Glimpse behind the facade of rich and famous women....

The grass isn't greener on the other side....

Heiresses have always been viewed with eyes of envy. They were the ones for whom the cornucopia had been upended, showering them with unimaginable wealth and opportunity. However, through intimate historical biographies, Women of Means shows us that oftentimes the weaving sisters saved their most heart-wrenching tapestries for the destinies of wealthy women.

Happily never after...

From the author of Behind Every Great Man, we now have Women of Means, vignettes of the women who were slated from birth - or marriage - to great privilege, only to endure lives which were the stuff Russian tragic heroines are made of. They are the nonfictional Richard Corys - those not slated for happily ever after.

Women of Means is bound to be a non-fiction best seller, full of the best biographies of all time. Some of the women whose silver spoons rusted include:

• Almina Carnarvon, the real-life counterpart to Lady Cora of Downton Abbey.
• Liliane Bettencourt, whose chemist father created L'Oreal...and was a Nazi collaborator.
• Peggy Guggenheim, who had an insatiable appetite for modern art and men.
• Nica Rothschild, who traded her gilded life to become the Baroness of Bebop.
• Jocelyn Wildenstein, who became a cosmetology-enhanced cat-woman.
• Ruth Madoff, the dethroned queen of Manhattan.
• Patty Hearst, who trod the path from heiress...to terrorist.