All posts tagged: fortune

Tides of Fortune by Lauryn Hamilton Murray

Tides of Fortune by Lauryn Hamilton Murray

Published by Jenni Sidey

Second books in a trilogy carry a strange burden. They have to build on a debut readers already loved, push the story somewhere new, and lay track for a finale, all without the shiny newness of a first outing. Tides of Fortune by Lauryn Hamilton Murray takes on that middle-book challenge and mostly comes out ahead, swapping the closed-arena tension of the trials for something looser and roomier: a quest across a wild, dangerous world, with a prickly alliance along for the ride. I have read a fair amount of YA fantasy shaped like this, and I want to be honest about both the pleasures and the growing pains here. So consider this your promise up front: nothing below gives away the turns that matter. Charting the Course Having survived the trials of the first book, Blaze is on the edge of becoming Queen of the Aquatori. She cannot rest on that, though. King Balen, the usurper who already holds one of the three enchanted Eyes, is hunting the Eye of the Soul, and its …

Dame Jilly Cooper leaves eye-watering fortune to family in will

Dame Jilly Cooper leaves eye-watering fortune to family in will

Published by Sam Flores

Dame Jilly Cooper had a fortune befitting her legacy as one of the UK’s most celebrated authors, and she has left her family with an £8.5m fortune. Cooper, who died aged 88 on 5 October 2025 after a fall, was the writer of risqué fiction focused on the scandalous lives of the British elite in the Eighties and Nineties. Her “bonkbuster” book Rivals, depicting a tumultuous relationships and power struggles in the Cotswolds, has spawned a hit Disney+ TV series starring David Tennant and Danny Dyer. Probate records show that Cooper’s estate had a gross value of £9,070,307, which left a net estate worth £8,557,118 after her liabilities were settled. Her beneficiaries, including children Felix and Emily and her stepdaughter Laura, will all receive an equal share of the fortune. The Independent has contacted Cooper’s estate for comment. Cooper was initially alert after her fall, with family members finding her at her Bisley home at 5pm the day before her death. She was transferred to Gloucestershire Royal Hospital, but her condition deteriorated. She died in …

The Fortune cast | Who stars alongside Eleanor Tomlinson?

The Fortune cast | Who stars alongside Eleanor Tomlinson?

Published by Daniella Wilson

It’s time for a brand new psychological thriller to land on 5 and as is usually the case, it’s a cast stacked full of familiar faces in The Fortune. The new four-part drama comes from The Inheritance writer Aschlin Ditta and features the likes of Poldark favourite Eleanor Tomlinson, Harry Potter’s Matthew Lewis and All Creatures Great and Small star Callum Woodhouse. Chatting exclusively to Radio Times about her leading role in the series, Tomlinson revealed: “I don’t think I’ve played anyone like her before, no. I think that’s what appealed. I think Amanda is constantly just trying to figure out what the hell is going on. She just really cares about her family.” She added: “Every time she tries to get answers, there’s that immense frustration. I think there’s a lot of sadness in her, but there’s also just this love of her family and she just wants answers.” But who else stars in the series? Read on for everything you need to know about the cast of 5’s The Fortune. The Fortune cast: …

A Fortune of Sand by Ruta Sepetys

A Fortune of Sand by Ruta Sepetys

Published by Jenni Sidey

Detroit, 1927. The city hums with the rattle of assembly lines, the secret hush of speakeasies, and the soft clink of jewelry that may or may not be real. Into this hot, slightly rotten summer, Ruta Sepetys drops Marjorie Lennox, the youngest daughter of a windshield empire that built its fortune on the same glass concealing so many of the family’s worst habits. A Fortune of Sand by Ruta Sepetys is the bestselling historical novelist’s first book aimed squarely at adult readers, and it lands with the kind of confident swagger that suggests she has been holding this Detroit story in her chest for years. Longtime readers of Salt to the Sea, Between Shades of Gray, and The Fountains of Silence will find the familiar Sepetys habits here: meticulous archival research, a deep loyalty to underrepresented history, and an instinct for the lives that get lost in official records. What changes is the playground. Trade the wartime gloom of Europe for a town that genuinely believes its own gilded press clippings, and you have a …

Zuckerberg Suffers Pair of Bruising Courtroom Defeats in Two Days That Could Cost Him a Fortune

Zuckerberg Suffers Pair of Bruising Courtroom Defeats in Two Days That Could Cost Him a Fortune

Published by José Betancourt

Sign up to see the future, today Can’t-miss innovations from the bleeding edge of science and tech On Tuesday, Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta was handed a devastating loss after a New Mexico jury determined it intentionally violated state laws by misleading users about the safety of its products. While the $375 million penalty it was slapped with pales in comparison to the $200 billion of revenue Meta made in 2025, the jury’s decision was a sign of what was still in store. That came today, following nine days of deliberation, when a jury in Los Angeles determined that both Meta and Google were guilty for allowing young users to become addicted and suffer mental health issues as a result. Again, while the $3 million in compensatory damages likely won’t even scratch Meta’s company’s bottom line, the two verdicts in just two days set an ominous precedent for Zuckerberg and his ilk as courts continue to debate the thoroughly-researched, harmful effects social media can have on young and impressionable minds. As The Verge notes, Meta — alongside …

Fortune Holds the Rudder—Take the Helm

Fortune Holds the Rudder—Take the Helm

Published by Jenni Sidey

Last week, a veteran told me something I have heard in various forms over the years: “I did everything I was supposed to do. And it still went sideways.” He was not complaining. He was genuinely bewildered. The contract he had been operating under his entire adult life: Work hard, train hard, follow the rules, and the outcomes will track your effort. That contract had been broken, but not by him. I have written previously about the convergence between Ecclesiastes and Plato. Here I want to dig deeper into the two passages that speak most directly to the man sitting across from me. The Verse Ecclesiastes 9:11: “The race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all.” Five forms of human excellence. Not one of them rules over fortune. The Hebrew is worth pausing on. The word for “time” is et: not clock time …