Tepid soap opera from the usually lively Deveraux. As revenge scenarios go, these lack bite—and the unsophisticated prose...
Popular romancer Deveraux (Temptation, 2000, etc.) poses a question: What if you could go back in time and lead a different life?
And three very different women who met briefly 20 years earlier reunite and discover the answer. Of course, they only expected to swap family photos and lie to each other about how young they still look. There’s Madison, born out of wedlock, uneducated, formerly a budding supermodel from a tiny Montana town, who gave up her career for the rich boy who once said she wasn’t good enough. A horrific accident left Roger partially paralyzed, but Madison selflessly nursed him back to relative health and then married him, until he dumped her again. There’s Ellie, bestselling writer, whose husband, mooching musician Martin, took her for every penny she had in divorce court. (And to add insult to injury, she went on to gain 40 pounds.) There's Leslie, bored to death by her safe suburban existence and Alan, her insurance agent husband who has to have everything his way. Leslie’s family walks all over her, and she’s never done anything important with her life (this is somehow all their fault). This dreary trio gathers at a cute-as-can-be summer cottage in Maine where they catch up, in tiresome detail, on each other’s lives. On a whim, they visit Madame Zoya, a mysterious fortuneteller who sends them back in time. Madison meets a nice doctor, has a passel of kids, gets a physical therapy degree, and opens a clinic. Ellie latches onto the hunk of her dreams (a lawyer), who devises a way to outfox her nasty ex once and for all; they have a son and live happily ever after. And Leslie tells Alan she wants some changes made. Wonder of wonders, he complies and so do her bratty kids.
Tepid soap opera from the usually lively Deveraux. As revenge scenarios go, these lack bite—and the unsophisticated prose doesn't help.Pub Date: May 8, 2001
ISBN: 0-671-01418-8
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Pocket
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2001
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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