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正在检索... Branch | Book | F KEL | 1 | Fiction Collection | 正在检索... 未知 | 正在检索... 不可借阅 |
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正在检索... Central | Book | KEL | 1 | Fiction Collection | 正在检索... 未知 | 正在检索... 不可借阅 |
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正在检索... South | Book | F KELLOGG | 1 | Fiction Collection | 正在检索... 未知 | 正在检索... 不可借阅 |
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摘要
摘要
Meet Kick Keswick, an elegant and self-possessed American who has been at London's venerable Ballantine & Company Auctioneers for over thirty years. She is an expert on paintings, furniture, and objets d'art, and so far has lived a perfectly happy life with things on her mind other than love. In fact, Kick rarely lets anyone into her private world. She prefers it that way. She adores her elegant, cozy London flat, her books, her music, her delicious meals, and her jewels. Kick doesn't need a man in her life, messing things up. But when American industrialist, scoundrel and womanizer Owen Brace grabs the faltering Ballantine & Company in a corporate takeover, he turns Kick's world upside down, opening her eyes to large-scale love, romance, and sensuous pleasure. But something tells Kick that Brace's motives are anything but sincere. And when he gets near enough to threaten Kick's closely guarded life, Brace learns the dangers of underestimating this woman. From sophisticated London to cozy Provence, France, Brilliant is a playfully delicious novel of suspense, masterful revenge, and secrets (the multi-faceted kind).
评论 (3)
Kirkus评论
A witty page-turner from the author of, most recently, Insatiable (2001). The urbane Kick Keswick is senior executive assistant at the venerable London auction firm of Ballantine & Co. The daughter of an Oklahoma prostitute, Kick never had a leg up in the world until she was 18--when she was picked up (literally) by Sir Cranmer Ballantine, who spied her stranded in a pouring rain, gave her a lift to Claridge's, and made her his mistress. Eventually, Kick became Cranmer's secretary as well, a post she kept when his son Benjamin took over the business--to disastrous effect. So incompetent was Benjamin that, within a few years, Ballantine had been bought out by American millionaire Owen Brace (though Sir Cramner had set up a secret trust that still allowed Kick anonymously to control 15 percent of the business). Owen brought in a passel of Americans who knew even less about the auction trade than Benjamin did, but he was smart enough to keep Kick, who knew all the upper-echelon secrets of the London art market and was able, for a start, to convince Owen not to wear gold chains when making sales pitches to British lords. Soon Ballantine's is getting high-profile commissions again and Kick has once more become the boss's mistress. But she has a few secrets up her sleeve: in fact, she has a secret identity. Not only does she control part of Owen's business behind his back, but she's a jewel thief who processes her loot through a complicated network of Lichtenstein banks. Her latest haul came from Lady Melody Carstairs, whose boudoir Kick burgled while Owen was downstairs negotiating an auction contract: a contract that Lady Melody signed seconds before falling dead. As Kick prepares the jewels for sale, she grows increasingly troubled. Theft is one thing--but murder? Despite much insider lore about jewelry and objets d'art, a suspenseful account, with humor and a real sense of style. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
《书目》(Booklist)书评
American Kick Keswick has been working for the esteemed auction house of Ballantine and Company for more than 30 years, a position that came by way of Oklahoma and a lengthy juvenile record. She met Ballantine's owner, Sir Cramner, while visiting London as a teenager and was his mistress until he died. Her expertise in antiquities and jewelry propelled her to executive secretary, and she expects to retire comfortably on a trust fund and the money she makes with her secret life--until the new owner, Owen Brace, blows in. Owen is a larger-than-life, brash American industrialist with lots of plans and an overactive sex life. Kick becomes enamored of her new boss and decides to stick around, but gets more than even she bargained for. Owen brings romance and great sex, but Kick's larcenous habit is nothing compared with what he contrives. Kellogg's sophisticated and lavishly fun tale of greed and daring in the high-stakes auction house world presents a full-figured, tough, and atypical heroine readers will cheer for. --Patty Engelmann
《图书馆杂志》(Library Journal )书评
Brilliant traces the adventures of Kick Keswick, an auction house expert and jewel thief, and includes elements of love, lust, and theft, along with food and wine. Kick was born in Oklahoma and had an unhappy childhood; she never knew her father, and her mother was an uninvolved drunk. At the age of 18, Kick, trying to better her life, travels to England with a college tour group. She abandons the tour and has her momentous meeting with Sir Cramner Ballantyne, owner of the respected auction house Ballantyne & Company. Kick is swept off her feet by Cramner and ends up working for him and serving as his mistress for over 30 years until his death. Through the years, she transforms herself into a stylish, sophisticated woman, becoming an expert on paintings, furniture, and art. The novel is fast paced; death, romance, trickery, deceit, and volatile events threaten Kick and the future of Ballantyne. This story is told in Kick's voice, revealing her out-of-the-ordinary thought processes. Narrated by Kate Reading, this work looks into the lives of the rich and famous in London. Recommended for public libraries with large audio fiction collections.-Carol Stern, Glen Cove P.L., NY(c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted. All rights reserved.