National Network for Equitable Library Service

An American youth in 1930s Mexico City, Harrison Shepherd works for artists Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera and their houseguest, Russian exile Lev Trotsky. Returning to the United States, Shepherd becomes a bestselling author, but his past associations raise suspicions during McCarthy's Communist witch hunt. Some strong language. Bestseller. 2009.

This epistolary novel, an early complete work that the author never submitted for publication, describes the schemes of the main character—the widowed Lady Susan—as she seeks a new husband for herself, and one for her daughter. Although the theme, together with the focus on character study and moral issues, is close to Austen's published work (Sense and Sensibility was also originally written in the epistolary form), its outlook is very different, and the heroine has few parallels in 19th-century literature.