In her spellbinding fifth novel, Making History Carolyn See introduces us to a wealthy Los Angeles family who are sitting on top of the world. Jerry Bridges is a middle-aged financier whose success has made him a firm believer in the American Dream.
When his stepdaughter Whitney is injured in an automobile accident, his second wife Wynn wonders what the message is. Jerry is part of a Pacific Rim consortium that wants to create a brave new world in New Guinea: "Their miniature country would be a Hong Kong, but without the congestion; a Singapore, but without the fascism...a Bali, but without the hard-eyed peddlers. A better world."
The grandiose schemes of her stepfather are far away from the dreams of Whitney who loses her virginity on a Maui beach. An unforeseen tragedy takes the lives of two members of Jerry's family and leaves him pondering the future.
Carolyn See has created two odd characters to carry the action of the novel forward — a ghost and an English psychic. They help us see that all the world's a circle and nothing happens to us by chance. We must learn from everything large or small which comes our way. There is no safety anywhere — not in wealth or utopian schemes or fun in the surf and the sun.