Book description
'Here she is!' Alexander was shouting. 'This is your new
daughter-in-law! An Irish peasant . . . An illegitimate . . . illiterate
. . . Irish peasant!' 1860: Alexander Karolyis, only son of the
wealthiest entrepreneur in New York, spends most of his adolescence
battling within his father. Nothing he does is considered correct. The
girl he loves is highly unsuitable, his behaviour is unruly, and, in a
last-ditch attempt to marry him off to a suitable Protestant aristocrat,
his father packs him off on a European Grand Tour. And while Alexander
was feuding with his father, beautiful Maura Sullivan, illegitimate
daughter of an Irish peasant, was befriended and raised by Lord Clanmar
on his idyllic Ballacharnish estate. Only when he died unexpectedly did
Maura's world crash about her ears. His will left her little option but
to leave Ireland and start a new life in New York. It was there, on the
emigrant boat to America, that Maura and Alexander met for the first
time - she in the poverty of the steerage section, he as a privileged
first-class passenger. It was there that Maura fell overwhelmingly in
love with the spoilt young aristocrat whose heart was full of hatred for
his father. And it was only when it was too late that Maura realised she
had been used as a weapon of revenge and must enter the world of New
York society who had nothing but contempt for the new bride of the
Karolyis family.
