The Stars Shine Down

September 28, 1992
Imagine Donald Trump as a drop-dead gorgeous woman and you'll have an approximate image of Lara Cameron, the heroine of Sheldon's latest--barely tepid--potboiler. A super-successful real estate developer, Lara has made millions of dollars--and a few enemies--in her ascent from a childhood of deprivation to the upper echelons of the business world. When she falls in love with a renowned concert pianist, she sets about ``winning'' him as she would a prime piece of waterfront property. But her ties to a lawyer with Mafia connections and her shady way of doing business threaten her happiness and eventually her income and reputation. In settings that vary from Canada to Chicago and New York, bestselling novelist Sheldon ( The Other Side of Midnight, Rage of Angels ) brings real zest to the high-stakes poker game that provides the novel's backdrop. But his pancake-flat characters are as insubstantial as the paper fortunes that drive the real estate business. Moreover, the characters have an annoying tendency to speak in overwrought cliches; sounding for all the world like Scarlett O'Hara, young Lara laments, ``Someday . . . I will have my own land, and no one--no one--will ever take it away from me.'' Frankly, by the final chapter, readers won't give a damn. First serial to Cosmopolitan; Literary Guild main selection.

September 15, 1992
With his usual lightning pacing, Sheldon whisks readers through the story of real-estate tycoon Lara Cameron as she claws her way to the top. Fleeing Nova Scotia and the memories of her lowly roots and drunken father, Lara builds an empire in Chicago and New York that is based on snap decisions and gutsy gambles. But with only the platonic friendship of her financial adviser and a passionate but shallow liaison with a married Mafia boss, it's lonely in the penthouse until Lara meets concert pianist Philip Adler. As Lara's love life takes off, however, her career starts being sabotaged. Setting them in just enough romantic locales, Sheldon weaves just enough of the details of power-brokering and the lives of the rich and famous into the tight plot to ground but not slow the action. His latest racy read will be a Literary Guild Main Selection and a serial in "Cosmopolitan," so expect the usual clamor for it. ((Reviewed Sept. 15, 1992))(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 1992, American Library Association.)