"In school they knew the answer before the question was given, broke the hearts of boys they never noticed, were the envy of rich girls who had it all…. But like their mother and their mother's mother before them, the Wilde sisters took the path of most resistance. At every crossroad in life, there is always one right choice. Inevitably, Wilde women go left.
They trace their poor sense of direction to the day their great-grandmother left Cyril Rudolph waiting at the altar. As the organist played the Wedding March, Fidela stared at her reflection in the beveled bride's mirror and saw her future--a pampered life of luxury with a man who worshipped her--and promptly jumped out the window.
Fidela fell from grace into the arms of Bodine Wilde, a part-time riverboat musician and a full-time scoundrel. Leaning out the church window, Cyril caught one last glimpse of his beloved running toward the river as if the devil were after her, rose petals scattering from her bouquet....
Cyril Rudolph was a decent man who deserved better. Decent men have the farthest to fall. After all the guests had offered their condolences, he stood alone at the church altar, humiliated and in such pain he did not think he could bear it. Tears running down his face and fists clenched so tight his nails drew blood, he turned his head to heaven and threw open his arms. 'Let her suffer as I suffer,' he charged through gritted teeth, 'in this life and the next!' " --Excerpted from the Book
