by Monique Domovitch ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 15, 2011
Good old-fashioned melodrama, with plenty of sex and scheming.
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In Domovitch’s debut novel, the fates of an ambitious young American architect and a beautiful Parisian painter intertwine.
The novel tells the parallel stories of Alex Ivanov, who’s at the onset of a promising career in architecture, and Brigitte Dartois, who escapes a string of dishonorable men to make a career as a painter. Spanning from the late-1940s to the 1960s, the novel follows Alex and Brigitte as they come of age, take control of their destinies and begin to see their respective stars rise. Born in poverty to a single, Russian-immigrant mother, Alex single-mindedly pursues his ambition, working night and day to learn his trade and establish himself. With no time for love or marriage, he uses his powerful good looks to seduce and leave a string of women; an entanglement with sexy Anne Turner, a secretary at his firm with an agenda of her own, threatens to cost him his hard-won position. Brigitte, who left home as a teenager, finds a job in a glamorous department store and becomes the target of her married boss’ extravagant attentions; he buys her a new wardrobe and sets her up in a lavish apartment. Upon realizing his motives, she flees to start a new life in Montmartre, selling her paintings in the market. Against the odds, Alex and Brigitte meet in Paris. They’re both uncertain about the future, but they find themselves drawn to each other despite their great differences. The novel has its flaws: The plot and characters are a bit generic, and many of Alex and Brigitte’s troubles result from the machinations of stock villains. The historical period is perfunctorily set, but Domovitch commendably handles the story, weaving together multiple subplots while creating passionate, ambitious characters who fight for what they want. She allows Alex and Brigitte enough complexity to prevent their eventual romance from seeming saccharine, although it’s not clear whether things will turn out well for them. The ambiguity and ominous developments that conclude the novel serve to dramatically set the stage for the novel’s sequel, The Sting of the Scorpio (2011), which follows the lovers to America.
Good old-fashioned melodrama, with plenty of sex and scheming.Pub Date: Sept. 15, 2011
ISBN: 978-1463790738
Page Count: 398
Publisher: Lansen Publishing
Review Posted Online: June 4, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2012
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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by Nora Roberts ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 13, 1995
Thoroughbreds and Virginia blue-bloods cavort, commit murder, and fall in love in Roberts's (Hidden Riches, 1994, etc.) latest romantic thriller — this one set in the world of championship horse racing. Rich, sheltered Kelsey Byden is recovering from a recent divorce when she receives a letter from her mother, Naomi, a woman she has believed dead for over 20 years. When Kelsey confronts her genteel English professor father, though, he sheepishly confesses that, no, her mother isn't dead; throughout Kelsey's childhood, she was doing time for the murder of her lover. Kelsey meets with Naomi and not only finds her quite charming, but the owner of Three Willows, one of the most splendid horse farms in Virginia. Kelsey is further intrigued when she meets Gabe Slater, a blue-eyed gambling man who owns a neighboring horse farm; when one of Gabe's horses is mated with Naomi's, nostrils flare, flanks quiver, and the romance is on. Since both Naomi and Gabe have horses entered in the Kentucky Derby, Kelsey is soon swept into the whirlwind of the Triple Crown, in spite of her family's objections to her reconciliation with the notorious Naomi. The rivalry between the two horse farms remains friendly, but other competitors — one of them is Gabe's father, a vicious alcoholic who resents his son's success — prove less scrupulous. Bodies, horse and human, start piling up, just as Kelsey decides to investigate the murky details of her mother's crime. Is it possible she was framed? The ground is thick with no-goods, including haughty patricians, disgruntled grooms, and jockeys with tragic pasts, but despite all the distractions, the identity of the true culprit behind the mayhem — past and present — remains fairly obvious. The plot lopes rather than races to the finish. Gambling metaphors abound, and sexual doings have a distinctly equine tone. But Roberts's style has a fresh, contemporary snap that gets the story past its own worst excesses.
Pub Date: June 13, 1995
ISBN: 0-399-14059-X
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 1995
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by Graham Swift ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 5, 1996
Britisher Swift's sixth novel (Ever After, 1992 etc.) and fourth to appear here is a slow-to-start but then captivating tale of English working-class families in the four decades following WW II. When Jack Dodds dies suddenly of cancer after years of running a butcher shop in London, he leaves a strange request—namely, that his ashes be scattered off Margate pier into the sea. And who could better be suited to fulfill this wish than his three oldest drinking buddies—insurance man Ray, vegetable seller Lenny, and undertaker Vic, all of whom, like Jack himself, fought also as soldiers or sailors in the long-ago world war. Swift's narrative start, with its potential for the melodramatic, is developed instead with an economy, heart, and eye that release (through the characters' own voices, one after another) the story's humanity and depth instead of its schmaltz. The jokes may be weak and self- conscious when the three old friends meet at their local pub in the company of the urn holding Jack's ashes; but once the group gets on the road, in an expensive car driven by Jack's adoptive son, Vince, the story starts gradually to move forward, cohere, and deepen. The reader learns in time why it is that no wife comes along, why three marriages out of three broke apart, and why Vince always hated his stepfather Jack and still does—or so he thinks. There will be stories of innocent youth, suffering wives, early loves, lost daughters, secret affairs, and old antagonisms—including a fistfight over the dead on an English hilltop, and a strewing of Jack's ashes into roiling seawaves that will draw up feelings perhaps unexpectedly strong. Without affectation, Swift listens closely to the lives that are his subject and creates a songbook of voices part lyric, part epic, part working-class social realism—with, in all, the ring to it of the honest, human, and true.
Pub Date: April 5, 1996
ISBN: 0-679-41224-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 1996
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