In 1928 New York City, a young girl named Samantha White is sent away by her cold stepmother, only to return after the stock market has crashed to find her father gone and her ruthless stepmother after her inheritance.

In this deeply personal memoir, the ultimate It Girl shares, for the first time, the hidden history that traumatized and defined her and how she rose above a series of heart-wrenching challenges to find healing, lasting love, and a life of meaning and purpose.

Thompson examines the lives of heiresses throughout history and discovers the often tragic truth beneath the gilded surface. Before the 20th century a wife's inheritance was the property of her husband, making her vulnerable to kidnap, forced marriages, even confinement in an asylum. And in modern times, heiresses fell victim to fortune-hunters who squandered their millions. In discussing their lives, Thompson also tells a bigger story about how all...

"A deliciously told group biography of the young, rich, American heiresses who married impoverished, British gentry at the turn of the twentieth century - the real women who inspired Downton Abbey. Towards the end of the nineteenth century and for the first few years of the twentieth, a strange invasion took place in Britain. The citadel of power, privilege and breeding in which the titled, land-owning governing class had barricaded itself for so...

A portrait of the Standard Oil heiress and legendary American trendsetter Millicent Rogers. Nobody knew how to live the high life like Millicent Rogers. Born into luxury, she lived in a whirl of beautiful homes, European vacations, exquisite clothing and handsome men. Here, Cherie Burns chronicles Rogers's glittering life from her days as a young girl afflicted with rheumatic fever to her Taos finale. A rebellious icon of the age, she eloped with...