This fun mystery and satire is set in ritzy Palm Beach, Florida; where even the pets are draped in jewels. The book is inspired by the author’s bizarre experiences panhandling for charity amongst the 1%.
Blurb
Ever wonder what REALLY goes on at secretive and posh enclaves such as the Palm Beach Country Club, which was ground zero for the Madoff scandal? The customs, the culture, the back stabbing?
Publishers Weekly, bookstagrammers, book bloggers, Facebook and Instagram book club members, newspapers, magazines and a Top Amazon Reviewer highly recommend this fictional account of the restless and the ruthless. Go behind closed doors and gated communities to find out why.
The plot: after a $10 million donor is found dead in an oceanfront pool; a charity fund raiser stops panhandling amongst the elite, and begins investigating fraud, mayhem, murder and relentless social climbing. In that order.
Author Bio
Sharon Geltner’s career has spanned social work, social climbing, social media and more recently, social distancing.
She was a Washington D. C. reporter, including interning with Jack Anderson, a notorious muckraking columnist, whose exposes ran nationwide. She also wrote for celebrity authors and traveled to exotic places on assignment, including Israel, Egypt, Lapland and Singapore.
Geltner came to Boca Raton, Florida to write for the Knight-Ridder Tribune News, a national newspaper chain. She was briefly a war correspondent in the Mideast. However, the “So Boca” battle royal began when she revealed that the town’s biggest philanthropist, who claimed to be a “countess,” had bought her illegitimate title, from a con man.
The “countess” retaliated. She announced she would cut local charities out of her $22 million will, unless Geltner and her editor left town. This high society “banned from Boca” edict appeared as far away as Frankfurt and Paris. Geltner won a national award for “Outstanding News Reporting” from the Society of Professional Journalists.
Later, she publicized nonprofits, especially social service agencies, with national coverage in the Wall Street Journal, MSNBC, etc. One client was a Top 10 CNN Hero, honored by the Obama White House and Oprah Winfrey, who received a free, $9 million Super Bowl ad from Microsoft. Geltner also raised money at the Four Seasons in Palm Beach, with televised fashion shows, including door prizes drummed up from the Worth Avenue Ferragamo.
Her pro bono campaigns include a “Barrier-Free Park” in Boynton Beach, Florida for people with disabilities and launching the “National Net Needs News Day,” a journalism appreciation campaign.
Geltner teaches, consults and owns the award-winning, multimedia agency, Froogle PR. She is at work on the novel, RED, WHITE & ROYAL BLUE, a Washington thriller spanning 60 years and three continents.