Fortune is a Woman - Hardcover

Adler, Elizabeth

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 038530529X ISBN 13: 9780385305297

Publisher: Delacorte Press, 1992

Synopsis

The three met in the aftermath of San Francisco's devastating 1906 earthquake--the Mandarin Lai Tsin, a runaway American heiress, and a young Englishwoman. Against all odds they made their dreams come true, building one of the world's largest trading companies and most luxurious hotels... They had only each other--and bloody secrets to bury even as they rose to dizzying heights, wary of love yet vulnerable to passion in its most dangerous forms... The Mandarin would pass his multi-billion-dollar empire only to the women in the Lai Tsin dynasty--along with one last devastating truth....

Sweeping from the turn of the century through the 1960's, from the Orient to San Francisco and New York, Elizabeth Adler has written a magnificent novel of new wealth and old privilege, family passions and secret shame, of women surviving, triumphant, in the riveting saga of romantic intrigue.
From the Paperback edition.

About this title

About the Author:

Elizabeth Adler is the internationally acclaimed bestselling author of many novels, including Sooner or Later, Now or Never, The Secret of the Villa Mimosa, All or Nothing, and Fortune Is a Woman.

From Kirkus Reviews:

Opium dream for shopgirls, without a pinch of grit in its 448 pages; by the author of such glitzy joys as The Property of a Lady (1990) and The Rich Shall Inherit (1989). Plot hippity-hops back and forth over a century of ties between San Francisco and Hong Kong, beginning in 1937 when mandarin Lai Tsin--San Francisco's ``most mysterious, most notorious, and richest man,'' and ``grandfather'' of Lysandra Lai Tsin, who is the illegitimate daughter of Francie Harrison--dies and leaves baby Lysandra a personal fortune of $300 million (in pre-WW II dollars), plus ownership (as taipan) of Lai Tsin Corporation, a trading company worth $900 million and based in Hong Kong. Which is nice--taxwise--for six-year-old Lysandra. Francesca, her mother, is named head of the company until Lysandra turns 18. At this time, in 1937, Francie's best friend is ex-Yorkshirewoman Annie Aysgarth, who has risen from poverty and is now president of Aysgarth Hotels International, a subsidiary of Lai Tsin Corp. Francie and Annie met during the San Francisco earthquake, during which Annie's lost brother Josh died--but not before impregnating Francie with Oliver. In 1906, Francie and Annie brought the poor coolie-gambler Lai Tsin great luck at poker, and he repays by taking them into his new and vastly expanding import-export business. Later, Francie has Lysandra out of wedlock with Buck Wingate, a three-time senator from California whose imperially snobbish wife Maryanne thinks he should run for president. However, Francie's horrible brother Harry, a distraught multimillionaire caught in the Depression, has the hots for Maryanne, who kills him when he starts to rape her, which leads to Buck and Francie's affair being exposed and Buck resigning his office. Then Lysandra comes of age and we discover Lai Tsin's deepest secret, that he's actually.... Never touches earth for a second. -- Copyright ©1991, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

About this edition

• Publisher: Delacorte Press
• Publication date: 1992
• ISBN 10: 038530529X
• ISBN 13: 9780385305297
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 434