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Publisher's Weekly
The latest domestic chiller from the author of Mother Love stars Victoria Courtenay, beautiful, charming and depraved. Raised in genteel English poverty following WW II, she decides early on that she deserves the best, finding a means to that end in Gerald Bramall, a happily married squire but no match for a will, or a body, like Victoria's. After his wife's suicide, Gerald marries Victoria, and his two nearly grown children step out of his life. Victoria gives birth to Lottie, whom she despises, and Rienzo, whom she indulges to excess. Lottie leaves home at age 16; Rienzo kills himself in a car crash; Gerald dies conveniently. As her self-absorption plumbs new psychotic depths, Victoria looks for another mate to father the perfect child she knows she is meant to produce. The man she catches is Lottie's boyfriend, and the complex events that follow comprise the main narrative of this overwrought, heavy-handed tale. The action is compressed into the final third of the book and important questions--such as why Taylor's men are such amiable weaklings--are left unanswered.
Library Journal
Beautiful but deadly: an apt description of Victoria Courtenay Bramall Lambert, the physically lovely, morally destitute protagonist of this disjointed novel. Blessed with beauty and intelligence but no money, Victoria embarks early on in a career of manipulation to remedy this lack. She blithely uses people to get what she needs, then, in a quite literal sense, disposes of those who would interfere with her self-serving agenda. While the men she ensnares are so besotted, weak-willed, or stupid to elicit much sympathy, one does experience at least a twinge for daughter Lottie, whose sole failing is that she's female and is incapable of intimidation. An unappealing account of an unpleasant personality, the book's redeeming facet is that one of Victoria's selfish sycophants is unintentionally responsible for her ultimate downfall.-- Judith A. Gifford, Salve Regina Coll. Lib., Newport, R.I.
Genre: Mystery
The latest domestic chiller from the author of Mother Love stars Victoria Courtenay, beautiful, charming and depraved. Raised in genteel English poverty following WW II, she decides early on that she deserves the best, finding a means to that end in Gerald Bramall, a happily married squire but no match for a will, or a body, like Victoria's. After his wife's suicide, Gerald marries Victoria, and his two nearly grown children step out of his life. Victoria gives birth to Lottie, whom she despises, and Rienzo, whom she indulges to excess. Lottie leaves home at age 16; Rienzo kills himself in a car crash; Gerald dies conveniently. As her self-absorption plumbs new psychotic depths, Victoria looks for another mate to father the perfect child she knows she is meant to produce. The man she catches is Lottie's boyfriend, and the complex events that follow comprise the main narrative of this overwrought, heavy-handed tale. The action is compressed into the final third of the book and important questions--such as why Taylor's men are such amiable weaklings--are left unanswered.
Library Journal
Beautiful but deadly: an apt description of Victoria Courtenay Bramall Lambert, the physically lovely, morally destitute protagonist of this disjointed novel. Blessed with beauty and intelligence but no money, Victoria embarks early on in a career of manipulation to remedy this lack. She blithely uses people to get what she needs, then, in a quite literal sense, disposes of those who would interfere with her self-serving agenda. While the men she ensnares are so besotted, weak-willed, or stupid to elicit much sympathy, one does experience at least a twinge for daughter Lottie, whose sole failing is that she's female and is incapable of intimidation. An unappealing account of an unpleasant personality, the book's redeeming facet is that one of Victoria's selfish sycophants is unintentionally responsible for her ultimate downfall.-- Judith A. Gifford, Salve Regina Coll. Lib., Newport, R.I.
Genre: Mystery
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