Love & Desire & Hate

by Joan Collins

In 1955 a glittering array of Hollywood talent assembles in Mexico to film an extravaganza on Cortez. They include Nick Stone, the young Greek director; Julian 'Looks' Brook, the English matinee idol and his beautiful fiancee, Ines; sexy French starlet Dominique du Frey with her strange, white-haired chaperone Agathe; and imperious producer Herbert Croft. Under the blazing sun, old vendettas are stirring, to be paid off in a saga of revenge and murder which began in the darkness of war-torn France. This stunning racy story, packed with glamorous characters and intriguing storylines, is absolutely compelling.


From Publishers Weekly
This crisp, savvy romance by actress and novelist Collins ( Prime Time ) assembles a vivid array of international stage and film personalities in Acapulco in 1955, where one of them is murdered on a movie location. Tracing the lives of each, Collins returns to Paris in 1943 where Ines Dessault, age 14, plies her hooker's trade in order to survive in occupied France. Brutalized by a client, let's not give away Joan's inimitable style!/mc fascist Italian general Umberto Scrofo, she stabs him with his razor, leaving him for dead. Ines flees to England, educating and upgrading herself to ``courtesan.'' Scrofo recovers, kills a woman in Greece and earns the sworn hatred of Nikolas Stanopolis--future film director Nicholas Stone. Meanwhile Ines and Julian (``Looks'') Brooks, top British box office star, fall in love. Ines worries about her secret past and contends with rivals--Julian's blowsy wife Phoebe and precocious teenage dancer Dominique, whose eerie, sexually frustrated duenna Agathe also pines for Julian. With all the principal players gathered in Mexico, the plot takes many an engaging turn, especially when the vile Scrofo surfaces as a moneyed producer. Collins dishes up a tasty read, pleasingly seasoned with tattle and memorabilia of stage and screen.

Genres: Romance, Fiction, Chick Lit, Indonesian Literature, British Literature, Modern

476 pages, Kindle Edition

First published February 1, 1991

About the author

Joan Henrietta Collins, OBE is a Golden Globe Award-winning English actress and bestselling author.

Reviews

[Rory · Rating 4 out of 5]

Classic Smut

I had bought this book as a joke for my upcoming wedding--we're doing a library theme and using all types of books--so why not Joan Collins? I decided to read this top to bottom in a week just make sure it wasnt God awful and I loved it!!!

Every word

I love that it has the classic smut 80-90s feel--beautiful characters behaving badly, too much detail on the wealth that surrounds them and a dedication to campy dialouge. But what I really loved is that there is this period of time in the smut fiction era that ALWAYS had beautiful people haunted by the events of World War II--something real caught authors mind back then and has not let go. It's really kind of amazing.


It wont win any awards--but it did win my heart briefly.

[Cheryl · Rating 2 out of 5]

Abandoned at 50%. I was hoping the writing would improve. It did not.

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great summer read!

[Abagail · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this when I was, maybe 14/15 and loved it! I have probably read this every year/couple years since.
This is as over the over the top, cheesy, cliche, silly, soap-opera and totally ridiculous as you can possibly get. Which means it is fun! Ifmyou've read and liked: Jackie Collins, Judith Krantz, Charlotte Lamb, or Bertrice Small, then you'll dig this book.

[Yoana · Rating 1 out of 5]

One of the absolutely worst books I've ever read in my life. Strings a cliche after a cliche, almost all of them blatantly sexist, and finishes with an insolently misogynist moral. Read it if you want your brain soaked in hogwash.

[Arto Mutka · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really loved this novel. It is by far the best Joan Collins novel. Great plot and over the top characters and brilliant setting in 1950's film industry which is when Joan started out in films. Really highly recommend this one for a good holiday read!

[Liz Sieloff simpson · Rating 4 out of 5]

People say you gotta read at least one Joan Collins book on your lifetime. A good smut read. With drama, sex, lies and a decent plot. I now join the club of people that think you should read a Joan Collins book.

[Delia Letham · Rating 4 out of 5]

Love this fantastic period romp! A great holiday read in true Ms Collins style. Have fun.

[Traci Perez-Clayton · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fast flowing, engaging from the start, a great read in a week.

[Noémie B. · Rating 1 out of 5]

Trouvé dans un croque-livres. La vieille reliure cheap ne suffisait plus à retenir les pauvres pages qui tentaient de s’en échapper. I should have known better. Cet ouvrage, c’est précisément ce que Wish vous expédierait après que vous ayez commandé un mystère d’Agatha Christie, un DVD de Moulin Rouge et (pourquoi pas, tant qu’à dépenser, tsé!) celui d’Inglorious Basterds. Une niaise singerie, cheap et douteuse à s’en arracher les cheveux. Néanmoins, il m’a suffit d’un long bain et d’une pénible nuit d’insomnie (Ô, rhume des foins! 😭) pour le dévorer. Clinquant, crunchy, cliché – ça empeste l’huile à bronzage, le cocktail de crevettes et le Shalimar bootleg. Je tente généralement d’assumer pleinement le mauvais goût, mais je dois admettre que ma lecture vorace de ce roman gnangan fut un plaisir très, TRÈS coupable.

[Winter Sophia Rose · Rating 5 out of 5]

A Gem Of A Book!

[William · Rating 3 out of 5]

Set in wartime London and Paris and 1950s Hollywood and Acapulco, Collins' second novel is a breezy tale of vengeance that begins during World War II and culminates during the filming of a movie epic nearly a dozen years later, laced with large dollops of sex, both lurid and lusty. Collins' knowledge of the British theatrical world and studio-era Hollywood comes in handy as backdrops. Unlike "Prime Time," her debut, which leaned heavily into her experience as femme fatale Alexis on "Dynasty"—and also seemed to borrow a plot from her younger sister, Jackie Collins—"Love and Desire and Hate" seems the actress's own concoction. Better written than the first, "Love and Desire and Hate" features an evil Nazi villain (displaying shades of the Stephen Berkoff character of "Sins" miniseries she'd starred in several years previously), a call girl with a heart of a gold, an ambitious movie director, a handsome and perennially unfaithful stage actor, and a highly sexed teenage starlet among its main characters. Although neither as brisk and sly as her sister's works, it is still an entertaining, escapist read.

[Minerva Dragcorn · Rating 3 out of 5]

Great array of characters: some to love, some to hate, others to pity. It starts well the ending was not to my taste. It was an okay ending but not one to me what to read the book again. She did a good job in to turn yo the next chapter. Ines is my favorite because she has such a strong will to survive.

ll roads led to Hollywood. You start with murder on a film set in 1995 and then part one goes back to 1943 to find out how all the characters are entwined with each other.in. I found chapter 5 to be very heart felt and strong.

She does a great mixing in enough reality to make you feel like you are at are an insider of Hollywood
especially with her name dropping.

[Shannon · Rating 5 out of 5]

I found this book entertaining, in spite of myself. The story takes place during the Second World War and the postwar years, in France, England, Greece, Italy, America, and Mexico. In what is probably her best character development to date, Joan Collins really does a great job of creating a horribly vile villain who affects the lives of all the other characters. I suspect that this novel is probably the strongest of her literary endeavours.

[Rebecca I · Rating 3 out of 5]

Joan Collins enjoyed a long run of popularity and I can see why. But there is just an edge to all the stories she tells that puts me off. I don't quite believe they are real, and the point of them is always good sex and fame. All the characters can be classified as "good" or "bad" and the plot weaves around to reward the good and punish the bad. Not very realistic.

[Tichina Meyer · Rating 1 out of 5]

The worst book I've ever read. Everything about it from the characters to the plot itself is cliché after cliché. The descriptions are so monotonous - I've never considered reading "boring" but this book knocked it out of the park.

[Tamera · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is just dripping in suspense and sexiness! I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, Joan is a wonderful writer. She knows exactly how to give the readers what they want. I couldn’t put it down!

[Susan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Susan Fraser Aberdeen

I read this book over 20 years ago in paperback
Bought it on kindle this week and re read book
It’s a brilliant page turner
Thought I might find it dated or less interesting all these years later but I can honestly say it’s a book well worth reading.

[Juliana · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really nice novel, lots of suspense and I book I couldn’t put down.

Some parts towards the end she wrote a lot of things that was not necessary.
The end I was Not impressed but I still loved the read.

Great book for a holiday, very girly , sexy and witty!

[Amel Armeliana · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reading this book when I was in high school. Such a golden time for me 😊.

[Dawn Marano · Rating 1 out of 5]

Garbage. Sex and inane characters and just rubbish. I am so sorry I wasted my time.

[Kelly Chester · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a great book

[Melissa Susan · Rating 5 out of 5]

This reminded me of Valley of the Dolls which was one of my favourite novels.
Partial graphic scenes but was overall such a good story. Quick easy vacation read if you’re looking for something

[Wyatt Fredeen · Rating 5 out of 5]

top 5 books ever joan writing gags.

[Adriana Williams · Rating 2 out of 5]

You can tell that Joan Collins was either very influenced by her sister Jackie Collins’s way of writing, or just blatantly ripped off her style.

That being said, I have always loved Jackie Collins books - so this too was a guilty pleasure.

[Jackie Simons]

Read 8/99

[Marsha Stevenson]

OK

a typical Joan Collins book of lust, desires and lies. Unfortunately the plot seems like so many of her other stories, just different locations.