Tara Hyland – författare

A FASHION DYNASTY AT WARWilliam Melville’s daughters are heiresses to the world’s most exclusive fashion dynasty. Beautiful and rich, they are envied by all. But behind the glittering façade of their lives, each girl hides a dark secret that threatens to tear their family apart.Smart, ambitious Elizabeth knows how to manipulate every man she meets, except the one who counts: her father.Gentle, naïve Caitlin, the illegitimate child, struggles to fit into a world of privilege while staying true to herself.Stunning, spoiled Amber, the party girl with a weakness for bad boys; more fragile than anyone realizes.As each of them seeks to carve out her own destiny, Elizabeth, Caitlin, and Amber face difficult choices, which will take them in wildly different directions. But as old wounds resurface and threaten to destroy the foundations of the Melville empire, their paths will cross again. Because the simple truth is that, no matter how far you go, you cannot escape the claims of family.

Katie O'Dwyer flees the constraints of her rural Irish upbringing for the excitement of London. Here she meets and falls in love with William Melville: the imposing head of the Melville fashion dynasty. Elusive, charismatic; married. Their affair is brief but passionate. Katie conceives a child. Fifteen years later she succumbs to cancer; and her beautiful daughter Caitlin finds that she must go to live in England, with the father she has never met. Her half-sisters - cold, high-achieving Elizabeth, and spoilt princess Amber - react to her with hostility; while their elegant mother is too high on valium to notice what goes on. Reeling from her mother's death, unable to fit into this alien world, Caitlin is sent away to boarding school. It is here that something happens which is so awful, so brutalizing, it will change Caitlin forever . . . Over the next fifteen years the sisters' lives will take them in very different directions. Golden girl Elizabeth will enter the family business, hoping to fulfil her destiny of taking the helm; longing above all for her father's approval. But Caitlin remains William's favourite; even though she has rejected his love and his money. In fact, Caitlin's success as a high-fashion designer has been achieved entirely on her own terms. Amber, meanwhile, is too beautiful for her own good. Spoilt but unloved, she craves attention: this makes her easy pickings for predatory men. But the sisters' paths will continue to cross. Because the simple truth is that, no matter how far you go, you cannot escape the claims of family.

From the poverty of post-war England and Ireland to the glitz and glamour of Hollywood's golden age, a beautiful, sweeping family drama that illustrates that the bonds between a mother and daughter can never be broken. An unwanted child: San Francisco, 1958. On a dark December night, a baby girl is left at the Sisters of Charity Orphanage on Telegraph Hill. A mysterious suicide: One year later, movie star Frances Fitzgerald takes her own life. Her husband, wealthy businessman Maximilian Stanhope, is rumoured to know more about her death than he's letting on, but nothing is ever proved. A terrible secret: What is the connection between these two events? That's what Frances's daughter, Cara, wants to find out. Abandoned by her mother when she is just seven years old, her childhood is filled with hardship and loss. As a young woman she finds professional success as a journalist, but on a personal level, she still struggles to trust those around her. Soon Cara becomes convinced that uncovering the secret behind her mother's death is the only way to lay her demons to rest, but learning the truth may end up tearing her apart.