Crimson Author:Shirley Conran Crimson is the colour of passion, the colour of rage, the colour of blood... — Elinor O'Dare's world is built on romance, both real and fictional. Not only a successful and wealthy author of romance novels, she also has found true love in her own life in handsome, dashing Billy O'Dare, whom she met when he was an ace World War I Pilot and she a n... more »urse.
Billy's untimely death, however, leaves an emptiness in Elinor's life, a void she tries to fill by turning her attention to her three beautiful granddaughters, orphaned when their young parents died in London's bombing blitz during World War II.
Raising them with care and deep affection, Elinor provides them with lives of ease and privilege, preparing them to be gracious wives of powerful men.
Her Girls are:
Clare, smart and headstrong, who is not fully convinced that love and marriage are all that life offers; nonetheless, she weds the first man she sleeps with, a successful Hollywood filmmaker.
Annabel, the family beauty, quickly finds success as a model in New York City; almost as quickly, she finds a man to love and marry.
Only Miranda, independent and feisty, the founder of her own cosmetics firm, resists the temptation to rush headlong into marriage, opting instead to enjoy the freedom available to a young woman in London during the swinging '60s.
But when Elinor turns to Adam Grant, lawyer and handsome son of a valued family friend, to plan for her future and that of her granddaughters as well, she unwittingly sets in motion a plot more devious, more devastating than any fiction she could ever have dreamed up--a scheme that almost costs her her life, and that threatens to destroy the happiness and security of Clare, Annabel, and Miranda.« less