Famed presidential advisor Stephen Upton has suffered a stroke, and his
four very different daughters gather in his perfectly appointed mansion
outside Boston to await his death or recovery.
Elizabeth, cold and calculating, fights hard for every success and pays
a high price; beautiful Mary has always needed a man to support her
tastes, but time is catching up with her; Alex can't remember her
childhood and wants to know why; and Ronnie, illegitimate and proud,
refuses to acknowledge her feelings for the man they all love and hate.
In the weeks to come, they will learn one another's terrible secrets,
and the astonishing truth about the life they might have shared.
Once again, Marilyn French has written an extraordinary novel of our
times - a novel of family love and resentment, of sisterhood and
fatherhood, of acceptance and rejection and the search for peace.