Customer Reviews

Rich Again

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(15)

 

 

If I hadn't read it on the cover I never would have known this was a book by Anna Maxted. I have enjoyed her other books, and pre-ordered this one thinking that was what I was getting. As I read this book I was happily surprised by this departure from her regular writing.

If you can get past the sexual content (necessary for story development) of book one (the book is divided up into 5 books), you will be rewarded with a well written story that makes the melodrama of Dallas and Melrose Place seem tame. Maxted did a wonderful job of creating characters that you love, hate, and love to hate. Even though Maxted departed slightly from her past books the thing that remains the same is her observations on human relationships and showing that love is not always black and white. I would highly recommend this book to anyone who likes a bit of humor, murder, sex, and pop culture in their books.

The cover of this book is very misleading--this is no light chic lit novel. Definitely about dysfunctional/rich people with sex, drugs, murder and deception--almost like an early Jackie Collins's novel! I had a bit of trouble with the time frames with characters and the years, and perhaps this was written this way to emphasize that "the past will come to haunt/hurt you"?? It's a bit absurd yet a captivating book.

I read the reviews and noticed that they were unfavorable, but I thought those reviewers might just be anti- chick-lit escapist fluff and were judging it as though it's supposed to be literature. I liked one of her other books, so I figured they were wrong. They're right: it's terrible.

You know those soap operas where someone's wife dies in a tragic accident that may not be an accident, and his children become wastrels or institutionalized, and someone marries his sister who was given up for adoption years ago without she's related, and there's a horrible second wife who steals his business out from under him and seemingly kills the step-child (who really lives and goes on to seek revenge), and someone is secretly married, and the evil twin turns out to be impersonating him? Oh, and there's a psychopath stalking them all? And you think, "What a far-fetched, absurd, forced story. Could they think of another ridiculous plot point to trot out? Who writes this?" Apparently Anna Maxted could, since that's basically this book. For a while I thought it was so over the top that it was almost poking fun at itself, but I think it was serious. Cliched, undeveloped, stupid characters. Depressing, contrived plot that isn't redeemed with any humor. Dragging pacing, which is pretty amazing when you pack it this full of silly, over the top events. I finally abandoned it, after having almost done so several previous times.

This book is a prefect example of that. I picked it up while in Target and judging by the cover ( my mistake) and the description on the back of the book I thought this was going to be basic chick-lit, light and girly. Boy was I wrong!!This book is very dark and shocking in the level of vial behavior that goes on in it. Once getting past the shock of the book not being what a expected, the story was pretty good, most of the plots seemed to be taken from soap operas though. My main problem with the book was the format in which it was written, the way the chapters jumped around from the current year, then 2 years before, now 10 years before, now 5 years later, now 15 years in the past again was very hard to keep up with and totally unnecessary in telling this story.

Up until now, Anna Maxted's novels have been firmly lumped in with the Bridget Jones/chick-lit category of women's fiction. Although her earlier works sometimes tackled darker subjects, they did so in a way laced with plenty of humor and lighthearted romance. Now, with RICH AGAIN, Maxted takes her fiction in startling --- and surprisingly dark --- directions.

At the center of the novel is hotel magnate Jack Kent. Devastated by the untimely death of his first wife, Jack retreats from his adopted daughter, Claudia, and rejects his newly adopted son, Nathan, to a life of foster care. Convinced that he could never love again, Jack surprises himself when he falls head over heels in love with Innocence, a beautiful but ruthless young woman who is not exactly what she seems.

Innocence (née Sharon Marshall) has learned the ways of the upper crust from being their servants, all the way up to the Royal Family. She knows exactly what she wants and how to get it, and is utterly ruthless in her pursuit. After a whirlwind courtship with Jack, Innocence's new marriage alternates between feeding her ego and her insecurity. She despises Claudia --- her reminder of Jack's earlier life --- and plots to get control of some measure of Jack's massive fortune. Meanwhile, Jack and Innocence's daughter, Emily, raised amid a level of wealth beyond most people's imaginings, seems to have inherited her mother's acquisitiveness, longing not only for a fabulously glamorous lifestyle but also for a love affair with genuine nobility.

As an adult, Claudia has chosen a humbler path, including taking a job she doesn't really need. Events in her childhood have made her skittish about sex, but she has found love. That is, until anonymous notes start delivering grim warnings about her fiancé.

After an acrimonious parting --- involving much of Jack's wealth --- Innocence and Jack seem hell-bent on destroying each other. But unknown to everyone, someone else has been watching the family (and plotting against them) for years and has plans to strike fear and terror at the heart of the Kent family and fortune.

RICH AGAIN is a masterpiece of escapism, the kind of novel that simultaneously indulges readers' desires to immerse themselves in the lives of the fabulously wealthy and reminds them that being rich isn't all it's cracked up to be. Stretching from the 1960s through 2006, it drops names --- of designers, rock stars, actors and royalty --- with abandon. With its broad range of privileged characters and glamorous locales, and surprising (sometimes bizarrely so) interconnections among them, the novel might remind some readers of the work of Penny Vincenzi, except with more (and hotter) sex scenes. With its chilling and often disturbingly violent portrayal of a psychopath, it is also reminiscent of psychological suspense novels by authors like Ruth Rendell.

Delicious, dark, and more than a little naughty, RICH AGAIN is a bit like that piece of exquisite dark chocolate you savor both for its richness and its bitter undertones.

I am a huge fan of Anna Maxted and bought the book based on her name. However, this is nothing like the amusing, sweet, and character driven books she has previously written. I kept turning the pages waiting to enjoy the plot and characters...which never happened. This is the only book by her that I put down several times. I'm not sure if she was experimenting or why her publisher allowed this to be printed under her name. I do not recommend this book.

I have really enjoyed all of this authors other books, but this one had unlikable characters that didn't connect with me. Anna Maxted has had other characters that started out unsympathetic, but that grew and changed. These chatacters didn't seem real and I didn't really care what happened to them.

I adore Anna Maxted but this is so poorly written, full of 1-dimensional characters, gratuitous violence, lack of credible plots, etc. It is direly missing the soul that marked Ms. Maxted as one of my favorite authors. I appreciate trying out new ideas and genres but this was horrid. I really hope she manages to re-instill her original spirit into the next book.

I bought this book because I have read all of Anna Maxted's books and have liked them all. After the first few pages, I wondered what I had gotten myself into. Then I happened to notice that the book was first published as Betrayal by Sasha Blake in the U.K. This prompted me to do some research. Maxted wanted to write a "bonkbuster," and so the novel was presented to the publisher under a pseudonym. If I had seen the original title and cover, I never would have bought the book. However, in the U.S., the publisher used Maxted's name and changed the cover. I felt like I had been duped.

The story, the characters, the plot are so incredibly unbelievable. The characters are unlikable and unsympathetic and have no redeeming qualities whatsoever. I found it painful to read and was disgusted by the ending. The children never would have been in DFCS custody because they would have gone to the father!! I couldn't get over this, and Maxted glossed right over this fact. The ending was also too quick and too convenient. I read an article where Maxted said that the chick lit genre was no longer for her because she's married with three kids and so she was moving on to bonkbosters. I really hope she changes her mind. If I wanted to read Jackie Collins, I'd read Jackie Collins. I expect more from Maxted.

I went and read a few reviews about this book when I first knew I was going to get it. After reading more negative reviews than positive, I was a bit apprehensive on whether I really wanted to read it or not, or if I was going to be able to finish it. I stuck with it and I am really glad I did.

The story is basically about a very dysfunctional family, the only difference between the Kents and other families is that they have money and of course the family members are not the kind of people that I would want in my family, greedy, selfish, not even really caring about each other. Wait,we read about that kind of behavior all the time in the rag magazines, well I don't, but you get what I mean.

At times, I did have a hard time keeping up with the way the characters changed and the time frame that each chapter took place in. The characters?? Well there is Jack, the patriarch of the family who pays no attention to anyone in his family. His first wife dies young and leaves him with an adopted daughter, Claudia to raise.

He meets and 'marries' a woman who is extremely selfish and all about her..they have a marriage that goes from great to violent.Her name is Innocence, whose name should actually be Bitch because that is what she is to all the people in her life. She has a story all of her own on how she got to where she is, all fake of course. Oh yes, she has pink hair and they have a child Emily who is a spoiled not nice person..

To say too much more about the characters would spoil the review of this novel.The cover is definitely misleading, I thought it was going to be a silly girly book. Well, it actually reminded me of an early Judith Kranz, Sidney Sheldon or even a Jackie Collins style story. It has the rich people, the poor people, the snobby people and even a few murders thrown into the mix,and a good amount of sex.

I liked the story and it kept me entertained the whole time I read it.I recommend it to anyone who likes this kind of story,at times xrated,but a very decadent fun read into the lives of a family who has everything, loses everything and then gets everything back, but at a price.