In Hyland's sprawling debut, sparkling with Gossip Girl
sizzle and Barbara Taylor Bradford melodrama, 15-year-old Irish lassie Caitlin O'Dwyer learns the shocking truth about her father's identity from her dying mother: a London retail magnate named William Melville, who broke things off before Caitlin's birth. Unsurprisingly, the successful businessman arrives in Valleymount, County Wicklow, for the funeral and informs Caitlin that she's moving in with his family at their posh Somerset estate. Besides problems fitting in with William's wife, Isabelle, and their two pampered daughters, Elizabeth and Amber, Caitlin is drugged and gang-raped at her new school. Caitlin fails to press charges and eventually graduates to study fashion in Paris and become an award-winning New York designer. Meanwhile, Elizabeth grows into a driven business whiz, and Amber becomes an unstable supermodel. Hyland juggles the sisters' fortunes smoothly, reconnecting them convincingly, but occasionally overextends, as in a subplot involving William's jealous brother. (May)
