Collins resolves these and many other questions at breakneck pace, with her inimitable touch of crass evident throughout....
The usual mixed bag of vixens, sexy louts, and a hardworking star or two from Collins (Lethal Seduction, 2000, etc), on familiar territory in la-la land once more.
Lissa Roman, singer and movie actress, is still gorgeous at 40, but she has to work at it. Too bad her pesky offspring, Nicci, is now old enough to actually be engaged. What’s next? Grandchildren? Perish the thought and get me my agent—who lands Lissa a fabulous gig opening a lavish new Las Vegas hotel. It’s a welcome distraction from her restless fourth husband, Gregg, part-time philanderer and full-time bodybuilding egotist. He’s so Hollywood—Lissa rues the day she married him. Well, perhaps her darling daughter will settle down with that hot young director, Evan Richter, and find happiness. Instead, Nicci finds she’s wildly attracted to Evan’s bad-boy twin, Brian. Will she stay faithful, or bed the naughty brother before her bachelorette party? And should she tell that weird guy in the stocking mask who just knocked on her door to go away? Decisions, decisions. Taylor Singer, a sometime actress married to a famous director who bores her in bed, has a few decisions of her own to make. Should she say yes to Montana, the bisexual woman director who wants her to play a leading role in a lesbian love story? Should she say no to Oliver Rock, the skanky but sexy young screenwriter who just sold his first opus for a million bucks? Getting back to the heroine: Lissa has the hots for Michael Scorsinni, the obligatory macho Italian cop and official Real Person in this hackneyed plot. Will he get the goods on cheating Gregg? And will Lissa let him out of bed long enough to save the life of her kidnapped daughter?
Collins resolves these and many other questions at breakneck pace, with her inimitable touch of crass evident throughout. Happiness awaits schlock connoisseurs and uncritical fans alike.Pub Date: June 22, 2001
ISBN: 0-7432-1634-2
Page Count: 528
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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
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