Formulaic glitz, generally lifeless.
A prince, a gypsy, a scandal, billions of dollars . . . and, oh, yeah, triplet sisters separated at birth.
Cheesy melodrama from the author of several just as shameless (For All the Wrong Reasons, 2002, etc.), featuring cardboard characters experiencing actual human emotions such as envy, lust, greed, and more! Able to leap entire continents in a single bound! Bold as a brass ashtray and just as tacky! To begin: after WWII, the blue-blooded Parigis of Italy don’t even have the lire to fix up their crumbling palazzo, let alone lord it over the local paisans. But second son Cosimo, an industrious type, doesn’t look down on work and makes bigga buckses in various enterprises, infuriating his jealous older brother and his lazy nephew Roberto. Years go by. Resentments seethe. Once grown, Roberto plans to murder his cousin Luigi, rape and kill his gypsy wife, burn down his mansion, and get all the money. But the gypsy, a spitfire with she-wolf eyes, curses Roberto: he’s doomed unless he promises to save her newborn daughters. It’s enough to make a deranged arsonist-killer-rapist lose his, ah, manhood, but when his rivals are safely dispatched, he does hand the babies over to an international baby-selling ring. Rose is adopted by a hard-working couple who own a deli in Hell’s Kitchen, Poppy by a rich Jewish lawyer and his wife in Los Angeles, while Daisy somehow winds up in England. Years go by. Rose gets an education and a real estate license—and learns a lot from sexy but down-to-earth Jacob Rothstein, scion of a New York real estate dynasty. Poppy likes to party, but being a punk rock groupie soon palls, and she moves into the management side of the music biz, eventually bedding her very own congressman. Daisy, plump and bookish, becomes a bestselling writer. Soon, the three find they’re related, born as the contessas C., rightful heirs to an immense fortune. Is Roberto still alive? It’s payback time, fella.
Formulaic glitz, generally lifeless.Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-312-27305-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2003
Entertaining and thoroughly engrossing.
Another reboot of Jane Austen?!? Hadlow pulls it off in a smart, heartfelt novel devoted to bookish Mary, middle of the five sisters in Pride and Prejudice.
Part 1 recaps Pride and Prejudice through Mary’s eyes, climaxing with the humiliating moment when she sings poorly at a party and older sister Elizabeth goads their father to cut her off in front of everyone. The sisters’ friend Charlotte, who marries the unctuous Mr. Collins after Elizabeth rejects him, emerges as a pivotal character; her conversations with Mary are even tougher-minded here than those with Elizabeth depicted by Austen. In Part 2, two years later, Mary observes on a visit that Charlotte is deferential but remote with her husband; she forms an intellectual friendship with the neglected and surprisingly nice Mr. Collins that leads to Charlotte’s asking Mary to leave. In Part 3, Mary finds refuge in London with her kindly aunt and uncle, Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner. Mrs. Gardiner is the second motherly woman, after Longbourn housekeeper Mrs. Hill, to try to undo the psychic damage wrought by Mary’s actual mother, shallow, status-obsessed Mrs. Bennet, by building up her confidence and buying her some nice clothes (funded by guilt-ridden Lizzy). Sure enough, two suitors appear: Tom Hayward, a poetry-loving lawyer who relishes Mary’s intellect but urges her to also express her feelings; and William Ryder, charming but feckless inheritor of a large fortune, whom naturally Mrs. Bennet loudly favors. It takes some maneuvering to orchestrate the estrangement of Mary and Tom, so clearly right for each other, but debut novelist Hadlow manages it with aplomb in a bravura passage describing a walking tour of the Lake District rife with seething complications furthered by odious Caroline Bingley. Her comeuppance at Mary’s hands marks the welcome final step in our heroine’s transformation from a self-doubting wallflower to a vibrant, self-assured woman who deserves her happy ending. Hadlow traces that progression with sensitivity, emotional clarity, and a quiet edge of social criticism Austen would have relished.
Entertaining and thoroughly engrossing.Pub Date: March 31, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-12941-3
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: Dec. 22, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Anyone who believes in true love or is simply willing to accept it as the premise of a winding tale will find this debut an...
True love flares between two people, but they find that circumstances always impede it.
On a winter day in London, Laurie spots Jack from her bus home and he sparks a feeling in her so deep that she spends the next year searching for him. Her roommate and best friend, Sarah, is the perfect wing-woman but ultimately—and unknowingly—ends the search by finding Jack and falling for him herself. Laurie’s hasty decision not to tell Sarah is the second painful missed opportunity (after not getting off the bus), but Sarah’s happiness is so important to Laurie that she dedicates ample energy into retraining her heart not to love Jack. Laurie is misguided, but her effort and loyalty spring from a true heart, and she considers her project mostly successful. Perhaps she would have total success, but the fact of the matter is that Jack feels the same deep connection to Laurie. His reasons for not acting on them are less admirable: He likes Sarah and she’s the total package; why would he give that up just because every time he and Laurie have enough time together (and just enough alcohol) they nearly fall into each other’s arms? Laurie finally begins to move on, creating a mostly satisfying life for herself, whereas Jack’s inability to be genuine tortures him and turns him into an ever bigger jerk. Patriarchy—it hurts men, too! There’s no question where the book is going, but the pacing is just right, the tone warm, and the characters sympathetic, even when making dumb decisions.
Anyone who believes in true love or is simply willing to accept it as the premise of a winding tale will find this debut an emotional, satisfying read.Pub Date: Oct. 16, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-525-57468-2
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: July 30, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
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