Yesterday's Child, a three-generations love story, begins in the Fijis in 1945 and ends there yesterday. It is the story of an epic search for a lost love.
Jason Rhodes, convinced that he is the favorite of a lesser god, sets out to achieve two ambitious goals: To become a world famous novelist and to win the hand of the beautiful Stephanie Howorth, a young Mississippi heiress so endowed with attributes, both physical and mental, Aphrodite would have wept at the sight of her.
Jason's first ambition suffered major setbacks early on because he and Stephanie and three other service personnel became marooned on an island in the Fijis. This is just after WW2, when young aristocratic women occasionally gave the time of day to commoners like Jason, if they happened to be handsome enough. He was not only very handsome he was almost the only man around (for a time), and so his second driving ambition made great progress up to the time a Fiji chieftain decided to make it possible for them to return to the States.
Once back in the U.S.A. the two lovers lose contact with each other because of Stephanie's parents and Jason's stubbornness. Will they ever get back together? How far will Stephanie's father go to keep them apart?
Excerpt
It made no sense at all. The fickle gods had smiled upon him for a brief time, had frolicked with him in his youth and, in his prime, soared with him to the highest pinnacles of success in his chosen profession, granting all of his wishes. There had been no contract, no signing away of the soul; yet wealth, fame, and , finally, the most beautiful woman in the world were all his.
But now, more cursed than Oedipus, he stood braced for the bullet that would end his life. He felt no urge to grovel before this woman, this old wrinkled and bitter woman, the very same woman he had loved, nay, idolized, for so many years. Indeed, he felt nothing at all, not even regret for the terrible thing he had done to her or bitterness that fate ha dealt him such a hand at this time in his life.
