Holden, a former writer for the Mail on Sunday, certainly knows her way around snarky royal gossip and delivers here a very...
A cheeky exposé on gold digging (the marital sort) from the British bestselling author of Beautiful People (2009) and Filthy Rich (2008).
A large cast of characters searching for something—money, excitement, love, ancient Roman toilets—all show up at the novel’s glamorous royal wedding finale, but it takes a lot of scheming and luck to get them there. Polly, an archaeology student, is on Lord Shropshire’s estate unearthing Roman artifacts when she meets the dashing Max. A veterinary student spending the summer at Shropshire’s manor (he’s a bit vague on the connection), he and Polly begin an easy summer romance. Meanwhile, Alexa MacDonald (formerly Allison Donald, only child of an embarrassingly working-class couple from the Midlands) is looking for a rich husband. She studied hard and made it to St. Andrews but squandered her time at university attending parties, hunts and weekend soirees—all in search of a marriageable title—but now she is both without a degree or a husband. If only she could have been born into Lady FlorenceTrevorigus-Whyske-Cleethorpe’s high-heeled Manolos. Lady Florrie, a fixture of Socialite magazine, is beautiful, fashionable and innocent as only the superprivileged can be. She has no interest in marriage or money; she just wants some fun, life as an endless banquet. Just as Max and Polly are falling in love, he has been summoned back to Sedona, a principality on the Riviera. Turns out Max is the heir apparent, and his father is insisting he marry. Sedona needs to attract investors, and there is nothing like a royal wedding to court publicity. While Max is fighting his father, Alexa has the help of Barney, an equally dedicated social climber and hanger-on. Alexa, an odious character from the beginning, has to sleep with so many ghastly lords (and one Russian oligarch) that, by the end, even she deserves a little happiness. As for Max, he’s been fixed up with Florrie, but not if Polly can steal him away before the wedding.
Holden, a former writer for the Mail on Sunday, certainly knows her way around snarky royal gossip and delivers here a very guilty pleasure.Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-4022-7067-3
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Sourcebooks Landmark
Review Posted Online: July 21, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2012
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
Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her...
Another middle-aged mom in a muddle.
After years of false starts and big hopes, Elizabeth’s ruggedly handsome husband Jack, a former football star, just landed a spot as a sportscaster on national news. He still loves her, even though much younger women are giving him come-hither looks. Heck, he doesn’t want to betray the love of his life after she helped him kick drugs and stuck by him even when he was a struggling has-been. And won’t it seem hypocritical if he fools around with his sexy assistant while he does in-depth reporting on a rape case involving a famous basketball center? Well, he fools around anyway. Elizabeth, nicknamed Birdie, knows nothing of this, but she withdraws from Jack when her hard-drinking, salt-of-the-earth father has a stroke and dies. Now no one will call her “sugar beet” ever again. Time to return home to Tennessee and contend with Anita, the sort-of-evil stepmother so trashy she wears pink puffy slippers all day long. Naturally, it turns out that Anita actually has a heart of gold and knows a few things about Birdie’s dead mother that were hushed up for years. Mom was an artist, just like Birdie, and an old scandal comes to light as Anita unrolls a vibrant canvas that portrays her secret lover. Perhaps, Birdie muses, her mother died of heartbreak, never having followed her true love or developed her talent. Has she, too, compromised everything she holds dear? Hoping to find out, Birdie joins a support group that promises to reconnect confused women with their passion. She and Jack separate, prompting a how-dare-you fit from their grown daughters. Will Birdie fly her empty nest? Will she go back to college for a degree in art? Will her brooding watercolors ever sell?
Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her previous tales (Summer Island, 2001, etc.).Pub Date: July 1, 2002
ISBN: 0-345-45071-X
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2002
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