A New York Times–bestselling author brings World War I–era England to vibrant life in this romantic saga in which destiny turns a lady’s maid into a lady.
It is spring of 1915. Spoiled twenty-one-year-old Clemency Jervis and her Fifth Avenue entourage board the Lusitania, bound for England, where Clemency is to marry the dashing Lord Hugo Hazzard of Loburn. A few miles off the Irish coast, the ship is torpedoed by the Germans. One of the few survivors is Clemency’s maid, Hetty Brown, a young woman who resembles her mistress. Surprised to be taken for Clemency, Hetty carries out a daring deception that makes her a nobleman’s wife and the mistress of a magnificent country estate, despite doubts about her among some in her aristocratic new set. Suspenseful, surprising, and heartwarming, The American Heiress is a tale of love, war, and the far-reaching, often-unexpected consequences of our actions.
Dorothy Eden (1912–1982) was the internationally acclaimed author of more than forty bestselling Gothic, romantic suspense, and historical novels. Born in New Zealand, where she attended school and worked as a legal secretary, she moved to London in 1954 and continued to write prolifically. Eden’s novels are known for their suspenseful, spellbinding plots, finely drawn characters, authentic historical detail, and often a hint of spookiness.