Mourning Glory
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5.0 • 2 Ratings
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- $5.99
Publisher Description
Grace Sorentino has never known the good life: from childhood hardships, to a marriage that began with lofty dreams and ended with all hopes shattered, Grace Sorentino has been dealt bad hand after bad hand. Grace and Jackie, her rebellious teenage daughter, are now stuck in Florida, on the verge of poverty. Grace works as an underpaid and under appreciated cosmetician at Saks Fifth Avenue, and Jackie—when she is not spending her time with questionable boys—balances school and two jobs. Just when Grace believes that things couldn’t get any worse, she is fired after accidentally insulting a snobby customer. However, it is a blessing in disguise. As Grace walks out the door, her boss offers her an invaluable piece of advice: don’t look for a new job, but a vulnerable old rich widower who has just lost his wife; comfort him, and once his guard is down, seduce him. The keys to success and fortune are not a name tag and uniform, but a new last name and a ring on your finger. Marriage should be the number-one priority. At first Grace is appalled by the idea, but as rent, car payments, and credit card bills pile up, her despair turns to desperation. She begins looking through the obituaries for her last chance at a good life—after all, isn’t that something everyone deserves?
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Lubricious (and sometimes ludicrous), this novel gives hope to despairing single females on the verge of 40. There's always a chance to acquire a rich husband if you screen the obits, pick out a grieving widower with a posh address and take after him, saving the sex card, of course, for last. Prolific novelist and screenwriter Adler (The War of the Roses) is a skilled fictioneer; his plot turns are inventive, and his true-to-life dialogue helps identify each character all of whom engage readers' emotions in one way or another. Grace Sorrentino, divorced mother of feisty teenaged daughter Jackie, sells cosmetics at Saks in Palm Beach until she's fired for talking back to a rude, rich customer. Faced with continued downward mobility, she takes her boss's advice, does the research and finally fibs her way into Sam Goodwin's mansion after the funeral of his "perfect" wife, Anne, professing to be a volunteer who's been designated to distribute Anne's extensive wardrobe among appropriate charities. One lie leads to another as Grace invents an upscale past (parentage, college, ex-husband, daughter) to match her envisioned upscale future. Grace can foresee neither the threat posed by Sam's greedy adult children nor that represented by her own daughter, full of curiosity about her mother's secret activities. The sex and money showcased here constitute soft porn: designer label lingo will satisfy upwardly mobile wannabes, and the occasional stirrings of conscience among the principal characters make everybody feel good. This is romance doctored with a good dose of suspense; the titillating premise should attract browsers, especially when the mass market edition appears. National advertising; 3-city author tour.
