Going inside the mind of a pretty, freckled villain who commits a seemingly victimless crime creates a page-turner with just...
When a young woman considers the consequences of stealing from her employer, she doesn’t consider that the damage might reach beyond the walls of a prison cell.
After learning that anyone with the right initials could cash a check made out to NT instead of NuLine Telecommunications, Natalie Bingham becomes Natalie Taylor, wife of Colin Taylor, who keeps exotic reptiles in the house he shares with his mother. Natalie’s commitment to the scam, going so far as to marry a man she doesn’t love just to get his initials, is part of the allure of this wholly unlikable character. From the outside, she appears to be a beautiful and clever woman who charms everyone she meets, from her gullible husband to her cynical defense lawyer. On the inside, she’s intellectually lazy, insulting people with racial slurs and turning to a life of crime at the first sign of financial hardship. She doesn’t believe she’ll hurt anyone if she steals a few dollars at a time from a big corporation, but even when she’s proven wrong, she finds that she doesn’t care. Similar to Something to Hide (2016), Moggach’s latest book connects the lives of strangers in alternating narratives. In this case, Natalie’s trail of stolen phone-bill payments leaves one of her victims, David, his wife, Sheila, and their daughter, Chloe, with a dead phone line at the worst possible time. Each of them wants something out of reach—David wants a better life for his overweight daughter, Colin wants a family, and Natalie wants more excitement than an ordinary office job can offer her. And how far they are all willing to go to get what they desire most uncovers some surprising truths about the lies people tell themselves.
Going inside the mind of a pretty, freckled villain who commits a seemingly victimless crime creates a page-turner with just enough moral ambiguity to ensure an unexpected ending.Pub Date: June 6, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-4683-1093-1
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Overlook
Review Posted Online: March 20, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2017
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...
Talk-show queen takes tumble as millions jeer.
Nora Bridges is a wildly popular radio spokesperson for family-first virtues, but her loyal listeners don't know that she walked out on her husband and teenaged daughters years ago and didn't look back. Now that a former lover has sold racy pix of naked Nora and horny himself to a national tabloid, her estranged daughter Ruby, an unsuccessful stand-up comic in Los Angeles, has been approached to pen a tell-all. Greedy for the fat fee she's been promised, Ruby agrees and heads for the San Juan Islands, eager to get reacquainted with the mom she plans to betray. Once in the family homestead, nasty Ruby alternately sulks and glares at her mother, who is temporarily wheelchair-bound as a result of a post-scandal car crash. Uncaring, Ruby begins writing her side of the story when she's not strolling on the beach with former sweetheart Dean Sloan, the son of wealthy socialites who basically ignored him and his gay brother Eric. Eric, now dying of cancer and also in a wheelchair, has returned to the island. This dismal threesome catch up on old times, recalling their childhood idylls on the island. After Ruby's perfect big sister Caroline shows up, there's another round of heartfelt talk. Nora gradually reveals the truth about her unloving husband and her late father's alcoholism, which led her to seek the approval of others at the cost of her own peace of mind. And so on. Ruby is aghast to discover that she doesn't know everything after all, but Dean offers her subdued comfort. Happy endings await almost everyone—except for readers of this nobly preachy snifflefest.
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with syrupy platitudes about life and love.Pub Date: March 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-609-60737-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2001
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
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BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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