By: Jeffrey Archer
Essence: politics, campaigning, life, success, defeat, death, family, power, leader, deceit
The Prodigal Daughter is the sequel to Kane And Abel and the first part of the story is dedicated to the upbringing of Florentyna Kane, the protagonist in the story and how she gets her traits from her parents, more from her father than her mother.
The story is not a thriller or suspense type though the end slightly incorporates these styles. At the heart of the book is how the protagonist goes on to becomes the President of the United States and it very nicely depicts all the campaigning and Senate meetings etc.
The second part of the story again borrows from KAA the part of the story where she becomes independent and settles down after marriage. Its after this that the book actually starts off.
We see how she comes across various decisions in her life and how she starts to approach the politics and public life. From here on, its all politics and deceits and success etc etc.
The good things about the book were mostly those that were there in KAA too and the only new thing was that it shows how politics runs from inside. Another great thing was that it wasn't like the protagonist always wins at the end, by some stroke of luck and all that cliche nonsense. Very strange turn of events, many times negatively too make this a very acceptable book. Not all fictious events and all.
The only problem was that one would undoubtedly and infact, naturally compare TPD to KAA and that's when u realize that though its a fairly nice book, it can't match the flair of KAA. KAA was more about how Kane and Abel's life story is set for the remnant of their lives due to the incidents in their childhood. It was more "happening" and in many ways above TPD.