Baby of the Family

The money is old, the problems are new. A wry and addictive debut about a modern-day American dynasty and its unexpected upheaval when the patriarch wills his dwindling fortune to his youngest, adopted son--setting off a chain of events that unearth family secrets and test long-held definitions of love and family. The Whitbys: a dynasty akin to the Astors, once enormously wealthy real-estate magnates who were considered "the landlords of New York.

" There was a time when the death of a Whitby would have made national news, but when the family patriarch, Roger, dies, he is alone. Word of his death travels from the longtime family lawyer to his clan of children (from four separate marriages) and the news isn't good. Roger has left everything to his twenty-one-year-old son Nick, a Whitby only in name, including the houses currently occupied by Shelley and Brooke--two of Roger's daughters from different marriages. And Nick is nowhere to be found. Brooke, the oldest of the children, who is unexpectedly pregnant,.