Be Careful What You Wish For - (Clifton Chronicles) by Jeffrey Archer (Paperback)

About the Book

Book Synopsis

Bestselling author Jeffrey Archer's Be Careful What You Wish For opens with Harry Clifton and his wife Emma rushing to hospital to learn the fate of their son Sebastian, who has been involved in a fatal car accident. But who died, Sebastian or his best friend Bruno?

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.

Review Quotes

"No family saga would be complete without a villain, and this book has a good one, a well-drawn and believable character whose motivations are understandable. This thoroughly engaging old-school, multigenerational saga harks back to the work of Malcolm Macdonald, Belva Plain, and Irwin Shaw." --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)

About the Author

JEFFREY ARCHER was educated at Oxford University. He has served five years in Britain's House of Commons and twenty-two years in the House of Lords. All of his novels and short story collections--including Best Kept Secret, The Sins of the Father, Kane and Abel, and False Impression--have been international bestselling books. Archer is married with two sons and lives in London and Cambridge.