A Woman of Our Times — Rosie Thomas

A woman who dreams of everything and more... a woman who wants to have it all... But Harriet Peacock has everything. What more could she possibly want?

She has come a long way. From small shopkeeper and betrayed wife, she has made herself the City's darling, her name linked in gossip columns with film star Caspar Jensen. She has come a long way from Simon Archer, the man who invented a brilliantly simple game of chance and skill in a prison camp forty years ago, a game that is the foundation of Harriet's business empire. She has come a long way from her family, friends and former lovers.

Driven by a shattered marriage to find answers in her past, Harriet Peacock seeks to make peace with her mother - and to find the father she never knew. Her search leads her to a man who changes her life forever with a gift born of tragedy...a gift that provides the means to increadible wealth and power.

But becoming an overnight sensation in business brings unexpected, devastating crisis. It strains treasured friendships; it catapults her into a shocking, ecstatic affair with a younger man. Most disturbing of all, Harriet's fierce ambition entrangles her benefactor in a web of heartbreak and tragedy.

Only when she reaches the pinnacle of success does Harriet understand how easily she can lose it all. But when things start going wrong, Harriet finds that in love, as in the game, the quickest way to a goal can be the riskiest... A cunning corporate raid, a bitter plan of vengeance, and a mother's interference sweep Harriet towards a climax of astonishing revelations and painful truths.