This prequel to Darlene Quinn's Webs of Power is an unsentimental portrayal of greed, manipulation, love, and power plays gone desperately awry, set in the world of high-end retail in the 1980s. Against the backdrop of Beverly Hills haut monde in the mid-1980s, Webs of Fate opens with a stunning about-face from promising buyer Danielle Norman. That exercise of free will sets in motion -- both directly and indirectly -- unforeseen events in the lives of her co-workers at Bentleys Royale, the prestigious West Coast division of Consolidated department stores. Primary among them are Ashleigh McDowell, who must confront herself and her fiance with a harsh truth, and vain cougar Viviana De Mornay, who will stop at nothing to realise her ambitions. Powerful, wealthy Mitchell Wainwright has one son, Tony, who squirms in the grip of his father's lamb-skin-gloved steel fist, with tragic results. Tony's lover, Jeff Bradley, learns too late the price of trusting someone who tempts fate. As tension mounts, readers will be engrossed by the events that shaped these characters' personalities and motivated their actions in subsequent novels. In colourful prose, Quinn delivers a story that makes her calculating players twist and squirm as they struggle against kismet's plans for their lives.