Trash with little redeeming flash.
Glitz is the point of British author Perry’s fashion-obsessed debut, a beach read that was a bestseller in the U.K. in 2006.
After his family's annual Christmas Eve gala, Baron Oswald Balcon falls from a balcony to his death. When his body is found floating in a moat on Christmas morning, Oswald’s daughters are immediately suspects. The story then moves back in time several months, and the daughters’ histories are relayed. It seems that ever since his wife’s death, Oswald has undermined, controlled, badgered and bullied Venetia, Cate, Camilla and Serena Balcon, despite—or because of—the glory and notoriety all four have brought to the family name. Venetia, the eldest, owns a successful design firm and is married to a German aristocrat, Jonathon, selected by her father. Cate has her own travel/fashion magazine, Sand. Camilla, a winning barrister, has been tapped by the Tory party to serve in Parliament. Oswald’s grudging favorite, movie star Serena, recently broke with her actor/director boyfriend Tom to dally in the higher echelons of power with vicious billionaire Michael. But Serena, pregnant by Michael, catches him in mid-orgy and dumps him. Her career nosedives. Daddy is no help—he’s engaged to opera diva Maria, who threatens to produce a legitimate male heir and disinherit Daddy’s girls. Bent on scuttling his other daughters’ success, Oswald corners stock in Venetia’s firm and mocks the fact that she has no children. Resentful of Camilla’s political ambitions—his own fizzled—he threatens to divulge a “dark secret” from her past. When he’s not reminding Cate that she’s the ugly duckling of the family, he’s discouraging potential backers of her magazine. After Oswald’s death, his ghostwriter arrives to blackmail the girls with his Lordship’s memoir-in-progress. The murder mystery takes up approximately the last 80 pages. Unsurprisingly, Oswald’s past—the part left out of his memoirs—holds the key to his homicide, but readers may skim the obligatory clue-sifting to get to the epilogue, where Perry doles out paltry punishments and unearned rewards to her cast of puppets.
Trash with little redeeming flash.Pub Date: July 3, 2007
ISBN: 978-0-7432-9634-2
Page Count: 480
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2007
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...
Talk-show queen takes tumble as millions jeer.
Nora Bridges is a wildly popular radio spokesperson for family-first virtues, but her loyal listeners don't know that she walked out on her husband and teenaged daughters years ago and didn't look back. Now that a former lover has sold racy pix of naked Nora and horny himself to a national tabloid, her estranged daughter Ruby, an unsuccessful stand-up comic in Los Angeles, has been approached to pen a tell-all. Greedy for the fat fee she's been promised, Ruby agrees and heads for the San Juan Islands, eager to get reacquainted with the mom she plans to betray. Once in the family homestead, nasty Ruby alternately sulks and glares at her mother, who is temporarily wheelchair-bound as a result of a post-scandal car crash. Uncaring, Ruby begins writing her side of the story when she's not strolling on the beach with former sweetheart Dean Sloan, the son of wealthy socialites who basically ignored him and his gay brother Eric. Eric, now dying of cancer and also in a wheelchair, has returned to the island. This dismal threesome catch up on old times, recalling their childhood idylls on the island. After Ruby's perfect big sister Caroline shows up, there's another round of heartfelt talk. Nora gradually reveals the truth about her unloving husband and her late father's alcoholism, which led her to seek the approval of others at the cost of her own peace of mind. And so on. Ruby is aghast to discover that she doesn't know everything after all, but Dean offers her subdued comfort. Happy endings await almost everyone—except for readers of this nobly preachy snifflefest.
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with syrupy platitudes about life and love.Pub Date: March 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-609-60737-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2001
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
