The Goddess Rules

February 7, 2005
The goddess of this entertaining fourth novel (and first Ballantine hardcover) by British author Naylor (Dog Handling
, etc.) is an aging French screen star named Mirabelle Moncur. We know Mirri is French because she says non
and merde
and because she likes sex and knows her way around men. Heroine Kate Disney also likes sex, but she doesn't know her way around men, especially Jake, her caddish lout of a boyfriend. When Mirri commissions Kate, a painter of animal portraits, to immortalize her pet lion cub, the two become friends; soon Mirri is teaching Kate how to dress properly, stand up for herself and enjoy a man's attentions. For a time, Kate is a model student: she romps in Capri with Felix, a French playboy, and has casual sex in a swimming pool. The supporting characters are pat romantic comedy types: there's Kate's appropriately Byronic suitor, Lewis; her reliable best friend, Tanya; and her older, gay mentor, Leonard. The subplot, involving Mirri's search for her one true love, is engaging, as are the multiple twists of the main plot. When Jake returns to the scene, relentlessly courting and then winning the affections of a newly free-spirited Kate, Mirri's disappointment is palpable. The action Mirri takes to bring Kate to her senses is predictable but satisfying, which is also an apt description of this light, fun read. Agent, Carole Blake.

March 1, 2004
In her first hardcover, Naylor introduces Kate Disney (no Mousketeer), who is content with her half-baked life painting people's pets until screen legend Mirabelle Moncur wants a portrait of her lion cub.

Copyright 2004 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from February 15, 2005
Though set in contemporary England, Naylor's delightful, romantic romp seems suffused with fine French Chardonnay as retired screen temptress Mirabelle Moncur (she's so close to "my heart"--get it?) arrives in London to stay with longtime friend Leonard. Still knocking-'em-dead gorgeous at 60, Mirri has ostensibly come from Africa, where she has created an animal refuge, for portraitist Kate Disney, temporarily resident in Leonard's garden shed, to paint pet lion cub Bebe. She winds up turning around Kate's wrecked love life. En passant, the Brigitte Bardot-like film legend embarks, with a handsome heartthrob half her age, who has followed her home, on a passionate idyll made very public by the international paparazzi camped outside wherever she, or he, goes. (On the other hand, the affair does start with an all-too-audible tryst on the hammock outside Kate's window.) Furnishing additional sparkle, somehow, is Jake, the loser-user, on-and-off object of Kate's affection, despite Mirri's disdain for "this slug" who keeps standing Kate up, sleeping around, but showing up again like the proverbial bad penny. Laugh-out-loud scenes and authentically touching asides on aging and lifelong yearnings combine in a perfectly balanced, irresistible confection.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2005, American Library Association.)