If it came down simply to her successful writing career and foundational work in the field of ghost research, I would find plenty of reasons to admire my friend Nicole Strickland. She is an exceptional person whose drive, laser-focused energy, and gift of gliding prose justify her booming popularity. But there is another trait Nicole possesses, which sets her apart from the crowd of paranormal investigators, and that is her passionate affinity for places and people whose stories echo history across time and oceans.
Just absorb her works on the legendary RMS Queen Mary, and you will come as close to time travel as you are likely to experience. The Haunted Queen of the Seas, The Spirited Queen Mary: Her Haunted Legend, and RMS Queen Mary: Voices from Her Voyages all create a smartly readable look at seafaring opulence during peacetime and an urgent re-purposing of a world-class luxury ship during the Second World War.
Meticulously researched and studded with narratives that read like love letters to a legend in repose, Strickland’s works allow the departed souls of the ship’s crew, guests and military personnel take readers page by page on a brisk cruise through the various eras of the Queen Mary as “a prodigy of the seas,” to borrow the author’s phrase for a vessel still shimmering today in retirement at California’s Long Beach Harbor. The big boat endures as elegantly as ever, but apparently is stacked from hull to upper decks with an eerie historical residue told in captured whispers by a host of restive voices. In their mirth and mourning, anger and angst, these highly distinct spirits noisily persist in a safe harbor, united in devotion to a glorious past.
