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Overview
A number-one bestseller from one of Britain’s most popular novelists, Sheer Abandon is an all-consuming story revolving around the consequences of a desperate act . . .Martha, Clio, and Jocasta meet by chance at Heathrow airport in 1985 as they are starting off on separate backpacking adventures, and they decide to spend the first few days of their trips together in Thailand. When they go their separate ways, they vow to get together in London the following year. But many years pass before the three cross paths again, and the once-capricious, carefree girls now all have thriving careers. One of them, however, harbors a terrible secret: On her return from her pre-college excursion, she abandoned her just-born daughter at Heathrow.
Clio has fulfilled her ambition of becoming a doctor, only to find herself trapped in a marriage to an arrogant surgeon who belittles her and her professional achievements. Martha is a highly paid corporate lawyer, just embarking on a political career. Dedicated to her job, she has had little time for personal relationships and lives a busy, but lonely life. Jocasta, a tabloid newspaper reporter with an infallible instinct for the big story, is in love with a charming colleague who can’t make the permanent commitment she longs for. The infant abandoned at Heathrow has grown up under the loving care of her adoptive family. Now a beautiful teenager named Kate, she sets out to find her birth mother—a quest that unexpectedly brings the women together and exposes the secret buried so many years before.
Impossible to put down, Sheer Abandon is top-notch women’s fiction.
Synopsis
A #1 bestseller from one of Britain's most popular novelists, Sheer Abandon is an all-consuming story revolving around the consequences of a desperate act . . .
Martha, Clio, and Jocasta meet by chance at Heathrow airport in 1985 as they are starting off on separate backpacking adventures, and they decide to spend the first few days of their trips together in Thailand. When they go their separate ways, they vow to get together in London the following year. But many years pass before the three cross paths again, and the once-capricious, carefree girls now all have thriving careers. One of them, however, harbors a terrible secret: On her return from her pre-college excursion, she abandoned her just-born daughter at Heathrow.
Clio has fulfilled her ambition of becoming a doctor, only to find herself trapped in a marriage to an arrogant surgeon who belittles her and her professional achievements. Martha is a highly paid corporate lawyer, just embarking on a political...
The New York Times - Janet Maslin
Latter-day pretenders to this style usually offer one-dimensional characters laden with ugly motives and brand-name merchandise. Ms. Vincenzi creates reasonably credible people. She seems genuinely to enjoy their joys, their sorrows and their company.
Editorials
Janet Maslin
Latter-day pretenders to this style usually offer one-dimensional characters laden with ugly motives and brand-name merchandise. Ms. Vincenzi creates reasonably credible people. She seems genuinely to enjoy their joys, their sorrows and their company.— The New York Times
Publishers Weekly
British bestseller Vincenzi (No Angel) pulls out all the stops in this orchestral saga. In 1985, three young British women meet in a Heathrow departure lounge en route to precollege sojourns. One of them, upon her return to England, secretly gives birth and abandons the baby in a cleaning supplies closet at the airport; "Baby Bianca" captivates the public's sympathies until she is adopted. The mystery of who her mother is serves as the spine of this fat, satisfying novel, and Vincenzi creates multiple intrigues around the three women: Jocasta, a rising tabloid journalist (Vincenzi wrote for Vogueand Cosmopolitan); Clio, a physician specializing in geriatrics; and Martha, a corporate lawyer running for Parliament. It's 16 years before they all meet again, and Baby Bianca has matured into a stunning blonde teen, Kate, who is summarily exploited by a ruthless fashion editor as she searches for her mother. The various narrative themes crescendo through several all-hands-on-deck scenes, including a swank party where daughter almost meets mother, and a packed funeral where someone figures out who the father is. Although some of the male characters are too overbearing to be believed (especially Clio's sneering surgeon husband), the women are, without exception, multifaceted, smart and brave, and their happiness is hard won. A U.K. bestseller, the book offers major escape and abandon for summer. (May)
Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.Library Journal
Three young British women meet on a plane to Thailand in 1985. A year later, on her way home after living the high life in Bangkok, one of them abandons her newborn baby in a broom closet at Heathrow. Fast-forward to 2000, when random circumstances reunite the three women—along with teenage Kate, who loves her nice, stable family but longs to find her birth mother. Who's the mum? There's gentle and caring Clio, a doctor trapped in a loveless marriage; high-powered and high-strung lawyer Martha, who's just been tapped to be a major political leader; or freewheeling tabloid reporter Jocasta, living glamorously in London. Vincenzi's (No Angel) novel starts with the promise of a page-turning romp à la Jackie Collins, but at more than 600 pages, it limps along. It is also heavy on the British jargon, which may throw some readers off. Others might think they've read the plot before—Shirley Conran's Lace, anyone? Unfortunately, this is a pale imitation. For larger women's fiction collections.—Rebecca Vnuk