Debut Spotlight: The Darlings by Cristina Algers

 **Releases Feb 16th

Description:

Sometimes (more often after she met Paul), Merrill wondered what she would have been like if she had grown up outside New York. Would she be herself but more open, less circumspect? Sunnier? Less sarcastic? Manhattan children were like armadillos: sharp-clawed and thick-skinned, deceptively quick-moving. They had to be. Manhattan was a Darwinian environment: only the strongest survived. The weak, the nice, the naïve, the ones who smiled at passersby on the sidewalk, they all got weeded out. They would give up. They would opt out.


The ones who stayed long enough to raise children were the tough ones, the tenacious ones, the goal-oriented ones, the gold-digging ones, the deal-closing ones, the “kill or be killed’ ones, the “whatever it takes” ones. They looked out for themselves and slept with one eye open.

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A sophisticated page-turner about a wealthy New York family embroiled in a financial scandal with cataclysmic consequences.

Now that he’s married to Merrill Darling, daughter of billionaire financier Carter Darling, attorney Paul Ross has grown accustomed to New York society and all of its luxuries: a Park Avenue apartment, weekends in the Hamptons, bespoke suits. When Paul loses his job, Carter offers him the chance to head the legal team at his hedge fund. Thrilled with his good fortune in the midst of the worst financial downturn since the Great Depression, Paul accepts the position.

But Paul’s luck is about to shift: a tragic event catapults the Darling family into the media spotlight, a regulatory investigation, and a red-hot scandal with enormous implications for everyone involved. Suddenly, Paul must decide where his loyalties lie—will he save himself while betraying his wife and in-laws or protect the family business at all costs?

Cristina Alger’s glittering debut novel interweaves the narratives of the Darling family, two eager SEC attorneys, and a team of journalists all racing to uncover—or cover up—the truth. With echoes of a fictional Too Big to Fail and the novels of Dominick Dunne, The Darlings offers an irresistible glimpse into the highest echelons of New York society—a world seldom seen by outsiders—and a fast-paced thriller of epic proportions.