Book excerpt: Lucia and Charley are the products of Old New York’s ruling elite. Prestige. Wealth. Tradition. Scandal. No one is immune. Not Charley, reckless, blithe courtier of trouble, heiress to the Montrose fortune, who has been conspicuously absent for over a year without a word of truth or explanation. Nor Lucia, as docile a daughter as any parent could wish for, carrying secrets of her own, slowly awakening to a yearning for things beyond obeisance to the established order, as deeply ingrained as Old New York’s fascination for, and fear of, scandal. Sailing into the summer of 1929, on the eve of the Black Tuesday Wall Street Crash and a world on the brink of change, Charley and Lucia must keep their wits sharp about them in the pleasure capitals of the Continent and on the Nile to steer their futures away from peril. There are men and temptations to resist, intrigues and mysteries to untangle, secrets to hide, lies to weave, and jewel thieves to outsmart while, back home in New York and on the Exchange, the world rumbles and thunders ominously by. More hangs in the balance than the frivolities of the Jazz Age, the glitzy parties in London and the lures of Paris, automobile races, leisurely flirtations on the French Riviera, opulent Egyptian nights, and the catching of a brilliant matrimonial prize. This Grand Tour could prove to be the making of two young women, a prelude to freedom and independence, to saving and building an empire... Or perhaps merely an invitation to rebellion, scandal and unmitigated disaster. Running away or running towards? Tick-tock. This volume contains all three books in the Voyage Out series: Voyage Out, The Grand Tour, The Stroke of Midnight.