FROM THE BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF REBECCA ''She wrote exciting plots, she was highly skilled at arousing suspense'' GUARDIAN ''The novel explores incest in a manner that is entirely unexpected for that period'' JUSTINE PICARDIE ''One of the last century''s most original literary talents'' DAILY TELEGRAPH ''His first instinct was to stretch out his hands to the sky. The white clouds seemed so near to him, surely they were easy to hold and to caress, strange-moving things belonging to the wide blue space of heaven . . . '' Julius Levy grows up in a peasant family in a village on the banks of the Seine. A quick-witted urchin caught up in the Franco-Prussian War, he is soon forced by tragedy to escape to Algeria. Once there, he learns the ease of swindling, the rewards of love affairs and the value of secrecy. Before he''s twenty, Julius is in London, where his empire-building begins in earnest and he becomes a rich and very ruthless man. Throughout his life, Julius is driven by a hunger for power, caring nothing for others until his daughter, Gabriel, is born. Julius'' attachment to her will become his strongest bond and his greatest weakness.

Autorentext

Daphne Du Maurier

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FROM THE BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF REBECCA

'This is a tale of such emotional brutality and moral dislocation that it feels as if it's been wrought by a master, someone who has seen, known and grappled with the world' JULIE MYERSON

*He was his own god, he, Julius Lévy, and the power he made for himself. He was beholden to nothing and to no one and his destiny belonged to him.

• Julius Lévy learns early in life that kindness is a weakness and love is possession. He escapes his impoverished upbringing on the banks of the Seine, swindles his way through sun-drenched Algiers, and lands in London as a young man, ready to make his fortune.

Hungry for power, Julius becomes one of the wealthiest men in the country. Rich and ruthless, he cares for no one - until one day, he notices his daughter as if for the first time. From that moment on, she becomes his one weakness, and his suffocating obsession.

'Amazingly well-done, powerful' KIRKUS REVIEWS

'A writer of fearless originality' GUARDIAN

'One of the last century's most original literary talents' DAILY TELEGRAPH