Sons of Fortune

By Malcolm MacDonald

Book Overview

The gripping third novel in the classic Stevenson family saga from epic master Malcolm Macdonald After a dizzying rise filled with ambition and passion, the Stevensons are now one of the richest families in the world. John, recalling his lowly past, wants his children to obey to the letter and never put a foot wrong. But his four eldest children, Young John, Winifred, Caspar, and Abigail, have ideas of their own. As they test the temptations of the adult world, the lure of profit and pleasure brings the risk of disaster and disgrace, and the tensions threaten to pull the family apart... The third novel in the classic Stevenson family saga, Sons of Fortune is the epic story of a Victorian family at the height of wealth and power, and the choices and chances that pose the ultimate risk to their happiness and bond. "Love and conflict...social history as a living force...an unfolding panorama of Dickensian power."- Cleveland Plain Dealer "Plum-rich...in the best family saga tradition."- Publishers Weekly "Intense drama...the most achieved novel the author has written."-Spring field News and Leader

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1402236107
• ISBN13: 9781402236105
• Release Date: September 2010
• Publisher: Sourcebooks Landmark
• Length: 512 Pages
• Weight: 1.40 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.3" x 1.3" x 6.0"

Customer Reviews

What Price Greatness?

This third installment in the tales of the Stevenson family covers 1854 to 1863 and brings a climax to the saga that proved for this reader the most enthralling of all. The sobriquet "Lord John" takes on a new and literal meaning as it's wearer is created Baron Cleveland after near suicidal service to the Empire during the Crimean War. Thus the Stevensons join the ranks of nobility, but as John and Nora rise to new social heights, troubles magnify. Strong, loving, noble John ceases to exist and his name and person are posessed by an impostor who while able to continue as a roaringly successful businessman takes up a navvy's sledgehammer anew only to apply it to his family relationships. One is seized with the desire to trot out to one of the Stevenson works, pick up a vagabond brick and aim it at John's head in hopes that the impact will resettle his brain back into it's proper connections. If Nora's heart was not completely broken by his betrayal, mine was, and it is up to her, while enduring the greatest mental torments of her life, to steady the helm of the family until the storm somehow passes. The focus shifts to the rising generation of Stevensons. John Junior, nicknamed "Boy", and Caspar undergo the forming experiences that will shape their lives--school, mentors, love, tests of ability, coming of age while father John heavy-handedly decrees courses for them and their eldest sister Winifred that would surely mean profound misery for them all. What's a mother to do? Should she stand by and out of her love for John allow him to make a series of colossal and devastating errors, or should she stand in his way and once again avert disaster, both personal and financial, for iron and steel made the Stevensons, in more sense than one. MacDonald introduces us to the "public" school and shows us an excercise in entrepreneurship, as well as riots in New York caused by unpopular aspects of the Civil War.