Incestuous rape understandably sends a wealthy Chicago teenager into a quarter century of celibacyuntil her passions are awakened by a kindly archaeologist and the chance to undo her malefactor. Midwestern melodrama from the husband and wife Wealth, Glamour, and Power (Inheritance, Private Affairs, A Ruling Passion) specialist team. No wicked stepmother could be more odious or evil than Anne Chatham's handsome, vile uncle Vince, who, under the noses of Anne's large, immensely wealthy but astonishingly unnoticing family, sexually enslaves the motherless child for two years until she at last denounces him at her 15th birthday dinner in 1967. Fleeing her semi-credulous relatives, Anne leaves the Chicago suburbs for Haight-Ashbury, where she pulls herself together and begins a life alone that takes her through Berkeley to Harvard Law (top marks always, of course) and on to a lucrative career dealing in L.A. divorces. But returning to Chicago for her grandfather's funeral, Anne is sucked back into the family drama. Uncle Vince, renounced by his father after Anne's accusations, is now a Denver zillionaire senator with an eye on the White House. Anne's father is losing most of his fortune in inept developments, and the younger generation of Chathams has upped stakes for Tamarack, the Aspenlike ski resort developed by grandpa. Uncle Vince is not happy to see Anne back in town. She and her unhappy memories could send his career into a tailspin. He begins a series of machinations intended to eliminate Anne and, while he's at it, to take revenge for his excommunication by wiping out the family's ski-slopes-for- the-superrich business. Meanwhile, Josh Durant, Anne's handsome, scholarly, deeply rich admirer, flies back and forth between Tamarack, where he woos the still chilly Anne and where he is accused of heinous crimes, and Luxor, Egypt, where he has discovered a deeply rich tomb with a completely intact Pharaoh and where he hopes Anne will discover her deeply buried feelings. Upmarket Harlequin. Middle-class values prevail no matter how many millions are flung about.
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1991
ISBN: 0-671-64893-4
Page Count: 560
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1991
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.
Life lessons.
Angie Malone, the youngest of a big, warm Italian-American family, returns to her Pacific Northwest hometown to wrestle with various midlife disappointments: her divorce, Papa’s death, a downturn in business at the family restaurant, and, above all, her childlessness. After several miscarriages, she, a successful ad exec, and husband Conlan, a reporter, befriended a pregnant young girl and planned to adopt her baby—and then the birth mother changed her mind. Angie and Conlan drifted apart and soon found they just didn’t love each other anymore. Metaphorically speaking, “her need for a child had been a high tide, an overwhelming force that drowned them. A year ago, she could have kicked to the surface but not now.” Sadder but wiser, Angie goes to work in the struggling family restaurant, bickering with Mama over updating the menu and replacing the ancient waitress. Soon, Angie befriends another young girl, Lauren Ribido, who’s eager to learn and desperately needs a job. Lauren’s family lives on the wrong side of the tracks, and her mother is a promiscuous alcoholic, but Angie knows nothing of this sad story and welcomes Lauren into the DeSaria family circle. The girl listens in, wide-eyed, as the sisters argue and make wisecracks and—gee-whiz—are actually nice to each other. Nothing at all like her relationship with her sluttish mother, who throws Lauren out when boyfriend David, en route to Stanford, gets her pregnant. Will Lauren, who’s just been accepted to USC, let Angie adopt her baby? Well, a bit of a twist at the end keeps things from becoming too predictable.
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.Pub Date: July 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-345-46750-7
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2004
Dark and unsettling, this novel’s end arrives abruptly even as readers are still moving at a breakneck speed.
Ten years after her teenage daughter went missing, a mother begins a new relationship only to discover she can't truly move on until she answers lingering questions about the past.
Laurel Mack’s life stopped in many ways the day her 15-year-old daughter, Ellie, left the house to study at the library and never returned. She drifted away from her other two children, Hanna and Jake, and eventually she and her husband, Paul, divorced. Ten years later, Ellie’s remains and her backpack are found, though the police are unable to determine the reasons for her disappearance and death. After Ellie’s funeral, Laurel begins a relationship with Floyd, a man she meets in a cafe. She's disarmed by Floyd’s charm, but when she meets his young daughter, Poppy, Laurel is startled by her resemblance to Ellie. As the novel progresses, Laurel becomes increasingly determined to learn what happened to Ellie, especially after discovering an odd connection between Poppy’s mother and her daughter even as her relationship with Floyd is becoming more serious. Jewell’s (I Found You, 2017, etc.) latest thriller moves at a brisk pace even as she plays with narrative structure: The book is split into three sections, including a first one which alternates chapters between the time of Ellie’s disappearance and the present and a second section that begins as Laurel and Floyd meet. Both of these sections primarily focus on Laurel. In the third section, Jewell alternates narrators and moments in time: The narrator switches to alternating first-person points of view (told by Poppy’s mother and Floyd) interspersed with third-person narration of Ellie’s experiences and Laurel’s discoveries in the present. All of these devices serve to build palpable tension, but the structure also contributes to how deeply disturbing the story becomes. At times, the characters and the emotional core of the events are almost obscured by such quick maneuvering through the weighty plot.
Dark and unsettling, this novel’s end arrives abruptly even as readers are still moving at a breakneck speed.Pub Date: April 24, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5011-5464-5
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: Feb. 5, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2018
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