The author, a masterful storyteller, weaves an intriguing and mesmerizing tapestry of events that surround the wealthy Pilaster banking family in the latter part of nineteenth century England. Its panoramic sweep will hold the reader in its thrall. This complex story tells of the ebb and flow of their personal fortunes and the personalities that are to profoundly affect them, for better or worse.
Augusta Pilaster is the scheming, socially conscious, self-appointed matriarch of the family. She is a woman who will stop at nothing to ensure that her reckless and easily manipulated husband, Joseph, and their indolent, dissolute, and lackluster son, Edward, will get and retain control of the Pilaster banking enterprise. Her Machiavellian machinations, however, will eventually trigger the downfall of the family's fortune.
Hugh Pilaster, Augusta's nephew by marriage, is the Pilaster who has the brains and work ethic to take the Pilaster banking fortunes to a new level. His Achilles heel is that he seems destined to be attracted to working class women, a chink in his armor that Augusta Pilaster uses to her and her immediate family's advantage. He, too, is Augusta Pilaster's unwitting pawn, until the day of reckoning comes.
Micky Miranda is the romantically handsome scion of a South American despot. Micky attended an exclusive school with Edward and Hugh Pilaster, when they were young. While there, tragedy struck when a mysterious swimming accident took the lives of one of their friends, an event that was to shadow their lives in ways no one could have imagined. Micky Miranda would eventually enter into a web of complicity with Augusta Pilaster that would impact on the fortunes of both the Miranda and Pilaster families.
This book takes the reader through all strata of English society, from the drawing rooms of the upper classes and nobility to the exclusive men's clubs and brothels that cater to exotic appetites. It is a totally engrossing and absorbing tale of love, hatred, and treachery that spans three decades. It is a story that the reader will thoroughly enjoy, as the book is terrific, a captivating and thoroughly entertaining
work of well written fiction. Bravo!
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