Grace Truscott, a Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer working on the story of a famous civil rights activist, Senator Eugene Truscott, discovers that he was unfaithful long ago to his devoted, high-society southern wife and had a daughter with his black secretary. The news is particularly startling to Grace, since she is the senator's legitimate daughter. And she knows that if she includes such facts in her biography, her mother will be overwhelmed and the plan to build a memorial library in the senator's honor will be jeopardized. These shocking elements make up only the surface of Goudge's story, for Grace is also a divorced mother who is caught in a custody struggle for her teenage son and who is in love with her editor, whose children do not accept her. The romantic and family entanglements in the novel make the decisions about shocking secrets more understandable and ultimately more intense (as Grace's estranged husband tries to use the situation to winnow his way back into his ex-wife's life). Endowed with panache and a convincing story line, Goudge's newest fiction will certainly not disappoint her fans. Denise Perry Donavin
From Kirkus Reviews
Goudge (Such Devoted Sisters, 1992, etc.) delivers a tight novel about step-family relationships and publishing that does not push any boundaries but does entertain. Grace Truscott, the 37-year-old daughter of a now-deceased senator who was instrumental in passing the Civil Rights Act, has grown up to be a Pulitzer Prize-winning writer in New York City, despite having witnessed, as a child, her father's accidental killing of his black secretary's husband. She decides to write a biography of her father, determined to include everything she knows, but sets off a firestorm when she contacts the secretary's daughter, Nola Emory, to corroborate the facts. Her own mother, Cordelia Truscott, tries to stop her from writing the truth since she is raising funds for a library memorializing the senator and fears the book will adversely affect donations. At the same time, Grace is struggling to resolve an amorous relationship with her Jewish editor Jack Gold, a man 15 years her senior. Both Grace's son and Jack's daughter muck things up as often as possible--he by hinting that he may go live with his father, she by crankily refusing to be civil. The often-thwarted romance with Gold is sweet, but it is hard to swallow that a wildly successful and confident woman would be waiting wistfully for a marriage proposal. Descriptions of New York restaurants, name-dropping, and current references will date this book quickly, but the image of Norman Mailer performing a see-saw barrel act in a fundraiser circus is priceless. There are few surprises here, and a number of stereotypes, but Goudge compensates by moving along at a snappy pace. (First printing of 150,000; Book-of-the-Month Club main selection; $150,000 ad/promo; author tour) -- Copyright ©1994, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
Review
“Eileen Goudge writes like a house on fire, creating characters you come to love and hate to leave.” —Nora Roberts “Poweful, juicy reading.” —San Jose Mercury News “Shocking . . . a bittersweet story of love.” —Library Journal “A snappy, entertaining novel.” —Kirkus Reviews
From the Back Cover
A daughter holds clues to her father's shocking secrets and her mother would risk anything to protect those secrets. Grace Truscott, in the biography of her father - a great civil rights advocate and Senator - raises questions about a death. Was her own father guilty of killing Ned Emory, the husband of his African-American secretary? Only one person, the secretary's daughter Nola, knows what really happened, but Nola is guarding a dark secret of her own. While Grace is struggling with a second marriage - melding his children and hers into a new family - the scandal breaks! From New York to the gracious old mansions and fragrant gardens of Georgia, Eileen Goudge's novel will touch the heart of every woman who has loved and lost. . . and who has found the courage to love again.
About the Author
Eileen Goudge (b. 1950) is one of the nation’s most successful authors of women’s fiction. She began as a young adult writer, helping to launch the phenomenally successful Sweet Valley High series, and in 1986 she published her first adult novel, the New York Times bestseller Garden of Lies.
She has published fifteen novels in all, including the three-book saga of Carson Springs, Thorns of Truth—a sequel to Gardens of Lies—and 2012’s The Replacement Wife. She lives and works in New York City.
Hart's excellent reading and better than average characterizations make this story palatable. Poor sound quality mars the production. S.F.W. (c)AudioFile, Portland, Maine
