For Love Alone

by Ivana Trump

Katrinka Graham is driven to risk everything--love, freedom, success, and wealth--because of a secret from her past, in a story of love, ambition, and determination set against the glamorous backdrop of the very rich. A first novel. 250,000 first printing. Tour.

Genres: Fiction, Romance, Contemporary

532 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1992

About the author

Ivana Trump was a Czech-American businesswoman, author, socialite, and former fashion model. She was the first wife of Ex-President Donald Trump. They had three children: Donald John Jr., Ivanka, and Eric Fredrick.

Reviews

[Kris Mehigan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read this story ages ago, but have very distinctive memories of certain scenes in the book (story of a Czech champion skier who defected to the West during communism and then met/married an American millionaire). While I suspect this was a glorified, fictionalized, ghost-written memoir for Ivana, the story was still a fun read.

[Janine · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was hiding on my shelf of tail end books - books given, not yet read, usually waiting until there was "nothing else" to read. I expected trashy escapism and I was not let down! The mainly European settings, the drama, the plucky and lovable heroine forced into terrible situations by bad people. Yeah, I enjoyed it more I was expecting to, but it is not going to change the world or leave too much of a lasting impression.

[Meryan · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very good read.It's the story of Katrinka Kovar,and her rise from communist Czechoslovakia to marry Adam Graham and become wealthy in her own right.It starts when she is a girl who has a talent for skiing.She trains as she gets older for the Olympics.She also gets a small part in a movie that is directed by Mirek Bartos.When she is grown up she meets him again and does another movie for him and they become lovers.Katrinka becomes pregnant and Mirek thinks about leaving his wife for Katrinka but changes his mind.He arranged to pay for her care at a private clinic in Munich.She planned to keep the baby but a Dr.Klaus Zimmerman tries to talk her out of it,telling her he could find a couple to give her baby a much better life.Katrinka's parents were in an accident and killed on the way to be with her when she delivered her baby.She was very upset and went into labor and with the sedatives she was kept on signed the papers to give up her son.
Skiing she meets Adam Graham,who is a wealthy American and they fall in love and get married.He takes her home and takes her back to live in New york,his mother doesn't approve of her but she doesn't approve of anything.Adam owns shipyards and they are happy but can't conceive a baby,and Katrinka never stops looking for her son.She starts buying hotels and making them among the best in the world.She finds out from someone else that Adam is having an affair with her best friend.When she wants a divorce Adam drags his heels about it.Finally she finds her son,whom she has told no one about,but will she take Adam back?Or is it to late because she's found someone else?

[Evelyn · Rating 5 out of 5]

I enjoyed this book as much as the attached site I found enjoyed it.

If there had been anything horrible between Ivana and Donald Trump, it would have come out in this fiction book. Read it!

http://pictorial.jezebel.com/i-read-i...

[Chris · Rating 5 out of 5]

After reading Ivana Trump's book, "Raising Trump", I thought I'd read one of her fiction books. "For Love Alone", was written over 25 years ago, when she was finalizing her divorce from Donald Trump. This fictional book is about Katrinka Kovar who grows up in Communist Czechoslovakia in the late 40's to early 50's and 60's. The first hundred pages of her young life is actually her life, which I found very interesting. After her fictional parents die, that is where her fictional life begins. In this book she meets a rich man, who makes his money from shipping, named Adam Graham, who very much has the personality of Donald Trump. She makes the story different from real life, so she can say that this person isn't "The Donald". But the essence of the character is very much like her former husband. This book is 530 pages, and I couldn't put it down. I would guess many of the other characters in her book, are similar to people in her real life also. I have always enjoyed books with strong women, and in this book "Katrinka" is very much a strong woman.

[Vickie Skinner · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was so shocked at how much I enjoyed this book. I have had this book for years and years sitting on my bookshelf. I’m not sure where I even bought it, but I only bought it since I did get to meet Ivana Trump in person way back in 1988. She was doing a book signing and my girlfriend and I got in line and met her!
She told this story very well. There were times that I would hardly put the book down wanting to know what would happen next! The book is just supposed to be a novel but I believe that parts of it were her life. I could be wrong, but that’s just what I believe. I’m SO glad I finally picked it up and read it!!

[Shelley · Rating 1 out of 5]

I exchange books with a friend. She gives me books I'd never choose for myself, like Harlequin Intrigue novels and this one by Ivana Trump written in 1992, which in my opinion hasn't aged well. Actually the book is signed by the author which is pretty cool.

Its a thick novel with 532 pages and since I began it a couple of days ago, there is no way I've completed it by now. It's not often, actually very rarely I don't complete a book, but this one I got as far as Chapter 5, page 34. I couldn't go on. The words are too flowery and stretches on for much too long. I've read a whole page and a half and the main character has finally done whatever she should had done without all the abundance of descriptions. Please get to the point quicker! This is why it's over 500 pages!

The story line wasn't my type of thing either. It's about rich people and all the fakeness to it: money, power, women having to be thin, and not eating as a result, having plastic surgery to look younger and wearing designers clothes and all that crap. And I only got as page 34! Blah.

No thanks.

[Naomi · Rating 4 out of 5]

My neighbor loaned me this book and I was very pleasantly surprised how much I enjoyed it. I did not know that Mrs. Trump had written some books and she did a very good job on this one. The story is about Katrinka Kovars, a Czechoslovakian skier and Olympic want-to-be. That the character is based on Ivana herself becomes very apparent. Katrinka drives herself to preform and improve no matter what she attempts to do. This makes for interesting reading, including Katrinka's dash for freedom from the communist country. She makes it the western world including becoming rich and marrying the right man. But she has a secret which she has kept from everyone and it guides a lot of her life. A fun novel.

[Daniel · Rating 3 out of 5]

Randomly picked this up at a used bookstore about a year ago due to sheer curiosity. Didn't end up making it all the way through and had to call it quits. It does a dual timeline thing where Katrinka is rich and high-powered in the modern day, but then when she gets the fateful letter the story flashes back to her entire childhood. I enjoyed most of the flashback segments since the childhood in a Soviet satellite was so descriptive that it really felt honest and lived in. The prose is solid but a little...stilted? Emotionless? Probably just chalk it up to being ghostwritten. The descriptions of "high society" in the "present-day" 90s I couldn't care less about.

[Debumere · Rating 4 out of 5]

Brilliant. I needed something far removed from what I normally read and this was it. The name dropping, the glamour, the drama. Schmaltzy, predictable, entertaining and riveting.

I was actually surprised at how long this book was, and with tiny print. I wonder how far removed this was from Ivana’s own life - Trump wasn’t mentioned in any form, no one character could have been Trump, characters combined could have definitely been Trump.

All very glamorous. Back to reality now :(

EDIT: OMG THERE IS A SEQUEL!!!!!

[Carol S. Harris · Rating 4 out of 5]

The beginning was very captivating following Katrinka from a young skier to becoming a well known woman searching for her first born child to marrying the wealthiest bachelor in the United States. She builds her own wealth from hotels around the world.

[Valerie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I did enjoy this book, but it was a bit of a slog for me and I don’t quite know why. I liked it…. I just never looked forward to sitting down and reading it. It never hooked me in. It was satisfying, though.

[Kate Hornstein]

OMG it just popped into my head that I read this a long, long time ago...

[Bethany Fisher · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pleasantly surprised, review to come...

[Bonniec380gmail.com · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed the book for the most part. However, it seems to drag out to the end and was slow at times.

[Monica · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interessante biografia di una donna non comune