The Prodigal Daughters

The Godfather meets Pretty Woman – without the humour. The Prodigal Daughters is a gritty tale that combines the best elements of The Godfather – a powerful crime-family saga – and the attraction of Pretty Woman – down-trodden young women in search of their dreams in the City of Dreams. Weave into that combination a murder mystery that has an intrepid young female detective stumped right until the very end, and you begin to get an idea of what The Prodigal Daughters is all about. An avid lover of current affairs and news programmes, Germaine Capps has explored the motivation behind the recent phenomenon of people sacrificing everything – leaving behind loved ones and undertaking treacherous journeys – all in search of a dream. She does this through the eyes of the women in her novel: Leila, Eva, Ngozi and Angelica. Four women from different parts of the world, they all have different backgrounds – but with one thing in common. They all have the desire to fulfil a dream in the one place on earth they believe that can be achieved: Los Angeles, the City of Dreams. But L.A. is no stranger to violent crime... “Had this scene been just a few miles away on Sunset or even South L.A., it wouldn’t have been all that out of place. After all, down there, things like this happened all the time, but not up here. This was Beverly Hills: the home of Rodeo Drive, old money, and beautiful people. And these women were beautiful in a delicate sort of way. Very delicate, very beautiful, but very dead!” The Prodigal Daughters is character-driven as opposed to plot-led, meaning that the readers will connect enough with the novel’s heroes, and villains, to either love or loathe them – but never ignore them. It is as dark and heart-wrenching as the pages of the news stories that inspired it in places, but it is also a tale of love, family, perseverance, redemption, and how ultimately no obstacle, however big, can’t be overcome when your heart is set on soaring.