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
Pevear's informative introduction and numerous helpful explanatory notes help make this the essential Anna Karenina.
The husband-and-wife team who have given us refreshing English versions of Dostoevsky, Gogol, and Chekhov now present their lucid translation of Tolstoy's panoramic tale of adultery and society: a masterwork that may well be the greatest realistic novel ever written. It's a beautifully structured fiction, which contrasts the aristocratic world of two prominent families with the ideal utopian one dreamed by earnest Konstantin Levin (a virtual self-portrait). The characters of the enchanting Anna (a descendant of Flaubert's Emma Bovary and Fontane's Effi Briest, and forerunner of countless later literary heroines), the lover (Vronsky) who proves worthy of her indiscretion, her bloodless husband Karenin and ingenuous epicurean brother Stiva, among many others, are quite literally unforgettable. Perhaps the greatest virtue of this splendid translation is the skill with which it distinguishes the accents of Anna's romantic egoism from the spare narrative clarity with which a vast spectrum of Russian life is vividly portrayed.
Pevear's informative introduction and numerous helpful explanatory notes help make this the essential Anna Karenina.Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-670-89478-8
Page Count: 864
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2001
PERSPECTIVES
Entertaining and unpredictable; Reid makes a compelling argument for happiness in every life.
Reid’s latest (After I Do, 2014, etc.) explores two parallel universes in which a young woman hopes to find her soul mate and change her life for the better.
After ending an affair with a married man, Hannah Martin is reunited with her high school sweetheart, Ethan, at a bar in Los Angeles. Should she go home with her friends and catch up with him later, or should they stay out and have another drink? It doesn’t seem like either decision would have earth-shattering consequences, but Reid has a knack for finding skeletons in unexpected closets. Two vastly different scenarios play out in alternating chapters: in one, Hannah and Ethan reconnect as if no time has passed; in the other, Hannah lands in the hospital alone after a freak accident that marks the first of many surprising plot twists. Hannah’s best friend, Gabby, believes in soul mates, and though Hannah has trouble making decisions—even when picking a snack from a vending machine—she and Gabby discover how their belief systems can alter their world as much as their choices. “Believing in fate is like living on cruise control,” Hannah says. What follows is a thoughtful analysis of free will versus fate in which Hannah finds that disasters can bring unexpected blessings, blessings can bring unexpected disasters, and that most people are willing to bring Hannah her favorite cinnamon rolls. “Because even when it looks like she’s made a terrible mistake,” Hannah’s mother observes, “things will always work out for Hannah.” The larger question becomes whether Hannah’s choices will ultimately affect her happiness—and it’s one that’s answered on a hopeful note as Hannah tries to do the right thing in every situation she faces.
Entertaining and unpredictable; Reid makes a compelling argument for happiness in every life.Pub Date: July 7, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-4767-7688-0
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Washington Square/Pocket
Review Posted Online: April 14, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2015
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