Twilight Manor

By Gwen Austin

Andi Lane, activity director at Twilight Manor, faces tremendous obstacles in her efforts to enhance the quality of life for nursing home residents. The more she succeeds, the more complications occur...in her life and in the residents'. In Twilight Manor, we learn that to survive, both figuratively and literally, human beings must become involved.

Gwen Austin was born in Brooklyn, NY in 1940, and raised in Queens Village, NY and New Canaan, CT. She graduated from Ohio Wesleyan University, Delaware, OH in 1962 with a BA degree, as a psychology major. The start of her career in recreation and therapeutic recreation began in 1962 when she was hired by the American National Red Cross and stationed at Madigan General Hospital (now Madigan Army Medical Center).

In 1963 Gwen married Gary Turbyfield, a US Army serviceman who later transferred to the US Air Force.

From 1967-1968 Gwen served with the American Red Cross at the 12th Evacuation Hospital in Cu Chi, Vietnam, while her husband was stationed in Labrador.

Military family life is a life of travel, and Gwen found positions whenever and where ever she could. These included jobs as activity director in skilled nursing facilities in Tacoma, WA and in Sumter, SC.

After Gary's retirement from the Air Force, they moved to their chosen home in Tacoma, WA. Within fourteen months, Gary was dead of a heart attack.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1583482288
• ISBN13: 9781583482285
• Release Date: May 1999
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Length: 180 Pages
• Weight: 0.60 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 6.0" x 9.1"

Customer Reviews

QUICK READ, TWIST AND TURNS, INTRIGUE

I found this novel to be filled with the unexpected. The characters are very believable. The situation which occurs is very realistic. However, Gwen is able to add an unexpected twist which leaves the reader saying "ah, I didn't see that coming!" Just when you thought you solved it, guess again. Her main character Andi deals with her own real life drama, and her desire to help those who need her most. This is a great book. I look forward to Gwen's next novel.

Wow! A plot like this came from a VERY creative mind!

Murder for profit or pleasure isn't one of my favorite topics, but once I got into this one I couldn't put it down, so I read it straight through and came away feeling very satisfied that justice had been served. Gwen did a magnificent job of telling the story chronologically and with no more words than absolutely necessary she got the atmosphere, the setting and the characters described well enough to leave the reader's imagination free to try to rush ahead to find the method, motive and opportunity. The pattern of the killer of helpless residents of a nursing home was pieced together one incident at a time, slowly revealing the identity of the murderer at the very end. I applaud the author for managing the slowly, "timed release" of critical information and I challenge the readers to attempt to guess the identity of the villain and most of all, the motive for such a dastardly, heinous behavior. It'll sure make the hair on the back of your neck stand up! Mike Danford treernch@gte.net

A vivid portrayal of a gripping mystery!

The trials and tribulations of the mundane operations of a nursing home is woven with the deep-seated relationships and vivid imagery of a carefully orchestrated mystery unfolding before our eyes. Great job!

I love mysteries and this is a good one.

Gwen Austin has an excellent handle on life in a nursing home. Her characterizations speak of real living people. She keeps you wondering right to the end. I will be waiting for more Andi stories, preferably mysteries.

In the author's own words---

TWILIGHT MANOR is fiction. Characters, settings and activities are created purely from my imagination. However, residents, staff and health care facilities I have known in my ten years of working in the therapeutic recreation field, have given me ideas to be embellished, exaggerated, twisted or enhanced during my creative endeavors. Through Twilight Manor's activity director, Andi Lane, readers learn about daily life in an apparently well-run nursing home until--. Andi faces tremendous obstacles in her efforts to enhance the quality of life for nursing home residents. The more she succeeds, the more complications occur--in the lives of the residents, and even in her own life. A major theme of TWILIGHT MANOR is that for any of us to survive, both figuratively and literally, we must be involved with others. I hope you have as much entertainment reading it, as I did in writing it. Please feel free to e-mail me your comments or questions. The author of TWILIGHT MANOR, Gwen Austin