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HOT PROPERTY

Billed as a roman à clef, this first novel by the Kleier trio (who star in HGTV’s reality show Selling New York) seems more of a recitation of trendy brand names, trendy shops and restaurants and the trendy New York City residential real estate coveted by Big Apple movers-and-shakers.

The lightweight narrative chronicles the adventures of the Chase family, Elizabeth, the mother, and Kate and Isabel, daughters who work with their parents at Chase Residential, "a wildly successful boutique agency." The authors (mother and daughters) are real-life Manhattan residential brokers. They know multimillion-dollar locations, and they know people willing to bid above asking price for the view: "After irritating Elizabeth for months with his indecision and almost daily phone calls, the exasperating Bart Schneider finally opted to buy." They know co-op boards want to see financials and will demand dogs take the freight elevator. The Chases also recite every brand name coveted by those who earn seven figures, from Jimmy Choo to Badgley Mischka. The plot is minimal. Kate worries about an on-again/off-again relationship with a can't-find-himself boyfriend. Teddy Wingo, a womanizing, high-producing Chase broker, conspires to join a rival firm. Then there is Isabel's enigmatic client, Delphine, the trophy wife of a count, but any reader not bedazzled by Möet Chandon will decipher that mystery before the next power lunch at Balthazar. Much of the narrative moves via cell phones or chauffeur-driven Mercedes, or while shopping at Saks or Bergdorf or over a lunch of pollo patanato at Sette Mezzo. Countless names are dropped—everyone from Billy Joel to Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta-Jones—and doubt Page Six fans will be amused to see doppelgängers in cameo appearances.  

Ungaro, Chanel, Nina Ricci, Poggenpohl and Sub-Zero do not great storytelling make.

 

Pub Date: Aug. 30, 2011

ISBN: 978-0-06-1127663

Page Count: 352

Publisher: HarperCollins

Review Posted Online: July 5, 2011

Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2011

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THE THINGS WE DO FOR LOVE

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

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FIREFLY LANE

Dated sermonizing on career versus motherhood, and conflict driven by characters’ willed helplessness, sap this tale of...

Lifelong, conflicted friendship of two women is the premise of Hannah’s maudlin latest (Magic Hour, 2006, etc.), again set in Washington State.

Tallulah “Tully” Hart, father unknown, is the daughter of a hippie, Cloud, who makes only intermittent appearances in her life. Tully takes refuge with the family of her “best friend forever,” Kate Mularkey, who compares herself unfavorably with Tully, in regards to looks and charisma. In college, “TullyandKate” pledge the same sorority and major in communications. Tully has a life goal for them both: They will become network TV anchorwomen. Tully lands an internship at KCPO-TV in Seattle and finagles a producing job for Kate. Kate no longer wishes to follow Tully into broadcasting and is more drawn to fiction writing, but she hesitates to tell her overbearing friend. Meanwhile a love triangle blooms at KCPO: Hard-bitten, irresistibly handsome, former war correspondent Johnny is clearly smitten with Tully. Expecting rejection, Kate keeps her infatuation with Johnny secret. When Tully lands a reporting job with a Today-like show, her career shifts into hyperdrive. Johnny and Kate had started an affair once Tully moved to Manhattan, and when Kate gets pregnant with daughter Marah, they marry. Kate is content as a stay-at-home mom, but frets about being Johnny’s second choice and about her unrealized writing ambitions. Tully becomes Seattle’s answer to Oprah. She hires Johnny, which spells riches for him and Kate. But Kate’s buttons are fully depressed by pitched battles over slutwear and curfews with teenaged Marah, who idolizes her godmother Tully. In an improbable twist, Tully invites Kate and Marah to resolve their differences on her show, only to blindside Kate by accusing her, on live TV, of overprotecting Marah. The BFFs are sundered. Tully’s latest attempt to salvage Cloud fails: The incorrigible, now geriatric hippie absconds once more. Just as Kate develops a spine, she’s given some devastating news. Will the friends reconcile before it’s too late?

Dated sermonizing on career versus motherhood, and conflict driven by characters’ willed helplessness, sap this tale of poignancy.

Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2008

ISBN: 978-0-312-36408-3

Page Count: 496

Publisher: St. Martin's

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2007

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