Sirens of the Sea

Summary

Aegean breakers hurl a cradle ashore like Poseidon’s foundling gift; the infant becomes Lorelei Stanhope, a porcelain enigma reared amid marble colonnades and oil-money myth. Eighteen summers later she summons classmates to her clifftop estate—sun-drenched bacchanalia of jazz-age youth—where salt-spray meets champagne. Julie, emerald-eyed and venom-lipped, covets Lorelei’s grace the way sailors crave mermaids. Into this Eden drift Gerald Waldron, yacht-borne dandy with a smile like cracked porcelain, and Hartley Royce, social mountaineer whose ambition sports spurs. Both men drown in Lorelei’s siren gaze; Julie, spurned, allies with Hartley to unpick the lovers with whispers of harbor-strumpet sweethearts. Rumor corrodes trust; Lorelei, hearing Gerald’s roving legend, flees over moonlit limestone, plummets into the wine-dark void. Gerald combs lava-lit grottos, grief-crazed, until he discovers her secret sea-cave refuge. Together they flee Old World jealousy for New World anonymity, sails swallowed by Atlantic fog.

Synopsis

During a raging storm, a baby is washed up on shore on an island in Greece and is adopted by the wealthy Stanhopes, who name her Lorelei. Eighteen years later, Lorelei invites her school friends to spend their vacation at her villa. One of her guests, Julie, is insanely jealous of her. One day, disenchanted society fop Gerald Waldron sails by on his yacht, accompanied by his social-climbing friend Hartley Royce. Seeing Lorelei and her friends swimming, they decide to go ashore. Both Gerald and Hartley fall in love with Lorelei, and Julie rages, finding herself relegated to Hartley. Together Hartley and Julie plot to separate the lovers. Informed by Hartley that her lover has a sweetheart in every port, Lorelei becomes wary of Gerald, and when he follows her one night, she jumps from a cliff to escape his advances. Frantic, Gerald searches the grottos for her, and when he eventually finds her, the two sail for America together.