Awesomely assured. Rich, complex, mysterious and always compelling.- Mike Johnson, author of Counterpart (HarperCollins, 2001). When Straughan Packard III dies suddenly, control of the family empire should have been passed to his firstborn son, the princely 'Junior', Straughan Packard IV. But given Junior's mysterious disappearance, the job has fallen to the second son, the free-spirited JD Packard. This is a world where the South has emerged victorious in the War Between the States, where plantations have evolved into corporate empires, the men who run them hold the reins of almost unlimited power, and history and tradition rule. And as JD Packard learns, once caught in a web of hostile corporate takeovers and forbidden love, it's not easy changing the world. For Dexter Peebles, a descendant of former Packard slaves, discovering the truth behind Junior's disappearance means uncovering a past that is full of ghosts: it seems somebody is killing the Packards off, and has been for a long time. The Second Favorite Son unfolds two hundred years of the Packard family saga. It is a story of the ties that bind and the kind of love only a truly eccentric family can understand. Author Biography: Originally from Chicago, Daniel Myers grew up in California, and has been dividing his time between the USA and New Zealand since 1987. He has travelled extensively throughout North America, Europe and Asia and has worked as a pilot, a flight instructor, an air traffic controller, an English teacher in China and a television script writer. He is a graduate of the University of South Carolina (BA English) and Massey University (MA English, 2002). In the classroom, he has taught American literature, creative writing and English language training for several years. Previous publications include the acclaimed short story The Bridge published in The Class Menagerie: Stories out of USC (Red Letter Press,