Wicked Pleasures

August 13, 2012
Sex, secrets, and long-term estate planning are the ties that bind three generations of a New York banking dynasty to their aristocratic English cousins in Vincenzi’s latest family saga. Resentment roils when financier Frederick Praeger selects as heirs both his grandson Freddy (son of Frederick’s son, Baby) and his granddaughter Charlotte (daughter of Baby’s sister, Virginia). Raised in Britain at the Caterham manse, Charlotte uncovers evidence of her mother’s extramarital activities, prompting her, brother Max, and sister Georgina, to find their biological fathers—much to the dismay of their supposed paterfamilias, the earl of Caterham. But what the siblings don’t realize is that uncovering past secrets means unraveling fortunes on both sides of the Atlantic, not to mention threatening lives and one person’s sanity. Vincenzi (The Decision) has won multitudes of fans with narratives featuring well-off characters whose glamorous lives contain enough bedroom and boardroom action to support a miniseries. The secret to her success is the sympathy she creates for these privileged protagonists, thereby positioning herself as queen of the bonkbusters, even if the title promises more than it delivers. Agent: Clare Alexander, Aitken Alexander Associates.

September 15, 2012

Vincenzi (The Best of Times; Windfall) does it again with another captivating and entertaining family saga that combines power, riches, lies, and greed. As soon as Virginia, Countess of Caterham, confesses to her therapist that none of her children are aware they have different fathers, readers are hooked. In flashbacks, readers meet Virginia's great-great-grandfather, an American banking king, learn how the Praeger family fortune came to be, and discover how Virginia became a countess. The underlying mystery is why Virginia took lovers when she obviously loved her husband. VERDICT While Vincenzi introduces a few too many subplots and characters to keep track of or care about, the compelling main plot will keep readers glued to the pages of this lengthy novel. For fans of Barbara Taylor Bradford and Danielle Steel.--Marianne Fitzgerald, Annapolis, MD

Copyright 2012 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

September 1, 2012
The marriage of an American banking heiress and a British aristocrat breeds--or not--dire consequences. When Virginia, daughter of New York financier Fred III, ruler of the banking dynasty Praegers, marries a lord whose palatial country house, Hartest, needs a cash infusion, this first appears to be a standard tale of English nobility saved by American wealth, a la Downton Abbey. However, the prologue makes quite clear what the primary throughline of this typically Vincenzi-an doorstop will be: Virginia, Lady Caterham, admits to her shrink that none of her three children know who their real father is, but one thing is for sure, none are the progeny of their presumed sire, Alexander, Earl of Caterham. Why this is so is the primary source of suspense in a book that is, particularly in its exposition-laden first half, quite the arduous slog. Growing up, the three Caterham children are taunted by playmates and schoolmates about how little they resemble one another. When Virginia dies before she can explain, each of the three children, Charlotte, Max (heir to Hartest) and, most reluctantly, the earl's favorite child, Georgina, embarks on a quest to solve his or her respective paternal enigma. Each divines, with growing horror, that their mother had affairs for the express purpose of procreation--in all likelihood with Alexander's complicity. An equally fraught subplot involves Virginia's brother Baby (Fred IV), his opportunistic English mistress, Angie, and the internecine battles at Praegers as the bank enters the treacherous but immensely profitable territory of the Reagan era and beyond. Fred III, as he grows elderly, refuses to relinquish his control of the bank to Baby, and Baby's son, Freddy, once sole heir to Praegers, is, at Fred III's decree, now co-heir with cousin Charlotte, whom he's determined to sandbag. By postponing, for over 300 pages, genuine challenges for her hyperprivileged characters, Vincenzi risks delaying any reason to sympathize with them. A balky lead-up to a breathless close, as sinister secrets belatedly bubble up.

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October 1, 2012
Virginia Praeger, an American heiress, bears a son and two daughters, none of whom are the offspring of her husband, the Earl of Caterham. But that's a naughty little secret best kept buried. Then the children grow up, hear rumors, and begin investigating their true paternity, and their nosing around threatens to shatter two powerful families joined by marriage. Set in the glamorous worlds of an American banking dynasty and the British aristocracy, Vincenzi's (More Than You Know, 2012) latest family saga is rife with backstabbing, greed, scandal, extramarital dalliances, and, yes, wicked pleasures. Over 600 pages long, the novel is a bit ponderous, with dialogue that seems trifling at times, but the mystery of the children's parentage is intriguing. Bottom line: if blockbusters about the uberrich harboring scandalous secrets and brought to the brink of ruin is your cup of tea, drink heartily. Vincenzi is queen of the genre, and this is Dynasty meets Downton Abbey.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2012, American Library Association.)