Coleridge’s smashing epic delivers a wealth of entertainment.
Scandalous behavior, a scheming opportunist and the upper echelons of British society provide fodder for this irresistible rags-to-riches saga by Coleridge (Pride and Avarice, 2010, etc.), president of Condé Nast International.
Never down on her luck for long, Cath Fox is bold and single-minded in her ferocious pursuit of what—and whom—she wants. Her upward climb, which begins in the 1980s and spans 30 years, delivers prime-time soap appeal à la Dynasty as Cath, with her tattoos and earthy sex appeal, molds herself from punk rock raw to Alexis Carrington–chic and beyond. Before her 18th birthday, she has daughter Jess with a nightclub bouncer, catches him in a compromising position with her own mother and flees the slums of Portsmouth, England, with nary a backward glance. With chameleonlike ability, Cath creates new personas and plots/sleeps her way to the top. Her ascent from the fringes of society into the highest echelons is not always seamless, but Cath is wily and takes advantage of each opportunity. She works as an assistant matron at a private girls school, meets student Annabel Goode and launches into a doomed affair with Annabel’s father. Her skills and willingness to provide extra services as a “masseuse” result in a very brief engagement to Lord Charles Blaydon, an octogenarian whose final moment of bliss occurs during their private betrothal celebration. And Cath's stint working in a magazine house leads to a chance meeting with soccer star Ryan James, who becomes the first of her husbands and whose notoriety and riches whet her appetite for more. While Cath climbs to the social pinnacle of British society, Annabel’s life takes a more conventional route, though it’s not without its own share of tribulations, and Jess becomes a journalist after spending her childhood with a loving adoptive family. The three women’s lives intersect on different occasions over the years, which sets up a predictable, yet satisfying, conclusion. Throughout, the author adeptly balances the different threads, maintains a polished and briskly paced plot, and provides readers with a story that's an absolute delight.
Coleridge’s smashing epic delivers a wealth of entertainment.Pub Date: May 28, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-250-02825-9
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Dunne/St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: April 12, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2013
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
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