The Magnificent Lives of Marjorie Post

In her latest historical novel, Pataki (The Queen’s Fortune) turns to a different type of royal figure, Marjorie Merriweather Post, who lived among the ranks of what amounts to American royalty. She was the heiress to the Post cereal fortune following the suicide of her father in 1914. Her lavish lifestyle and love of beauty—she bought Romanov treasures sold to her one ruble per gram by the Communists—could have turned her into a shallow narcissist, but her philanthropic endeavors, publicized and secretive, were legendary. She wanted her money to work for her and others, and it did magnificently. Actor, singer, and audiobook narrator Barrie Kreinik, winner of an AudioFile Earphones Award, inhabits the first-person voice of Post, giving a Midwestern-accented flair to her roles as a business executive, wife, mother, philanthropist, and hostess to the rich and famous.