An Invitation to the Kennedys: Captivating pre-WW2 historical fiction about high society, forbidden love and a world on the cusp of change, inspired by real events
About this ebook
'A breathtaking, glamorous and escapist read' Irish Times
London 1938: Daughter of the US ambassador, Kathleen 'Kick' Kennedy is a huge hit in society's most elite circles, though she isn't always sure she fits in. While Kick is falling for duke-in-waiting Billy Cavendish, a man her parents will never let her marry, across the city Lady Brigid Guinness has no interest in love or society connections. But her ambitious brother-in-law has other ideas and seems determined to engineer a match with a German prince.
When they are invited to an exclusive gathering at a country estate, the young women soon form an unlikely friendship: the stuck-up aristocrat and the brash American. Then Billy and Prince Fritzi join the party, and tensions rise as Kick and Brigid discover that beneath the group's façade of politeness, nothing is as it seems.
As the days at Kelvedon Hall pass in a haze of sunshine, secrecy and surprising revelations, Kick and Brigid begin
to rethink their hopes and plans for the future. Do they still want what they once did? And with the world around
them constantly shifting, as war in Europe looms, will they ever be able to have it?
About the author
Emily Hourican is the author of nine novels and one book of non-fiction. Her first novel, The Privileged, was published in 2016, became an instant bestseller, and was short-listed for the Best Popular Fiction Award at the Irish Book Awards that year. She then published three more works of contemporary fiction, the last of which, The Outsider, is being developed as a six-part TV series with Treasure Films, with Emily as screenwriter, supported by Screen Ireland. In 2019 she began writing historical fiction, and has since published four acclaimed, best-selling historical novels based on the Guinness and Kennedy families. The fifth, A Kennedy Affair, will be published in October 2024. Emily is also an award-winning editor and journalist with the Sunday Independent, Ireland's biggest-selling newspaper.
