HEIRESSES: THE LIVES OF THE BILLION DOLLAR BABIES (PB)

This book explores the phenomenon of the heiress from the seventeenth to the twenty-first centuries. Money should mean power and opportunity, but in the hands of these women it was so often absent. Why did so many struggle to live with so much? Did the removal of need render their life meaningless? With her signature intelligence and wit, Laura Thompson tells these women's stories - glittering and fascinating but often sad and scandalous - on a gripping search for the answer.