A clichéd fairy tale, about as original as the TV movie it will inevitably become.
Another riches-to-rags-to-riches tales from celebutante author Richie.
After tapping the seedier side of her personal life, Richie (The Truth About Diamonds, 2005) composes another avatar for herself, a spoiled heiress digging deep in a time of crisis. Charlotte Williams is a 22-year-old princess living the high life in New York City, thanks to the largesse of her father Jacob, a Wall Street tycoon. Charlotte’s other inheritance, her looks, come from her late mother, a legendary supermodel who was killed in a car wreck. Her introduction is painfully formulaic. Here’s Charlotte clubbing; gossiping with her catty girlfriends; and shopping, shopping, shopping as the author drops designer names like they paid for product placements. Tragedy strikes when father Jacob is arrested by the FBI and charged with embezzlement in a ripped-from-the-headlines case of fraud. Before long, Charlotte is assaulted by a stranger and starts receiving death threats by telephone. She doesn’t have resources to fall back on, because her $10 million trust fund has been frozen by the Feds, forcing her to (gasp) pawn her jewelry collection. “She realized if she was going to get out of this situation, she was going to have to be resourceful,” Richie writes. “Creative. Bold. But first? Shopping.” Fortunately, the narrative picks up a little when Charlotte flees the city to stay with Millie Pearl, her former nanny, in New Orleans. There Charlotte meets a pair of kindred spirits in Kat Karraby, a lesbian force of nature who manages a hot vintage-clothing store, and Jackson Pearl, Millie’s handsome son who introduces the debutante to the earthier side of society. Richie still manages to add both glam and friction to this latter section, guilelessly as ever. Naturally, Charlotte instantly becomes a famous singing star when Kat puts her performance on YouTube, while her creepy stalker continues to circle his noose around the rising diva.
A clichéd fairy tale, about as original as the TV movie it will inevitably become.Pub Date: Sept. 28, 2010
ISBN: 978-1-4391-9690-8
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: July 13, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2010
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
Less bleak than the subject matter might warrant—Hannah’s default outlook is sunny—but still, a wrenching depiction of war’s...
The traumatic homecoming of a wounded warrior.
The daughter of alcoholics who left her orphaned at 17, Jolene “Jo” Zarkades found her first stable family in the military: She’s served over two decades, first in the army, later with the National Guard. A helicopter pilot stationed near Seattle, Jo copes as competently at home, raising two daughters, Betsy and Lulu, while trying to dismiss her husband Michael’s increasing emotional distance. Jo’s mettle is sorely tested when Michael informs her flatly that he no longer loves her. Four-year-old Lulu clamors for attention while preteen Betsy, mean-girl-in-training, dismisses as dweeby her former best friend, Seth, son of Jo’s confidante and fellow pilot, Tami. Amid these challenges comes the ultimate one: Jo and Tami are deployed to Iraq. Michael, with the help of his mother, has to take over the household duties, and he rapidly learns that parenting is much harder than his wife made it look. As Michael prepares to defend a PTSD-afflicted veteran charged with Murder I for killing his wife during a dissociative blackout, he begins to understand what Jolene is facing and to revisit his true feelings for her. When her helicopter is shot down under insurgent fire, Jo rescues Tami from the wreck, but a young crewman is killed. Tami remains in a coma and Jo, whose leg has been amputated, returns home to a difficult rehabilitation on several fronts. Her nightmares in which she relives the crash and other horrors she witnessed, and her pain, have turned Jo into a person her daughters now fear (which in the case of bratty Betsy may not be such a bad thing). Jo can't forgive Michael for his rash words. Worse, she is beginning to remind Michael more and more of his homicide client. Characterization can be cursory: Michael’s earlier callousness, left largely unexplained, undercuts the pathos of his later change of heart.
Less bleak than the subject matter might warrant—Hannah’s default outlook is sunny—but still, a wrenching depiction of war’s aftermath.Pub Date: Jan. 31, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-312-57720-9
Page Count: 400
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Dec. 18, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2012
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