If Holden’s novel lacks a bit of depth, it is redeemed by the contagious pleasure had in skewering Hollywood hotties and...
This British cupcake of a novel throws a wholesome nanny into the terrifying world of Hollywood agents, actors and hastily adopted African babies.
Holden, author of a number of light farces (The School for Husbands, 2007, etc.), assembles a large cast of, if not quite characters, at least punch lines, that gather in a slapstick climax under the Tuscan sun. Hollywood agent Mitch Masterson has convinced client Darcy Prince, scion of a venerable British acting family, to audition for Jack Saint’s latest sci-fi epic Galaxia. While Darcy’s star is on the rise, his other A-lister Belle Murphy, likened to a stick figure with balloons, is spiraling out of control. Teetering on stilettos with a growling Chihuahua tucked under her arm, Belle has been sent to London to revive her career by doing Shakespeare (and for good measure she’s adopted an African baby she’s named Morning). Enter Emma, a lovely, responsible young nanny—who has just been sacked from her last post when the scheming aristo-nanny Totty de Belvedere sneaks cocaine into Emma’s bag—whom Belle hires to do…absolutely everything. As plots would have it, everyone ends up in the Tuscan countryside—Darcy, Belle and gold-chained heartthrob Christian Harlow, to film Galaxia; Emma to care for Morning; Totty in care of the children she usurped from Emma; a paparazzi fed up with celebrities; and the Fitzmaurice family: father, an MP with a strangely randy constituency, mother, a batty social climber, and young son Orlando, who has had significant flirtations with Emma. Sex is on many a mind, but Darcy, the world’s only carb-consuming actress, would prefer a leisurely meal at hunky Marco’s hilltop restaurant, where the cheese is fresh, the bread crunchy and olive oil is drizzled over everything. She’s beginning to think the simple life of food and love is just what she’s after. In a smash-up finale of epic complications, all is happily resolved.
If Holden’s novel lacks a bit of depth, it is redeemed by the contagious pleasure had in skewering Hollywood hotties and coke-snorting aristocrats.Pub Date: April 1, 2010
ISBN: 978-1-4022-3715-7
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Sourcebooks Landmark
Review Posted Online: Dec. 22, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2010
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...
Sisters in and out of love.
Meghann Dontess is a high-powered matrimonial lawyer in Seattle who prefers sex with strangers to emotional intimacy: a strategy bound to backfire sooner or later, warns her tough-talking shrink. It’s advice Meghann decides to ignore, along with the memories of her difficult childhood, neglectful mother, and younger sister. Though she managed to reunite Claire with Sam Cavenaugh (her father but not Meghann’s) when her mother abandoned both girls long ago, Meghann still feels guilty that her sister’s life doesn’t measure up, at least on her terms. Never married, Claire ekes out a living running a country campground with her dad and is raising her six-year-old daughter on her own. When she falls in love for the first time with an up-and-coming country musician, Meghann is appalled: Bobby Austin is a three-time loser at marriage—how on earth can Claire be so blind? Bobby’s blunt explanation doesn’t exactly satisfy the concerned big sister, who busies herself planning Claire’s dream wedding anyway. And, to relieve the stress, she beds various guys she picks up in bars, including Dr. Joe Wyatt, a neurosurgeon turned homeless drifter after the demise of his beloved wife Diane (whom he euthanized). When Claire’s awful headache turns out to be a kind of brain tumor known among neurologists as a “terminator,” Joe rallies. Turns out that Claire had befriended his wife on her deathbed, and now in turn he must try to save her. Is it too late? Will Meghann find true love at last?
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles (Distant Shores, 2002, etc.). Kudos for skipping the snifflefest this time around.Pub Date: May 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-345-45073-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2003
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
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BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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