An overwrought novel from Billingsley (the author's previous books include Say Amen, Again, NAACP Image Award Winner for...
Bernard Wells is an adulterer. Enraged that he fathered their live-in nanny’s child, Adele Wells casts not him but his child and the nanny out of the mansion. She may be ruthless and melodramatic, but Adele can’t stop fate from re-uniting the family.
For the last 17 years, Olivia’s mother, Lorraine, has scrimped, saved and sacrificed to give Olivia the best she can, but poverty has crushed their hopes. Things change quickly, however, when Lorraine finds an acceptance letter to Juilliard hidden beneath Olivia’s mattress. Hours after Lorraine mysteriously rushes out of the house, Olivia discovers her mother has had a heart attack and arrives at the hospital just in time for a deathbed confession: Olivia’s father is alive. He is the very wealthy Bernard Wells, CEO of England Enterprises. Olivia heads to Los Angeles. After all, what’s left for her in Houston? She can’t pay the rent, and the flame she carries for her ex-boyfriend is doused by the discovery that another woman is carrying his child. Confronting Bernard is no simple matter, though. Although he wants to help Olivia, he can’t risk Adele’s discovering that he has re-connected with his daughter. He devises a plan riddled with secrets, lies and money. He arranges for Olivia to work for him as an intern, along with his slacker son, Kendall, promising to back Kendall’s music career if he lasts six months. Sworn to secrecy, Olivia cannot tell Kendall that she is his sister. Meanwhile, Bernard’s mistress is becoming suspicious of the new, pretty intern who spends so much time with Bernard. The secrets swell and the payoff checks mount until an accident forces everyone to reveal the truth. Broken hearts and shattered trust follow. Note: an adaptation of Billingsley's novel Let the Church Say Amen, produced by Queen Latifa, will air on BET in Fall 2013.
An overwrought novel from Billingsley (the author's previous books include Say Amen, Again, NAACP Image Award Winner for Outstanding Fiction) that will nonetheless please fans.Pub Date: July 30, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-4516-3969-8
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Gallery Books/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 29, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Anyone who believes in true love or is simply willing to accept it as the premise of a winding tale will find this debut an...
True love flares between two people, but they find that circumstances always impede it.
On a winter day in London, Laurie spots Jack from her bus home and he sparks a feeling in her so deep that she spends the next year searching for him. Her roommate and best friend, Sarah, is the perfect wing-woman but ultimately—and unknowingly—ends the search by finding Jack and falling for him herself. Laurie’s hasty decision not to tell Sarah is the second painful missed opportunity (after not getting off the bus), but Sarah’s happiness is so important to Laurie that she dedicates ample energy into retraining her heart not to love Jack. Laurie is misguided, but her effort and loyalty spring from a true heart, and she considers her project mostly successful. Perhaps she would have total success, but the fact of the matter is that Jack feels the same deep connection to Laurie. His reasons for not acting on them are less admirable: He likes Sarah and she’s the total package; why would he give that up just because every time he and Laurie have enough time together (and just enough alcohol) they nearly fall into each other’s arms? Laurie finally begins to move on, creating a mostly satisfying life for herself, whereas Jack’s inability to be genuine tortures him and turns him into an ever bigger jerk. Patriarchy—it hurts men, too! There’s no question where the book is going, but the pacing is just right, the tone warm, and the characters sympathetic, even when making dumb decisions.
Anyone who believes in true love or is simply willing to accept it as the premise of a winding tale will find this debut an emotional, satisfying read.Pub Date: Oct. 16, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-525-57468-2
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: July 30, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
Agreeably credible lovers and a neat piece of home-restoration compensate some for the hokey hauntings on the bayou. Loyal...
A gumbo seasoned with ghosts, love, and murder on the bayou.
When 30-something Declan Fitzgerald of Boston, a successful lawyer and a member of a large and loving family, breaks off his engagement to very suitable Jessica, he knows he needs to change his life. Lawyering is not fun anymore, so, recalling Manet Hall, an old deserted plantation house he once visited with law school classmate and New Orleans native Remy, he buys the property and moves down south. Declan is also a gifted craftsman, a born decorator, and very, very rich. Soon, he meets beautiful Lena, who’s visiting her grandmother Odette, Declan’s friendly Cajun neighbor. Declan is as certain that Lena is destined to be his wife as he was that Manet Hall would become his home. But, surprise, Lena has a troubled past (like the house) and is determined to resist Declan’s courtship. While he suits Lena and works on the place, Declan experiences troubling dreams. It seems he’s actually reliving the novel’s parallel story, which took place in 1899. In that year, the maid, Abbey Manet (from whom Lena, coincidentally, is descended, and who married wealthy Lucian Manet), was raped and murdered by her brother-in-law Julian as she nursed her baby daughter. Her body was dumped into the bayou by her mother-in-law, who despised her. And grief-stricken husband Lucian, away at the time, being told that Abbey had run off, committed suicide. Now, in an unconvincing twist of gender and reincarnation, it’s Declan who hears a baby crying , experiences childbirth and rape as the reincarnation of Abbey, while Lena is Lucian. The two accept all this with equanimity, and, Manet Hall’s secrets revealed, it becomes the setting for predictable and much foreshadowed resolutions.
Agreeably credible lovers and a neat piece of home-restoration compensate some for the hokey hauntings on the bayou. Loyal fans will enjoy.Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-399-14824-8
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2001
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