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In this novel, a young Southern boy, haunted by tragedy, turns his grief into enormous success in the business world.

Robby Jackson is content with his childhood in Mississippi, with days spent fishing, going to the public library, and making deliveries on his bike. He cherishes the wisdom from his grandmother and his mother, who, though overqualified, is working as a housekeeper for the local tycoon Bobby Fitzgerald. Being from a Black family, Robby knows that the South was not designed for him to succeed, and some old ways persist in his community. Then tragedy strikes one night, and in an instant both of his parents are dead. Shellshocked, he finds himself housed in the gatehouse at Fitzgerald’s mansion, and the taciturn millionaire announces he will decide Robby’s future. Shipped off to boarding school in Indiana, Robby is in a foreign world and is the only African American student. Friendless, Robby steels himself, weighed down by his family’s secrets and their relationship to Fitzgerald. Robby comes up with a plan for success—and one for revenge. As he grows up, he figures out how to flourish in the business world, and as he learns about women, their allure may be his ultimate downfall (“There’s a gradual slide to the hell we create for ourselves, but we’re usually blinded by our own sense of invincibility”). Hayes’ novel promises to be about how a woman can lead a man to his undoing, and it is, but the book really reads as a contemporary take on old Southern demons. The secret love child in a town where the mother is dependent on the White aristocracy takes on a different dimension when the narrator is a college student in the 1990s. And the author does a remarkable job of infusing contemporary sensibilities into the tale, with the secrets and lies surrounded by vast sums of money. Hayes delivers an irresistible revenge fantasy come to life and a very readable story about essentially limitless business success.

An entertaining, smoothly written tale about tragedy, triumphs, and an undeniable femme fatale.