'This brilliant but devastatingly sad novel moved me so much, I began it again the moment I got to the end' Rose Tremain Monsieur Grandet is a very rich man whose chief care is his gold. He runs his household with exacting miserly attention and his wife and daughter suffer a Spartan existence. On the evening of his daughter Eugenie's twenty third birthday his foppish nephew Charles suddenly arrives from Paris. Eugenie has never known passion. Now, in an instant, she falls in love and her life is changed forever. Monsieur Grandet will not countenance his daughter's marriage to her penniless cousin and Eugenie's determination to follow her heart leads her into direct conflict with her father.