"Kick" as she was called, wasn't a great beauty, but she attracted (and jilted) eligible young men on both sides of the Atlantic like no other debutante of the prewar years. When her controversial millionaire father was appointed FDR's ambassador to Britain, only Kick, of all the Kennedys, was fully accepted by the English aristocracy. Raised a devout and dutiful Catholic daughter, she was also the only Kennedy child to rebel against her parents' will, first by marrying a Protestant nobleman outside her church, and later as a young widow by commencing a scandalous love affair with a married man. Her life was romantic as a movie heroine's, but it ended tragically and much too soon.

In retelling Kick's long-hushed-up story, Lynne McTaggart has chosen an irresistible subject. Based on extensive new research and interviews, Kathleen Kennedy recaptures the glittering ambiance of 1930s and 40s High Society; the agonizing losses that the war brought even to the privileged; and, most especially, what is was like to grow up a Kennedy. Here is a revealing portrait - in candid text and intimate photos - of Joe and Rose, Joe Jr., Jack, Robby, Rosemary, Eunice and the others, which will alter forever your impression of every single one of them. Packed with anecdotes and insights surprising even to the most knowledgeable reader, this is a biography that reads like best-selling fiction, but it is much more: it is the stuff of which myths are made.