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Published Mar 2014
400 pages
Genre: Literary Fiction
Publication Information
When Ross Buchanan is forced to resign as chairman of the Barrington Shipping Company, Emma Clifton wants to replace him. But Don Pedro Martinez intends to install his puppet, the egregious Major Alex Fisher, in order to destroy the Barrington family firm just as the company plans to build its new luxury liner, the MV Buckingham.
Back in London, Harry and Emma's adopted daughter wins a scholarship to the Slade Academy of Art where she falls in love with a fellow student, Clive Bingham, who asks her to marry him. Both families are delighted until Priscilla Bingham, Jessica's future mother-in-law, has a visit from an old friend, Lady Virginia Fenwick, who drops her particular brand of poison into the wedding chalice.
Then, without warning, Cedric Hardcastle, a bluff Yorkshireman who no one has come across before, takes his place on the board of Barringtons. This causes an upheaval that none of them could have anticipated, and will change the lives of every member of the Clifton and Barrington families. Hardcastle's first decision is who to support to become the next chairman of the board: Emma Clifton or Major Alex Fisher? And with that decision, the story takes yet another twist that will keep you on the edge of your seat.
Be Careful What You Wish For showcases the master storyteller's talent as never before – when the Clifton and Barrington families march forward into the sixties, in this epic tale of love, revenge, ambition and betrayal.
"Reaction to the Clifton Chronicles has not been unanimously positive—Archer has his detractors—but if you like multivolume family sagas, it would be hard to find a contemporary example as ambitious and entertaining as this one." - Booklist
"Archer knows how to dole out tiny crumbs of suspense right up to the last page, which ends with…a really excellent cliffhanger." - Washington Post
"The most gripping of the Clifton Chronicles yet. The tension and the build-up are terrific, and kept this reader on the edge of his seat." - The Observer (UK)
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Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Jeffrey Archer was born in London and brought up in Somerset. He was educated at Wellington School, and Brasenose College, Oxford, where he was President of the University Athletics Club, and went on to run the 100 yards in 9.6 seconds for Great Britain in 1966.
After leaving Oxford he was elected to the Greater London Council, and three years later at the age of 29, he became Member of Parliament for Louth. After five years in the Commons and a promising political career ahead of him, he invested heavily in a Canadian company called Aquablast, on the advice of the Bank of Boston. The company went into liquidation, and three directors were later sent to jail for fraud. Left with debts of £427,727, and on the brink of bankruptcy, he resigned from the House of Commons.
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