Bradford has never really matched her A Woman of Substance (1979) in plot go-go and sentimental appeal. Here, again, is another eddy of love troubles among rich ciphers who circle limply at low speed. It's a good hundred pages into this biggie before the relationships among the personae are clarified. But center stage through it all is costume designer Rosie Madigan, who's been creating for film star Gavin Ambrose, an old friend. Gavin is about to launch a Napoleonic saga, which is handy for Rose since she has family in France: estranged nasty husband Guy; Guy's päre, the Comte Montfleurie, whom Rosie adores; and le Comte's widowed daughter-in-law and her children. As for action in France: there'll be one death, one divorce, one match-making. But, then, back in America, there'll also be a love blasting into Rosie's life— popular ``balladeer,'' Johnny Fortune, from a devoted Mafia family, is jolted with interest when Rosie admires his English Regency dessert stands and his George III candlesticks. Johnny's agent is Nell (another old friend), who's involved with none other than Kevin, Rosie's brother and an undercover NYPD cop. And guess whom he's out to smash? (Poor Johnny has never known what his uncles do for a living.) Never seen is Rosie's sister Sunny, gonzo on drugs and institutionalized, and Mikey, gone forever but where? Meanwhile, since everyone is gold-plated or famous already, it's love and more love that's the game. But can Rosie find happiness with a singing idol? Bradford latches onto detail like a terrier, so it's not surprising that the sex scenes are miracles of painstaking exposition, with the occasional prÇcis: ``Their mouths were locked; they were welded together.'' Compared to peers like Steel and Krantz, Bradford is all elbows—but count on her rep to nudge this creaking craft up the charts.
Pub Date: May 9, 1993
ISBN: 0-394-55959-2
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1993
IN THE NEWS
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...
Sisters in and out of love.
Meghann Dontess is a high-powered matrimonial lawyer in Seattle who prefers sex with strangers to emotional intimacy: a strategy bound to backfire sooner or later, warns her tough-talking shrink. It’s advice Meghann decides to ignore, along with the memories of her difficult childhood, neglectful mother, and younger sister. Though she managed to reunite Claire with Sam Cavenaugh (her father but not Meghann’s) when her mother abandoned both girls long ago, Meghann still feels guilty that her sister’s life doesn’t measure up, at least on her terms. Never married, Claire ekes out a living running a country campground with her dad and is raising her six-year-old daughter on her own. When she falls in love for the first time with an up-and-coming country musician, Meghann is appalled: Bobby Austin is a three-time loser at marriage—how on earth can Claire be so blind? Bobby’s blunt explanation doesn’t exactly satisfy the concerned big sister, who busies herself planning Claire’s dream wedding anyway. And, to relieve the stress, she beds various guys she picks up in bars, including Dr. Joe Wyatt, a neurosurgeon turned homeless drifter after the demise of his beloved wife Diane (whom he euthanized). When Claire’s awful headache turns out to be a kind of brain tumor known among neurologists as a “terminator,” Joe rallies. Turns out that Claire had befriended his wife on her deathbed, and now in turn he must try to save her. Is it too late? Will Meghann find true love at last?
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles (Distant Shores, 2002, etc.). Kudos for skipping the snifflefest this time around.Pub Date: May 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-345-45073-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2003
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.
Coelho is a Brazilian writer with four books to his credit. Following Diary of a Magus (1992—not reviewed) came this book, published in Brazil in 1988: it's an interdenominational, transcendental, inspirational fable—in other words, a bag of wind.
The story is about a youth empowered to follow his dream. Santiago is an Andalusian shepherd boy who learns through a dream of a treasure in the Egyptian pyramids. An old man, the king of Salem, the first of various spiritual guides, tells the boy that he has discovered his destiny: "to realize one's destiny is a person's only real obligation." So Santiago sells his sheep, sails to Tangier, is tricked out of his money, regains it through hard work, crosses the desert with a caravan, stops at an oasis long enough to fall in love, escapes from warring tribesmen by performing a miracle, reaches the pyramids, and eventually gets both the gold and the girl. Along the way he meets an Englishman who describes the Soul of the World; the desert woman Fatima, who teaches him the Language of the World; and an alchemist who says, "Listen to your heart" A message clings like ivy to every encounter; everyone, but everyone, has to put in their two cents' worth, from the crystal merchant to the camel driver ("concentrate always on the present, you'll be a happy man"). The absence of characterization and overall blandness suggest authorship by a committee of self-improvement pundits—a far cry from Saint- Exupery's The Little Prince: that flagship of the genre was a genuine charmer because it clearly derived from a quirky, individual sensibility.
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.Pub Date: July 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-06-250217-4
Page Count: 192
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1993
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
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