Charm! [Hardcover]

Kendall Hart (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 5, 2008

Avery Wilkins is in her prime. She's 30 years old, living in Manhattan, beautiful, smart, and the head of her own cosmetics company, Flair. But her enviable exterior hides deep heartache and painful secrets. Determined to launch a successful perfume, and hopeful that her relationship with handsome and supportive Marcus is getting serious, Avery is chasing her dreams--and running from her traumatic past.

Just when things seem to be on an even keel, Avery is hit with a succession of shocking setbacks, surprises, and betrayals: A drug-addicted colleague who threatens the future of Flair, one boyfriend who is incapable of fidelity, another who may have committed a terrible crime, a long-lost sister who isn't quite who she seems, and most disturbing of all, the sudden appearance of a woman claiming to be Avery's birth mother.

Avery is forced to question the loyalty of friends, lovers, and colleagues, and even her own beliefs about where she came from and who she is. Through it all, she draws on her ambition, grit, and cunning to outsmart her enemies, keep her company afloat, and protect herself from emotional meltdown. But when her archenemy resorts to kidnapping, has Avery finally met her match

Dramatic, sexy, and fun, Charm! is a wickedly entertaining roman a clef by All My Children favorite Kendall Hart. Brimming with scandal, romance, backstabbing, and unpredictable twists, it is every bit as shocking and captivating as the character who wrote it.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

A conniving character given to getting into steamy situations on the daytime soap All My Children, the fictional Kendall Hart is here given a novelist's voice, and the ghostwriter (or writers) who produced this sticky tie-in get it right. The novel's conceit is that the book is Kendall Hart's roman à clef, written to set All My Children's town of Pine Valley on its ear. Kendall Hart's stand-in for this fiction (i.e., the fictional author Kendall's fictional avatar in the novel) is a sweet yet assertive young woman, Avery Wilkins, who runs her own New York–based cosmetics company, Flair, and is launching a new perfume—Charm!—that she hopes will put her on the map. When Avery first founded the company with financial backer Finn Adams, a softhearted smart man she later fell in love with, she never thought that he would die and leave his share of the company to his Paris Hilton–type daughter, Parker. Parker's drug and alcohol binging at late-night glitterati parties endanger the reputation of Flair and its new perfume, and a mysterious phone call to Avery from a manipulative woman claiming to be Avery's mother (a nod to Susan Lucci's character, Erica Kane) throws everything into a heady cloud of smoke. Romance aficionados will find Avery's two love affairs (with a dashing newsmagazine producer and a quick-witted yet sensitive billionaire, natch) intoxicating, but the denouement lacks punch—perhaps because soaps never have to come up with an ending. (Feb.)
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From Booklist

Tune into All My Children these days, and you’ll learn that Kendall Hart, daughter of Erica Kane, has written a book published by Hyperion (both ABC and Hyperion are owned by Disney). And, sure enough, reality mirroring fiction, here’s that book, written by Kendall Hart. Those who watch the show know that despite the stress of running a cosmetics company, overseeing her son’s cochlear implant, and fretting over the fact that her husband was trapped in a mine shaft for a month (with her best friend/worst enemy), Kendall is very excited about the publication of her book, a roman à clef. Viewers will see some of Kendall and Erica in the book, but those who don’t follow the show won’t feel a burning need to tune in to pick up the backstory. The writing is what one might expect from a busy mom–tycoon: slapdash cardboard characters and soap-opera plotting. The target audience is clearly fans of the show who have trouble distinguishing between everyday reality and soap reality, but the story might also appeal to those who can tolerate the low end of chick lit. --Ilene Cooper

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: Hyperion; 1 edition (February 5, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1401303072
• ISBN-13: 978-1401303075
• Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 6 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (27 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #825,735 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Better than I expected, February 19, 2008

By 

Melissa Ullom "daisytex" (Vegas) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Charm! (Hardcover)

Truly, I wasn't expecting much with this book, but as an avid and life-long AMC fan, I bought it. I enjoyed the book more on a level of bringing myself into the AMC story, and I was pleasantly surprised. I didn't expect great literature (and I didn't get it), but the story was cute and I'm glad to have read it.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Charming! A must have for all AMC fans!, February 22, 2008

By 

Kimberly Bestrom "Kimba" (Santa Maria, CA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Charm! (Hardcover)

This book was a lot of fun to read! You do not have to be an AMC fan to enjoy this book or understand the plot, however as a huge AMC fan myself I must say that I thoroughly enjoyed this book. A very clever and fun way to bring the fantasy world of All My Children into the reality world of it's viewers! As fans we watch this show every day and spend a lot of time in Pine Valley and the happenings there as well as the things going on it's character's lives, so it's been fun to own a piece of this world and feel a little more connected to the show! I was able to slip away from the cares of reality into the fun and romance of the novel and it's character's lives, and even more so, I also became part of the fantasy world of Pine Valley, All My Children and Kendall Hart! A must have for all fans!

8 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Un Charmed!, February 23, 2008

By 

Rachael N. "Rachael N." (Laurel, United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Charm! (Kindle Edition)

I am a lifelong fan of All My Children. The whole cross marketing thing leaves something to be desired, though the perfume hopefully smells better than the book read! The story was OK. Not a page turner by any means, and there were a LOT of editing errors! That annoyed me! There was also a lot of use of the "F" word, and no I don't mean FUSION. It left a bad taste in my mouth, and I won't read it again. But as a fan of the show I certainly could see the book was based on the character who supposedly wrote it.