This kind of import is definitely an acquired taste.
First novel about two Londoners sabotaging the wedding of a social-climbing chum.
Melanie Pepper and her best friend Fran are miffed beyond belief when Amanda Phillips manages to get engaged to Scottish laird Fraser McConnell. Isn’t it enough that Amanda is petite, perky, blond, and rich? Melanie and Fran were sure all the Right Hons were taken—or gay. Granted, Amanda’s intended dresses shabbily, and his ancestral castle is a pile of rubble, but his title is real enough, and they remember Fraser from their school days as really rather nice in his odd way. Melanie and Fran know that Amanda’s only marrying him for his noble pedigree and a chance to get her picture in the papers, but there’s nothing they can do about it but sulk and drink and scheme. Though she’d like to save Fraser, Melanie has too many other men in her life to worry about: Alex, her ne’er-do-well boyfriend, who dreams of making it big in rock music; and Nick, a hapless accountant who warms her bed when Alex isn’t around. Then Amanda sniffily informs her two friends that they’re not quite what she has in mind for bridesmaids—although, of course, they can attend the pretentious ceremony and contribute a silver place setting or two. Fueled by gallons of alcohol and limitless spite, Melanie and Fran hatch a plot and enlist Fraser’s younger brother, Angus, to help plant smoke bombs at the church and ruin the wedding. The ensuing stampede propels Fraser into loving arms, right where he apparently belongs. Colgan has a lively style, but this malicious little love story is awfully British and awfully brittle: all the girlish shrieking, tacky sex jokes, and class snobbery wear thin in a hurry.
This kind of import is definitely an acquired taste. (Film rights to Warner Bros.)Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-446-52647-9
Page Count: 278
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2000
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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