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
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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