Meredith Rich strikes again, mining another glamour field – jewelry design – in this fantasy blockbuster. Biting and fast-paced, it’s about a street-smart ambitious woman and her treacherous road to independence and wealth. The story is a gloriously unabashed celebration of Dickensian plot twists, its heroine a poverty-stricken, abandoned child who eventually rises to the top of a multimillion-dollar empire. Along the way she changes her name and engages in the usual pantheon of betrayals, vendettas and sexual encounters. She’s a cool embodiment of the power-hungry woman … the ruthless female executive we just love to hate.
Claudia Jessup is the author of five novels (under the pseudonym Meredith Rich) including BARE ESSENCE, which was made into a C.B.S. television mini-series & N.B.C. weekly series.
Under her own name, she has written the perennial favorite The Woman's Guide to Starting a Business (three editions), as well as myriad non-fiction books (as writer or editor) and articles for major magazines.
A former Virginian and New Yorker, she lives in Santa Fe with her husband Jonathan Richards, a writer and political cartoonist & is the mother of two daughters. She is a member of The Author's Guild, PEN-USA West & PEN-New Mexico, and SCBWI.
I've read this ages ago and I still remember what happened when. This is really a page-turner, every turn has glamour and power. This novel proves that women can be powerful when they want to be and nothing can ever keep them from doing what they want. Not even family or friends. This entails a journey of a broken girl and used every inch of anything there is to get where she wanted to be.
First time reading Meredith Rich. I really enjoyed her writing style. Very easy to read.I did finish the book. Stated yesterday and just finished today. Really wanted to see how it ended before stopping.