The glittery new frock in Krantz's own extensive collection (Scruples Two, 1992, etc.) is a romp-for-all-seasons (not just spring)—an in-depth probe into the behind-the-scenes world of high fashion, with plenty of forays into satin-sheeted beds and the hidden pleasures of the city of lights and love. The spring '95 collections in Paris are the setting for this latest foray into riches, romance, and illicit rendezvous, with the focus on the collection of unknown but extremely promising designer and world-class seducer Marco Lombardi. Marco is being backed financially by international mogul Jacques Necker. When Necker holds a contest to select three new models for his protÇgÇ's premier collection, three of Justine Loring's clients are chosen. Although Justine, a beautiful ex-model herself, has made a small but unequivocal success of her Manhattan agency, it shocks the fashion world when her ``girls'' dominate the contest. Coincidence? Hardly. Turns out that Justine is actually Necker's long-lost daughter and that Necker has invented the whole contest as a device to get in touch with his only child, whom he's never met. A resentful Justine thwarts Necker's manipulations by sending her models—the blond and pristine April, unpredictable redhead Tinker, and elegant African-American Jordan—to Paris with her associate Frankie Severino as a chaperon instead of herself. Once in Paris, April's sexuality, Tinker's emotional fragility, and Jordan's quest for a lover with a mind and body equal to her own take a backseat only to Frankie's own budding romance with a major-magazine photographer. Back in the States, alone, a vulnerable Justine is left to wonder whether she's made the right choice by shutting her father out of her life, until, of course, she too finds the love she's been waiting for . . . . Par for Krantz's own diamond-encrusted runway. (Literary Guild main selection)
Pub Date: April 2, 1996
ISBN: 0-517-59334-3
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 1996
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.
A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.
"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.Pub Date: June 15, 1951
ISBN: 0316769177
Page Count: -
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
APPRECIATIONS
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.
Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.
Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-345-46752-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
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