Feminine Force: Release the Power Within to Create the Life You Deserve

The CEO amd namesake of Georgette Mosbacher Enterprises describes how any woman can create luxury and glamour in her life, discussing her childhood and her success, and offers motivational tales of the success of others

Mosbacher, CEO of her own cosmetics company, learned self-reliance at an early age. When she was seven, her father died, leaving her mother with four children and no income. In a few years Mosbacher was working to help support the family while her mother encouraged her to pursue her dream of a glamorous lifestyle. After two failed marriages (one to an abusive man), she married Robert Mosbacher, who became U.S. Secretary of Commerce. Throughout the book, the author urges women to stand on their own, not depending on a man to support them, but this advice is offered with what seems like cynicism and a general distrust of men. The book is so filled with personal anecdotes, Mosbacher never really gets around to showing women how to achieve their goals. Much attention is given to such topics as personal appearance, cosmetic surgery and networking, but these things often require financial and social resources beyond the reach of many women. Mosbacher seems to forget that it is the exception rather than the rule for a woman to get a hefty divorce settlement. There are a few gold nuggets here, but the overall message may be summed up by the third of her "Feminine Force Principles": "Life isn't fair--so what?" She also says, however: "I start by accepting my reality, then I change it." Photos not seen by PW. First serial to Cosmopolitan and New Woman.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Up from poverty with ``beautiful, glamorous'' ex-Washington ``social hurricane'' Mosbacher, 45, who here releases her secrets for getting what she wants--including marrying a millionaire (in her case, three); buying and selling businesses at a profit (using her divorce settlements as seed money); and conquering the Washington social scene by raising pots of money for political campaigns. The moral: Any woman can serve her own interests if she'll harness the gale-force drive called ``feminine force.'' Like most books promoting the power of positive thinking, this is part inspirational biography, part celebrity gossip, and part instruction manual. Mosbacher's ``feminine force'' was handed down through three generations of poor but independent Indiana women, and outlived two divorces--from kind but boring (and possibly insufficiently rich) L.A. mogul Robert Muir, whom the author married at 23, and from George Barrie, the elderly, drunken, and abusive but very rich and powerful CEO of Faberg‚. (Later, the author pressed into marriage a reluctant ex-secretary of commerce, Robert Mosbacher, richer and more powerful than either of her previous husbands.) Feminine force has carried Mosbacher through the buying and selling of La Prairie cosmetics, the founding of her own company, and the painful episode of discovering that her beloved brother is an alcoholic. Her secret: Early on, she remade herself to ``bring out the inner me.'' She understands that ``attention is power'' and so promotes her image wherever she goes- -including to White House dinners her husband can't attend. Although she never gives up, she does compromise: ``There are differences between men and women,'' she writes, including a man's natural inability to worry about dinners and clean socks--that's a woman's job. A thoroughly American, unflaggingly cheerful view of life that will appeal to many readers. What sourpuss would ask for rigorous honesty besides? (Eight pages b&w, eight pages color photographs- -not seen) (First serial rights to Cosmopolitan and New Woman) -- Copyright ©1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.