Charmed Circle [Mass Market Paperback]

Carol Smith (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 1, 1999

Twenty-seven year old Joanna Lyndhurst celebrates passing her medical boards by treating herself to a winter holiday on the sunny Caribbean island of Antigua. She goes alone, leaving her one-time lover and close friend Sebastian behind in London. In Antigua, she meets Lowell Brooks, a Judge from Massachusetts, and his lover, Vincent Van der Voorst, an Art Historian who lives in Amsterdam; Cora Louise and Fontaine Ravenel, a mother-daughter team of socialites from Charleston, SC; Merrily Morgenstern, a hard-edged New York banking exec on the prowl for a husband, and Jessica Sutherland, a cheerful Brit who organizes music festivals. The seven travelers become fast friends, sharing their secret lives with each other on vacation before returning to their individual realities scattered across the globe.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

When 27-year-old Londoner Joanna "Jo" Lyndhurst, protagonist of Smith's disappointing second romantic suspense novel (after Friends for Life) decides to take a pre-Christmas jaunt to Antigua without her longtime lover Sebastian, she befriends an international group of six other visitors who reconvene each year in the Caribbean. The group seems straight out of central casting. Aside from cool medical practitioner Jo, there are the Fontaines, a mother/daughter duo of pathetically faded Southern debs; an overzealous British music festival planner named Jessica; a gay Boston Brahmin mama's boy of a judge (named Lowell Brooks) and his young, Dutch lover, Vincent; and banker Merrily Morgenstern, an offensive stereotype, identified as a "pushy New Yorker." When Vincent turns up murdered it's no surprise, since the deed is foreshadowed on page one. A creepy and improbable triangle involving Jo, Sebastian and Jessica ensues even as more deaths occur, and Jo proves herself to be a monumentally obtuse heroine. Despite several attempted red herrings, there's never a doubt as to the identity of the insane killer. Smith moves her narrative along smoothly, however, and creates enough romantic entanglements and complications for a passable beach read. (July) FYI: Smith is a literary agent in London.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

A short but wonderful holiday on a Caribbean island cements an unlikely friendship among seven otherwise dissimilar people. One woman, a young doctor based in London, falls in love with a mysterious dark stranger. Another falls for the doctor's discarded lover. A third, a socialite from Charleston, is determined to capture the judge whose gay lover is murdered. Who is the killer? No one knows until one of the charmed seven strikes again. Enjoying this novel is like whipping up meringueAsimple ingredients, a little diligent beating, and voil?!Asnowy, tasty peaks. At its best this novel harks back to the wonderful genre of Helen MacInnesAstrong heroines, distant locales, danger, and mysterious strangers. Light but not frivolous, exotic but not remote, passionate but not randy, this confection is perfect leisure reading. Smith (Friends for Life, LJ 2/1/96) is herself a literary agent with a background in publishing. For suspense collections in public libraries.ABarbara Conaty, Lib. of Congress
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 352 pages
• Publisher: Grand Central Publishing (December 1, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0446607045
• ISBN-13: 978-0446607049
• Product Dimensions: 6.6 x 4.1 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 2.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #5,386,004 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Engrossing account of friendships between diverse characters, July 10, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Charmed Circle (Hardcover)

This book had me engrossed from almost the first page. The relationships between diverse characters from different parts of the world who once a year meet for a holiday on an idyllic Caribbean Island.

But all is now what it seems and as the years go by, the friendships grow, but the members of this little group start to die. Are the deaths anything to do with the group, or are they just random?

Carol Smith makes us care for all of these people. The elegant and kind American Judge and his ebullient and altogether charming and brilliant friend. The Southern Lady and her daughter who aren't quite as they seem. The young Doctor, who loves them all and gives encouragement and succour to all who need it, but what about her love life? Young music enthusiast, and orphan, trying t get to the top of her tree and to find real love, but so encroaching on other's relationships. And the upwardly mobile business woman who isn't quite as self contained as she seems.

All of them brought together by the magnetic Vincent and in the end find that friendship can survive almost anything.

This book is one which will have me thinking about the characters and what they might be doing now for days to come.

I thoroughly recommend it to any reader who likes to feel involved in the lives of the characters and especially who love a good whodunit with a twist.

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars A major disappointment, October 22, 1998

By 

S. Rich (North Carolina) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Charmed Circle (Hardcover)

I read Carol Smith's first book, Circle of Friends, and thought her second would be even better. I was sadly disappointed. A murder mystery that is dull and does not even have a murder until over half way through the book is hard to trudge through at best. The plot was thin, the characters weak and tiring. I found myself irritated for even finishing the book. If she tries this again I hope she learns from this major mistake.

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Why was this book allowed to be published?, August 24, 1998

By 

Mary MacGregor - See all my reviews

This review is from: Charmed Circle (Hardcover)

I am so annoyed to have wasted my time reading this graceless novel that I feel compelled to alert potential readers to impending banality and completely cliched writing.

From stock, uninvolving characters to clunky prose: "From the very first moment they'd met at the Mill Reef Club, this pair had eyes only for each other. His chiseled Cossack cheekbones and slanting eyes complemented her more Caucasian features..." (I swear I opened the book at random to cite an example.)

This is Carol Smith's second effort and my first meeting. I can only surmise that her first effort was a superlative achievement and paved the way for this amazingly trite secondary effort. Or perhaps, since she is herself a literary agent, she has friends in the right places.

The unmasking of the murderer--the identity of whom is evident in the first one-third of the book--takes place atop the precarious roofline of London's Albert Hall. Gosh, I wonder what happens next?

There is a surfeit of well-written, engrossing novels now available at the bookstore. Don't waste your time with this embarassing clunker.