Heiress by Susan May Warren

Heiress - Book One of Daughters of Fortune Series. Susan May Warren. Summerside Press. August 2011. 380 pp. paperback. ISBN #: 9781609362188.

Who am I? When one has been raised in the wealthy society of the Gilded Age in the late 1800s, one has a book of rules, Godey's Lady's Book, to scrupulously follow if one would be successful as a debutante and respected society female. Esme and Jinx Price have opposite dreams, the former to become a famous journalist and the latter to be the envy of her social class after making a prize marriage with a wealthy gentleman. Indeed, Jinx little by little is falling in love with the man Esme is supposed to marry, Foster Worth, a genuine cad for sure!

Esme, however, has a secret, a butler's son who loves her and wants to marry her; he even nurtures her passion for journalism by having her stories submitted as "Anonymous Writer" to Esme's father's newspaper, The New York Chronicle. Jinx and her mother are responsible for the most outrageous machination, designed to save the family's fortune but that truly seems to bring ruin to all involved.

Esme will lose one love and escape to Silver City, Montana where she will start her own small newspaper, fight for the causes she believes in, and meet a man who will briefly love her in the truest sense of the word but not until she suffers a great deal of poverty and prejudice because she is a woman working in a man's trade. Jinx, on the other hand, gets her man but the relationship turns out to be a dark nightmare, exacerbated by the presence of one family member she shares a very dark secret with, as well as a passionate love!

Heiress is full of dreams, adventures, disappointments, passion, secrets, battles, bloodshed, fistfights, murder, and more that make the pages fly. Words of faith begin to resonate in all of these characters, offering a peace that passes the understanding of most people restlessly pursuing their devastating and chaotic goals, conforming without thinking or feeling about a larger purpose for living.

Susan May Warren's first novel in this Daughters of Fortune series is guaranteed to leave you wanting to read the next book in the series soon. She knows how to spin a multilevel plot with varied characters, together with constant changes that surprise the reader as well as the characters. Heiress is peaceful, frantic, passionate, and inspiring - a superb combination, Ms. Warren!