Misfortune's Daughters

Joan Collins's powerful new novel is a highly charged family saga rich with sibling rivalry, insatiable ambition, eroticism, and addiction Venetia and Atlanta are the privileged daughters of the ravishing Hollywood movie star Laura Marlowe and her dashing Greek billionaire husband. Nicholas Stephanopolis. Raised on their father's private Greek island, the sisters, opposite from one another, are the inheritors not only of incalculable wealth, but of a family legacy marked by betrayal and tragedy. Misfortune's Daughters is the gripping story that traces the sisters' desperate struggles to find their own individual identities in a world of temptation, jealousy, and deception. Born with her mother's stunning beauty, Venetia, always her father's favorite, is used to getting whatever her heart desires: couture clothes, jewels, sports cars, and men-many men. But, her good fortune fails her when she must confront harsh realities as her depraved lifestyle leads her to drug addiction. By contrast, plain, shy Atlanta, unloved yet highly intelligent, escapes her unhappy childhood, totally transforming her looks and boosting her self-esteem by reinventing herself. She pursues a high-flying career in magazine publishing, and becomes involved with a stream of rich, famous, yet often duplicitous men. The sisters' fierce rivalry reaches a dramatic climax when their father, a cold and cruel tycoon who controls and dominates his women as ruthlessly as he does his international business empire, gives an ultimatum. Finding themselves suddenly pulled back into the crippling Stephanopolis family shadow, Venetia and Atlanta are forced to compete with each other for a terrible legacy that threatens to undermine their hard-won freedom and control the rest of their lives. Sweeping across several generations and set in New York, Paris, Hollywood, the Riviera, and Greece, Misfortune's Daughters is an irresistible, page-turning tale that reveals the glittering cutthroat life of show business and the gritty competitiveness of journalism. Joan Collins plunges the reader into a glamorous world infused with intrigue and power, revealing dark and shocking secrets as two sisters vie to break free from their family's past and become independent women in their own right.Collins, Joan is the author of 'Misfortune's Daughters', published 2005 under ISBN 9781401300685 and ISBN 1401300685.