Synopsis
No other author plumbs the depths of the human heart - or portrays the joys of human redemption - quite like Fern Michaels. In Fool Me Once, she captures the fraught, yet richly satisfying story of one woman’s search for the mother she never knew…and her discovery of the woman she’s yet to become.
Olivia Lowell always believed her father’s claim that her mother died in childbirth, until the shocking day a lawyer informs her that her mother has just passed away, leaving her a fortune. The money comes with a caveat - and a confession. In her will, Olivia’s mother reveals that she and two college friends committed a crime long ago, and now she wants Olivia to track down her accomplices and convince them to come clean.
Feeling betrayed by her father, and unsure that she even wants her mother’s tainted money, Olivia must decide if she can handle the secrets of the past. Fulfilling her mother’s request won’t be easy, nor will mending her relationship with her father. But with the help and affections of a handsome young lawyer, and the sweet companionship of her beloved terriers, Olivia will come to understand who her mother really was, and who she, herself, was meant to be…
Publishers Weekly
Dog antics and a dead mother's strange legacy drive Michaels's latest (Hey, Good Looking), a repetitive story peopled with caricatures. Thirty-four-year-old Olivia Lowell was reared by her father, Dennis, who told her that her mother, Allison, died in childbirth. Content with her job as a dog photographer and a ho-hum relationship with an accountant, Olivia nearly comes unhinged when she learns that her mother recently passed away-and willed her a mail-order empire as well. But a letter from Allison, written 10 months before her death, reveals that she started her successful business with money stolen from a bank. Allison requests that Olivia return her share of the money, then find her partners-in-crime and make them do the same. With the help of the romantic interest, Jeff Bannerman, a lawyer who's handler to a pesky Yorkshire terrier named Cecil, Olivia sets about resentfully fulfilling her mom's last wishes. The book's final third deals largely with the threat of having Cecil taken away, a plot twist that feels like an afterthought, as does the truth that's revealed about the robbery and its aftermath. This novel may provide escapism for dog lovers, but pat lessons and slipshod plotting will disappoint others. (Aug. 29) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.