Pearls - Softcover

Brayfield, Celia

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0751523291 ISBN 13: 9780751523294

Publisher: Little, Brown Book Group, 1998

Synopsis

Catherine Bourton is a woman so beautiful she makes men vulnerable, and renders the sharpest of city dealers innumerate. Monty, Catherine's sister, oozes sexuality with a voice and a talent that brings rock audiences to their knees. But the raw, earthy control of her songs hides a softness and a need for love and intimacy. Princess Ayesha is an international beauty, night-club queen, and entrepreneur. She is unruffled, cool, and mysterious. One morning they each wake to find a pearl beneath their pillows. Why?

About this title

About the Author

Celia Brayfield is a novelist and cultural commentator. She is the author of nine novels. Wild Weekend explores the tensions in a Suffolk village in homage to Oliver Goldmsith's She Stoops to Conquer. To explore suburban living, she created the community of Westwick and explored mid-life manners in Mr Fabulous And Friends, and the environmental implications of urbanisation in Getting Home. She has often juxtaposed historical and contemporary settings, notably eighteenth century Spain in Sunset, pre-revolutionary St Petersburg in White Ice and Malaysia in the time of World War II in Pearls. Four of her novels have been optioned by major US, UK or French producers.

Her non-fiction titles include two standard works on the art of writing: Arts Reviews (Kamera Books, 2008) and Bestseller (Fourth Estate, 1996.) Her most recent is Deep France (Pan, 2004) a journal of a year she spent writing in south-west France.

She has served on the management committee of The Society of Authors and judged national literary awards including the Betty Trask Award and the Macmillan Silver PEN Prize. A former media columnist, she contributes to The Times, BBC Radio 4 and other national and international media.

From Publishers Weekly

Lord James Bourton's suicide leaves his family up to their ears in debt and surrounded by whispers of a scandal that began years before with a woman he betrayed in the jungles of Malaya. Numbed by his death, Cathy Bourton tries to recoup her loss by marrying "well," but the womanizing aristocrat she chooses makes her life a misery until their divorce leaves her free to reap a fortune in London's financial district. Her sister Monty finds fame singing with a gritty rock group, but when success sours with those brawling skirtchasers, she sinks quickly into drugs and degradation before rising from the ashes to develop a hot new act. A sprawling, poorly controlled plot makes a good portion of this lengthy saga hard going. So much uninspired, frenetic activity is packed into these pages that Brayfield's memorable descriptions of the English colony in Malaya during the 1940s are buried and the excitement of the moment when past and present merge is diminished. 100,000 printing; $175,000 ad/promo.
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Little, Brown Book Group
• Publication date: 1998
• ISBN 10: 0751523291
• ISBN 13: 9780751523294
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 704