Crimson

by Shirley Conran

Elinor, a legendary novelist, is on her deathbed and must decide to whom she will leave her fortune. Which, if any, of her three granddaughters will inherit? Beautiful Annabel, Miranda, the brilliant businesswoman, or Clare, the film producer's wife with a social conscience?

Genres: Fiction, Romance, Chick Lit, Adult, Contemporary

Hardcover

First published January 1, 1992

About the author

Shirley Conran is the ex-wife of British designer, restaurateur, retailer and writer Sir Terence Conran. She is the mother of designers Sebastian Conran and Jasper Conran. A bestselling author in her own right whose most memorable books include Lace and Superwoman.

She was educated at the University of Portsmouth. In addition to novel writing, she wrote regularly for The Observer newspaper's women's page and was the first women's editor of The Observer Colour Magazine and women's editor of The Daily Mail newspaper where she launched the weekly women's magazine 'Femail'. She also has great experience as a designer in textiles and as a colour consultant - she had her own paint range. She handled the publicity for the Women in Media Campaign devoted to sex discrimination legislation. She was on the selection committee of the Council of Industrial Design for eight years. She also has been a columnist for Vanity Fair (magazine).

Shirley Conran is well known for having said: "First things first, second things never".

She was successfully treated for skin cancer several years ago.

She has homes in France and London.

Reviews

[Meryan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow, loved it. Twists and surprises I never saw coming. About the O'Dare family. Elinor O'Dare raises her 3 granddaughters after their parents die in an accident. Elinor is a romance writer, a profession that was decided for her by her husband Billy. He would lock her in a bedroom until she wrote what he approved of. After his accidental (maybe) death she raises the girls by herself. Claire is the oldest and she marries a Filmmaker has a son with him, then leaves him when she finds him in their bed with another woman. Annabel is the beautiful one and becomes a model and marries a TV anchorman. Miranda stays single and founds her own cosmetics company. Elinor turns over her finances to Adam Grant who is the son of an old friend. That turns out to be the worst mistake of her life because Adam, who becomes a compulsive gambler also turns into a very slick embezzler. Adam manipulates all the women and turns one against the other. What happens because of him is chaos and makes them almost lose lives, money, and each other.

[Julie Dickerson · Rating 3 out of 5]

To me, this book was like an old car, it sputtered from not being able to put down, to totally dragging. The middle is where I had the hardest time. I am not in the vaguest sense interested in law or business and Conran delves into that a little too much for my liking. I enjoyed the intricate relationships of the sisters and their men, and liked reading about Elinor's early life with Billy. At times,it was difficult for me to keep up with each couple, though. I got some of the men and which sister they were with confused. All in all,okay read. Some parts were chick lit,others were too business and law focused.

[Liesl · Rating 2 out of 5]

Interesting story but not very well written. Full of questionable plot devices - as though the author used the first thing that came to mind even though there were many reasons why it didn't really work.

[Jackie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Rounding up from a 2.5... the title is dumb... other than random mentions of the color... what was the point? Book was too heavy on summary - the author just kept telling me what happened instead of letting me experience the story. Otherwise... eh.

[Mary Hammock · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting story. Didn't care for how some of the characters were portrayed.
535 pages

[melhara · Rating 2 out of 5]

More detailed review to come. But here are my initial thoughts:
This book was very slow.
None of the characters were likable - they were all pretty annoying.
I absolutely hated Elinor, her helplessness, and the way she idolized Billy.
Adam was probably the most interesting character. Would love to know more about him.
Disappointing ending.
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UPDATE - Click for full review and spoilers:
Crimson was divided into four parts (or four books, actually). Here are my thoughts for each book:

Book 1
Here, we are introduced to Elinor O’Dare, a famous and wealthy romance novelist, who is on her deathbed and reminisces about her past as her three granddaughters fight over their inheritance.

Reading this, I couldn’t help but feel disturbed by the relationship between Elinor and Billy (which I guess is what the author intended).

There were so many things wrong with their relationship, starting from the moment they met. Elinor met Billy while she was a nurse and he was a patient. He grabbed her hand and started licking it. That was the moment when Elinor fell in love with Billy at first sight, or rather, at first lick. WTF.

Then they got married. Because love at first lick was the real deal for them.

But then Billy turned out to be an abusive husband and Elinor was completely OK with it because the sex was amazing. She didn’t mind being talked down to, manipulated, isolated, or whenever Billy cheated on her and purposely made her feel jealous just to spice up the relationship and give her material to use for her books.

In Billy’s arms, Elinor felt successful, sensuous, desired, protected, happy - and safe. She did not see herself as a bird imprisoned in a cage, for no cage was needed. Elinor was bound to Billy by the invisible, secret silken cords of a voluptuousness of which she was ashamed but to which she was addicted. She was both captivated and motivated by Billy, who, having made her totally dependent upon him both mentally and physically, kept her firmly under his thumb.

Also, since Billy couldn’t hold down a job, he decided to lock her in her room and force her to start writing while grooming her to become a bestselling author.

After a few weeks, Elinor no longer resented the sound of the key turning in the lock of the bedroom door after breakfast. Instead, she trembled with carefully concealed excitement as she waited for the little click of the lock, which now transported her into the mysterious and limitless world of her imagination.

Elinor eventually started to enjoy her time being locked up and becomes totally dependent on Billy.

Book 2
Billy is dead. Hooray! But so are Elinor’s kids. So she, along with her best friend Buzz, work together to raise her three granddaughters.

We learn more about the three sisters and their upbringing and watch Clare grow into a housewife, Annabel into a model who is completely dependant on her news anchor husband, and Miranda a successful businesswomen. And ohmygoodness they are so annoying! All three of them are stubborn and spoiled brats.

We are also introduced to Adam, who is the son of Elinor’s lawyer. Adam eventually takes over his father’s business and all of Elinor’s legal and family affairs. But we also learn that Adam loves to gamble and does a lot of shady things… but Elinor has given him 100% of her trust in managing every aspect of her life. You know, because she needs another Billy in her life.

Book 3
Things finally get kind of interesting as everyone’s lives start to fall apart. The plot is also finally revealed! This is definitely the most interesting section of this novel because we finally find out that Adam is up to something super shady. He is a manipulative genius who is up to no good and is planning the demise of the entire O’Dare family. We slowly learn more about Adam’s evil plan to destroy this family.

Book 4
I was very disappointed with the happy ending. I was starting to like Adam! I wanted to know more about his motives and his brilliantly evil plan. Instead, the author took the easy way out and killed him off so that the family can live happily ever after. 🙄



*** #47 of my 2019 Popsugar Reading Challenge - Two books that share the same title (1) ***

[Jackie Simons]

Read 10/99

[Emma]

Okay not too bad.

[Hanne Rump · Rating 3 out of 5]

3½ stjerne
Romanen er lige over tredive år gammel, og det kan godt mærkes, men det er forsat en interessant historie. Romancedelen har sin happy end :-) Men hovedhistorien handler om bedrag - bedrag når det kommer til kærlighed, men også bedrag når det kommer til penge, underslæb mere præcist og herunder hvilke længder mennesker vil gå, når det kommer til penge. Midt i det hele er der også et tema om kønsroller og om selvbedrag.
Anbefales mere til læsere af fiktion end læsere af romance.

[Dorothy Clark · Rating 3 out of 5]

Crimson somehow had a 70s feel about it, even though the copyright was 1992. It's a sort of women's liberation story. I got impatient with the female characters, wanting the women to stop being so naive and just plain stupid. It took 400 pages for them to figure out that life without a man is possible.

[Nina Draganova · Rating 3 out of 5]

Очаквано, плеядите са извадили поредния нафталинен роман. Стил 90-те години. Имаше моменти в които ми беше много скучно, прекалено обемен е, много герои , много сложни връзки. Но имаше и доста напрегнати ситуации, които ме изнервиха. Разбира се е абсолютно наивно недостоверен.

[Sheila Cohen · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book kept my interest. Not a bad read, not a great read.

[Curlyhair · Rating 4 out of 5]

Loved this when first read it. Plenty going on, twists and turns galore.

[Emiliya · Rating 4 out of 5]

Майсторски разказана история.

[Jacqueline]

Karmozijn

[Lynne Jenner · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this in my early 20's & decided to re-visit to see if I still enjoyed it. Well, I did! A proper 90's bonkbuster with a detailed & thorough plot.

[Carol Kemp · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting read, it delves into what can happen when you place blind faith in people, especially without understanding what is involved, and family is what you make of it.

[Rich · Rating 5 out of 5]

Slow start almost lost my interest but after half way was hard to put down. Good read!

[Myrna · Rating 2 out of 5]

El final me dejó sin palabras (y no en el buen sentido)

[Cws]

F Con