Riverside Drive

Alexandra Chronicles #1

by Laura Van Wormer

Cassy and Michael Cochran are TV news producers. Michael is a drinker and womanizer, Cassy a silent sufferer. Howard Stewart, successful (though underpaid) book editor, is the unhappy husband of Melissa, a banker who was born rich and is getting richer. Sam and Harriet Wyatt, a black couple, are well-off and happy until Sam discovers that his employer does business with South Africa. Amanda Miller, a wealthy, reclusive divorcee, is a secret voluptuary, and elderly Emma Goldblum lives with her cat at the edge of poverty. These people inhabit the gracious apartment buildings that line Manhattan's Riverside Park. The one thing that connects them is their spunky cleaning lady, Rosanne DiSantos, who lives with her drug addict husband in a seedy West Side hotel. We follow this group from cocktail party to block party, through marital and job strife.

Genres: Romance, Fiction

419 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1988

About the author

Laura Van Wormer grew up in Darien, Connecticut, graduated from the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University, and has spent most of her adult life working in publishing. She is the author of eleven previous novels. The Kill Fee is the fifth in the Sally Harrington series, although some of the characters - most notably the group at DBS News - are in her earlier novels Riverside Drive, West End, Any Given Moment and Talk.

Laura divides her time between Manhattan and Meriden, Connecticut.

Reviews

[Dru · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting story of 5 families and the woman who cleans for them. All the twists and turns.

[HeatherMarie · Rating 1 out of 5]

Couldn’t finish; for me that is very rare. And I usually love older books set in the 70s, 80s,…but the characters in this book weren’t very likable nor memorable- I found them rather two-dimensional and bland. Almost like caricatures. Also, the dialogue was that haphazard slapdash offhand style that I guess is meant to seem “real,” but just fails somehow. The whole thing felt contrived and didn’t resonate with me at all. I see that a lot of people enjoyed it- good for them. It just wasn’t meant for me.
*Editing to add that it USED to be a rare thing if I couldn’t finish a book. Since then, I’ve stumbled across several that I either couldn’t finish at all or that I had to put down for a bit. I think I’m losing patience as I get older.

[Sara · Rating 2 out of 5]

It took a minute for me to get into this story because there were so many characters to keep up with; once I figured out who everyone was, I actually liked the novel up to a point. Towards the end, it just got a little trite and ridiculous for me.

[Kelly Bainbridge · Rating 4 out of 5]

Loved the characters and their lives, a good read. Couldn't wait to read West End

[Olivia · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fun read! Enjoying looking into the lives(and apartments) of the characters.