Love's Legacy chronicles the author's search for hidden meaning in two letters he inherited from his father, addressed to his great-great-grandfather in summer 1817 by the adventurous diplomat and famous founder of modern French literature, François-René de Chateaubriand. The book is a suspenseful detective story, an intimate biography of Chateaubriand, a story of forbidden love fraught with passion and tragedy, a genealogical quest, and a memoir relating the author's ancestry leading from his audacious father to fathers before him, each carrying a legacy rooted in the same star-crossed encounter of long ago. Captivating and deeply humane, Love's Legacy portrays the surprising impact people's lives can have on those born centuries later. As clever as it is wise, this book reveals how recovery of the past awakens an awareness of inherited gifts that transcend genealogy.
