something, indeed, of the style of Dickens whose work PG Glynn so justly admires. It is a style that is eminently appropriate for the era and theme of The Foreigner.
The Foreigner is wonderful story. It is peopled with many real and fascinating characters. The reader is drawn into the Berger family, into its history, into its rivalries and jealousies, and into the suspense of wondering if Charles is forever gone, wondering which way the evil Ludwig will turn, wondering whether the ever-tantalising love/not love relationship between Otto and Maria will survive and wondering whether or not Otto will have the good sense to flee Austria before he and his family fall victim to the Nazi atrocities that increase daily. PG Glynn is a mistress of suspense or, more accurately, many ‘suspenses’. So often does the story change direction with a slow build to a mini-climax; then another change with another slow climb to…where? Over and over we experience these small mountains while the narrative forges inexorably through the grim horror of World War II and its aftermath of austerity to its conclusion in the early 1960s. This is a great, sprawling saga that crosses countries and continents, that meanders its way through love and hate, that teeters from poverty to riches, from happiness to heartbreak, from blessing to tragedy, from life to living death. The reader’s every emotion is wrung to stretching point. Here are people and lives that will remain in the mind and heart long after the last page is closed.
I suppose I should comment on a couple of minor authorial quirks. In dialogue, a number of the characters tend to deliver lectures rather than simply converse but this is a quirk that does not detract from the story. I believe, too, that some editing of the occasional stage performances might be called for. Instead of giving the reader the full repertoire, it might be more effective to offer only a flavour of what was on offer in the interests of keeping the narrative flowing.
That said, I emphasise again that The Foreigner is a brilliant book that has absolutely no right to be anywhere but the top of the Amazon rankings. Readers will become aware of it eventually and, when they do, The Foreigner will charge into best-sellerdom. A wonderful, many faceted story, brought to us by a very accomplished writer. An absolute must-read for fans of the romance genre.
August 16, 2026
I wrote this romantic saga as a labor of love! An explanation for that statement can be found in my blog 'The Foreigner - Who Is He?'
As I wrote, the characters totally took me over until I was living their lives instead of mine. Foreign words came unsolicited into my head that - when I checked - said exactly what I was aiming to say. Facts that I sought often materialized as if by magic. I was helped, without question, by the grandmother whose (fictionalized) story this is.
But she had died by the time I started writing it!
As I wrote, the characters totally took me over until I was living their lives instead of mine. Foreign words came unsolicited into my head that - when I checked - said exactly what I was aiming to say. Facts that I sought often materialized as if by magic. I was helped, without question, by the grandmother whose (fictionalized) story this is.
But she had died by the time I started writing it!
March 19, 2014
this is a family saga set in the 1970s with dark complicated characters and plot twists that will leave you fascinated, intrigued and amused. The love story was great though abit corny and cliche- a repeat of an old age song and not very original and it took away from the book. Other than that, the author's attention to detail and character development makes it worth the read.
January 3, 2014
good story long book but kept me interested the whole time. brought out how families cope with life
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews