A racy guilty pleasure replete with politics, romance, and plenty of sex.
A lobbyist and consultant juggles her political aspirations with her search for a meaningful relationship in this debut novel.
Clarissa Bateman, a beautiful, savvy woman, enjoys a thriving career and an active social life. Inspired by the social justice movements of the 1960s, she’s a lobbyist in Washington state by the late ’70s, with her own successful political consulting firm. When she’s not advocating for education and women’s issues, she’s spending time with her friends experiencing Seattle and Olympia’s vibrant music and arts scenes. Her intellectual prowess is only matched by her voracious sexual appetite, but short-lived dalliances with a reporter, a senator, and a free-spirited woman left her wanting something more stable. Her first taste of mature romance comes when she meets Karl Springly at a wedding reception. The slightly older, recently divorced news director courts her ardently and quickly becomes a devoted friend; however, his reluctance to make a firm commitment causes Clarissa to doubt the relationship will become permanent. When Clarissa meets Edward Burke, the new commissioner for higher education, the attraction is instant and mutual. Clarissa and Edward seem destined to be together if they can navigate some serious complications, including their political alliance, his pending divorce, and her unresolved relationship with Karl. Chartwell’s brisk and breezy narrative paints a vivid portrait of one woman’s life in the free-wheeling ’70s. The novel’s strongest elements are its settings and dynamic, unflappable heroine. Clarissa’s life is a whirlwind of work and lively parties, and Chartwell expertly re-creates the vibrant music scene of the era and the events where Clarissa mixes and mingles with people who may become political allies. She remains the novel’s most fully realized character, particularly in the sensitive way the tale explores how her party-girl social life often clashes with her serious political ambitions. Although some of the supporting characters are rather thinly developed, particularly Clarissa’s many flings, Karl and Edward are solid romantic interests who enable Clarissa to examine what she really wants out of life.
A racy guilty pleasure replete with politics, romance, and plenty of sex.Pub Date: Nov. 24, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-4834-3936-5
Page Count: 194
Publisher: Lulu
Review Posted Online: March 2, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.
Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.
Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-345-46752-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.
A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.
"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.Pub Date: June 15, 1951
ISBN: 0316769177
Page Count: -
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951
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