Soapy, fast-paced fun with a murder thrown in for good measure.
In a sequel to New Money (2013), spunky heroine Savannah Morgan navigates New York’s social world while attempting to solve the mysterious death of her father.
The modern Cinderella story continues in the opening: Southern girl Savannah is still dating aspiring writer Alex, her editorial responsibilities have increased at Femme, and she’s still living an enviable life with a Central Park West apartment and a $10,000 a week allowance—all thanks to her late father, media mogul Edward Stone. Though she never knew her father (those gifts over the years were supposedly from an aunt), his will made her an heiress and pushed the children he raised, Ned and Caroline, to the inheritance sidelines. Despite the initial animosity, the three are now committed to finding out the truth about their father’s death. They suspect he may have been ready to blow the whistle on some powerful people—but whom? Sen. Carys Caldwell, with whom he was having an affair? Her jilted husband? The COO of Amicus, accused of polluting a lake and causing the deaths of innocents? Or someone closer to home? Mixed in with the light mystery is the real focus of the novel: the state of Savannah’s various relationships. She breaks it off with Alex because he's too controlling; she gets closer to Caroline and enjoys newfound sisterhood; she and Ned are frequently at loggerheads, though he's endearingly protective; and she builds a romance with Wes Caldwell that's almost too good to be true. Watch out, Savannah! Rosenthal’s prose is occasionally clunky, focusing on inconsequential details, but her heroine's likability makes the flaws forgivable. After some impressive investigative work and a few moments of jeopardy, Savannah cracks the case. Her love life, however, may be less predictable.
Soapy, fast-paced fun with a murder thrown in for good measure.Pub Date: Dec. 2, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-250-04035-0
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Dunne/St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Oct. 22, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2014
BOOK REVIEW
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
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
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