A Time to Sing - Softcover

Mandel, Sally

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0061000663 ISBN 13: 9780061000669

Publisher: HarperCollins, 1989

Synopsis

American pop singer Karen Wells falls in love with Edward Vaughn, a faltering English writer, but their relationship cannot hold strong against the divisive forces of a love triangle and the ravages of disease

About this title

From Publishers Weekly:

Painfully pedestrian writing, threadbare stereotypes and Mandel's ( Change of Heart ) pathetic attempt to portray the hip world of rock musicians all undermine this novel about an ill-fated romance. Pop singing sensation Karen Wells, an earthy farm girl from Ithaca, couldn't be more different from meek Edward Vaughn, a middle-aged Columbia University professor who has always been joylessly immersed in academics. They meet in a stalled elevator in London, where Karen playfully sheds her blouse before serenading him. A potent (albeit unlikely) attraction begins, but impediments inevitably arise. Edward, an authority on the Bloomsbury Group, is far more erudite than Karen, who identifies Beowulf as a rock band; his poet sister, Persis, becomes jealous of Karen, whose possessive manager resents Edward. Karen ultimately forsakes her burgeoning career to be with her beloved scholar, until events take a tragic turn. This shallow Love Story clone contains every flaw imaginable, including ridiculous dialogue (" . . . when God made you, he left out the chastity molecules"), idiotic characters and a hopelessly saccharine ending.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal:

Karen Wells is a rising star, the "new Barbara Streisand," and Edward Vaughn is an aging Bloomsbury scholar, the son of an eccentric and pretentious librarian. They fall in love in this formula novel that touches on celebrity, the music busines, and Anglophilia. The story falls flat in attempting to weave together extremely opposite ways of life. Karen seems curiously from an earlier era, and Edward is never more than unattractive and dull. Sing has no redeeming features: its plot is implausible and its writing mechanical. It might fit the romance market, except for the use of expletives.
- Molly McCluer, Alameda Cty. Law Lib., Oakland
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: HarperCollins
• Publication date: 1989
• ISBN 10: 0061000663
• ISBN 13: 9780061000669
• Binding: Paperback