Twists of Fate - William Bain - Bog

Twists of Fate follows the lives of the three main characters across a span of seven years, beginning in 1976.Themes of ambition and revenge drive the plot Michael Kenny is a businesman from Boston visiting a small Scottish town to finalize the contract for a ship being built for his father's Kenny Ship Line. One drunken night he sexually assaults Beth Anderson, a young university student. In retaliation, Beth's boyfriend, Jack Stewart, fights Kenny, and believing he has killed the American he flees to Canada, pursued by Kenny's bodyguard, Jed Maguire Jack is drugged by Maguire and taken to the wilderness of Algonquin Park where he is beaten and left for dead. When he recovers he has amnesia and cannot recall his past. Beth decides to leave her hometown and go to London to escape the memory of her attack and to run away from a loveless home and alcoholic father. Arriving in London she is knocked down by a car driven by a newspaper owner whom she blackmails to give her a job as a reporter. But Lord Harcourt has another reason: he can't stop staring at Beth.The reason emerges later. Michael Kenny returns to Boston where his billionaire father, Patrick, tells him that the Kenny family needs to leave a political legacy. He encourages Michael to become active in politics. With the help of Patrick's money and connections Michael contests the Senate Primary in his State and eventually is elected. Over the next several years the lives of the three characters develop, independently of each other, until a twist of fate brings them together for the first time since 1976. Beth is now a successful journalist in London, engaged to Lord Harcourt. Jack has had a rocky time but is now a newspaper owner and entrepreneur in Toronto. When they chance to meet at a conference in Toronto in 1982, Beth and Jack are consumed with the need to have revenge on Senator Kenny for his attack on Beth which destroyed their romance. Kenny is now running to be President, and his ambition clashes with the need for revenge that consumes Beth and Jack.Together they plot to destroy his political ambitions. But Patrick Kenny has invested his wealth in moulding Michael to create a legacy for the Kenny family and he will stop at nothing to frustrate anyone standing in the way of his vicarious ambition.