Vintage Bradford, with lavish descriptions of the pleasures of palate and palette, victims as virtuous as they are gorgeous,...
Bradford’s latest rags-to-riches heroine is a London fine-art consultant with a dark secret—several of them, in fact.
Annette Remmington is still plagued by nightmares of the childhood sexual abuse she suffered. Rescued by a kindly aunt who paid for her education, Annette had a brief career as a painter before her marriage to dashing gallery impresario Marius Remmington, 20 years her senior. Only Marius knows of Annette’s other dark secret, which gives him leverage to keep her complacent and docile. When inquiries are made about a certain Hilda Crump, Annette fears that if the truth were known, she could land in jail for murder. Now 40, Annette has scored a coup. A new client, Christopher, has inherited a cache of art from his eccentric Uncle Alec, including a Rembrandt, which Annette has just auctioned for several million pounds. There are plenty more canvases lurking at the gloomy old castle formerly owned by Uncle Alec, who, everyone agrees, went a little dotty after his fiancée, clad in her wedding gown, hanged herself in the bedroom. Annette is planning another auction for Christopher, which will include a previously unknown cast of Degas’ sculpture The Little Fourteen-Year-Old Dancer, and paintings by other Impressionist masters. However, Annette and her advisors have discovered that several pieces in Uncle Alec’s collection are forgeries. When Marius insists she promote her upcoming auction, she agrees to talk to Jack Chalmers, a reporter Marius has handpicked. Little does Marius suspect that Annette and Jack will immediately recognize each other as soul mates. And little does Annette know that when Marius is in Barcelona supposedly working on a book about Picasso, he’s actually emulating Picasso’s philandering behavior. The plotlines proliferate until we realize that secrets from Jack’s childhood are the key to unlocking the dilemmas keeping him and Annette apart.
Vintage Bradford, with lavish descriptions of the pleasures of palate and palette, victims as virtuous as they are gorgeous, cruel lotharios and a satisfying if somewhat far-fetched resolution.Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-312-57808-4
Page Count: 432
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Sept. 8, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2010
IN THE NEWS
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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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