A saga of power, greed, and illicit love set in the Gilded Age of upstate New York. Jerome Lindsey and his foster brother, Alfred, couldn't be more different. The son of a wealthy banker in upstate New York, Jerome leaves home for a life of extravagance and adventure, seducing countless women along the way. Meanwhile, Alfred becomes an executive at the family bank and his adoptive father's heir apparent. After his wife dies, Alfred shows little interest in remarrying-until he meets Amalie Maxwell, the ravishing and headstrong daughter of a tenant farmer. Fearing that his inheritance is at stake, Jerome returns home to expose Amalie as a shameless gold digger. But the more he schemes against her, the closer he's drawn to her. Now, Jerome and Amalie will discover the thin line between love and hate-and that a moment of passion can have a lifetime's worth of consequences. A mesmerizing tale of forbidden desire and a brilliant portrait of small-town America during the Reconstruction Era.
"500 pages so solidly satisfying, so pulsing with life, that one resents their coming to an end."A gift of storytelling which is all too rare."
The Philadelphia Inquirer
"A gift of storytelling which is all too rare."
Kirkus Review Praise for Taylor Caldwell
"Taylor Caldwell spins a yarn with force. . . . Her sense of timing and her ability to keep even the most alert reader guessing is something readers don't find very often." -Hartford Courant "Taylor Caldwell never falters when it comes to storytelling."
