Fortune
'A thrilling Shakespearean tragedy of a story, about love, lust, ambition, destiny, and human frailty.' Longlisted for the Walter Scott Prize.
Price
£9.99
4
Author(s)
Amanda Smyth
ISBN number
9781845235192
Pages
272
Price
£9.99
Classification
Historical fiction
Fiction, Novel
Country setting
Trinidad and Tobago
Publication date
01 Jul 2021

‘Magnificently absorbing’ The Guardian 

Eddie Wade has recently returned from the US oilfields. He is determined to sink his own well and make his fortune in the 1920s Trinidad oil-rush. His sights are set on Sonny Chatterjee’s failing cocoa estate, Kushi, where the ground is so full of oil you can put a stick in the ground and see it bubble up. When a fortuitous meeting with businessman Tito Fernandez brings Eddie the investor he desperately needs, the three men enter into a partnership. A friendship between Tito and Eddie begins that will change their lives forever, not least when the oil starts gushing. But their partnership also brings Eddie into contact with Ada, Tito’s beautiful wife, and as much as they try, they cannot avoid the attraction they feel for each other. 

Fortune, based on true events, catches Trinidad at a moment of historical change whose consequences reverberate down to present concerns with climate change and environmental destruction. As a story of love and ambition, its focus is on individuals so enmeshed in their desires that they blindly enter the territory of classic Greek tragedy where actions always have consequences.

'Don't even read the synopsis, dive right in; Fortune is a read that rustles, breathes, takes you by its sultry hand and doesn't let you go.' DBC Pierre

 

Variations
Amanda Smyth author headshot

Amanda Smyth

Amanda Smyth is Irish Trinidadian, and author of three novels, Black Rock, A Kind of Eden, and most recently, Fortune, which was shortlisted for the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction.
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