"FRENCH'S MOST FOCUSED, DARING, AND POWERFUL NOVEL."--New WomanFamed 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."SHOULD STRIKE A CHORD WITH EVERY WOMAN who is willing to think honestly about the place of femaleness in the world."--Chicago Tribune
