A Struggling Writer Finds Inspiration in Family History... Deborah's career is at a dead end. After a splashy debut with her first novel, she's languished as a freelancer, her potential unfulfilled. But the death of an elderly aunt provides unexpected source material, as she and her family discover journals and letters that bring to life a colorful and shocking past. The Aunties is a novel within a novel-the story of Deborah's quest to fictionalize her unexpected legacy. Along the way, she learns more about Marian, her strong-willed grandmother determined to break out of poverty, whose proto-feminism succumbs to the lure of an unwise romance. Her daughters, Deborah's beloved aunties, reap the harvest of their mother's mistake as they travel their own journeys. From Gilded Age America to World War II, from plain farm life to high society, from America's heartland to wild and colorful Brazil, The Aunties is a story of family love and loyalty through adversity.