Summary of J.R. Ward's The Bourbon Kings sets up a rip-roaring family saga that twists and turns through money, murder, a myriad of affairs, and more. So much more, in fact, that two sequels are planned to sort it out.

Lizzie King, chief horticulturalist, works at a frenzied pace to get Easterly, the Bradford Family Estate, ready for the annual Derby Brunch before Saturday’s big race at Steeplehill Downs in Charlemont, Kentucky. The Bradford family has been making bourbon through the Bradford Bourbon Company since 1778. The business is worth $1 billion annually. Though heiress, Virginia Elizabeth Bradford, married William Baldwine, it is still known as the Bradford place.

Derby weekend makes Lizzie think of Lane Baldwine, the family’s second son, who left abruptly exactly two years ago just as the two of them were falling in love. She learned from newspapers that he married Chantal Stowe, a local socialite, because she was pregnant…