Van Zale

Dinah Slade is a young Englishwoman of immense vitality, great sensual power, and fierce ambition. When the handsome and powerful Paul Van Zale commits the imprudence of falling in love with her, her life and desires become intertwined with the fate of his great American banking family. Among the new acquaintances she makes is Paul's wife, with whom, much to Dinah's shock and dismay, Paul manages an almost perfect marriage. The characters' lives are intertwined with such mastery that listeners will be captivated with The Rich Are Different from the very first word until the astonishing climax. "Grippingly readable." "Susan Howatch has surpassed herself. This is a mighty book." "One of the most original novelists writing today." "[Wanda McCaddon] captures the essence of the six first-person narratives comprising the story, to the point of making recognizable each character's voice as related by the others. "

The stunning bestseller about a family divided by a great fortune-and the secret that holds them all captive. Set in the years of sudden prosperity following World War II, in the mansions and boardrooms of the Van Zale family, Sins of the Fathersis the story of a ruthless dynastic struggle to control the Van Zale fortune. From generation to generation, this obsession possesses the rival claimants, eventually destroying their happiness and their lives. When the world of the Van Zales-with its servants and country houses, European summers and Bar Harbor clambakes, polite marriages and discreet affairs-begins to fall apart, we begin to see this glamorous sphere for what it really is: rife with ruthless, power-hungry men, fortune hunters, secret sex, blackmail, and violence.