A real-life Beauty and the Beast. Only in de Borchgrave's breathless memoir, the male lead isn't a monster with a noble soul but a nobleman with a monstrous soul—and the love scenes are strictly adults-only. In 1977, the author (nÇe Heller), a young Barnard graduate living a ``fast-track'' life in Manhattan, falls into a gothic romance: ``I was aware of the tall, handsome man in the [airplane] seat next to me...telling me that he was Jacques de Borchgrave''- -a.k.a. Baron de Borchgrave, son of one of Belgium's noblest families. Before long, Sheri is sharing the baron's suite in St. Tropez, succumbing to his sweet nothings: ``Now that I've seen your body on the beach, your soft curves...I want to caress those curves...Sheri, I desire you furiously.'' The castles and a life of indolent luxury don't turn off Sheri, either, and soon she's tying the knot, despite reservations—especially about the breast- enlargement surgery that Jacques insists she have. When Sheri postpones the surgery, the baron explodes in a rage, but calms down long enough for her to learn that she's only the latest of several women he's planned to mutate into a Stepford wife. It takes months longer to learn of his yen for sex games—revealed as Sheri watches a nude swimming party devolve into an orgy; catches the baron in bed with his sister; and is coerced into having sex with three women at once. But Jacques has such impeccable manners (``His expertise and elegance in handling utensils was like great theater'') that it's going to take more—like rages that verge on homicidal mania—for her to split. Ironically, the baron puts a bullet into his head before a divorce comes through, and now Sheri is a baroness for life. For a blue-blooded bodice-ripping morality tale, this isn't half bad. (Photos—not seen)
Pub Date: Sept. 8, 1993
ISBN: 0-525-93637-8
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1993
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis...
Privately published by Strunk of Cornell in 1918 and revised by his student E. B. White in 1959, that "little book" is back again with more White updatings.
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis (whoops — "A bankrupt expression") a unique guide (which means "without like or equal").Pub Date: May 15, 1972
ISBN: 0205632645
Page Count: 105
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1972
This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)
Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996
ISBN: 0-15-100227-4
Page Count: 136
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996
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