A Ruling Passion [Paperback]

Judith Michael (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 1, 1990

A romantic triangle turns vicious as TV reporter Valerie Sterling becomes the target of a jealous rival's vengeance. 2 cassettes.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

This plodding riches-to-rags and rags-to-riches tale is likely to disappoint fans of Michael's glittering bestseller Inheritance . Privileged and beautiful Valerie Sterling arrives at Stanford, and ignores fellow student Sybille, daughter of her mother's dressmaker, to dabble in acting and dally with Nick, an impoverished student who loves her. Two bad marriages later, Valerie loses a cheating husband and a fortune in a mysterious plane crash, but finds her courage. Sybille, meantime, marries and divorces Nick, then scrambles to the top of the heap in network news. Her envy and hatred of Valerie snowball when Valerie becomes an investigative reporter at the cable network Nick owns and digs up dirt on a televangelist show Sybille has launched. A one-dimensional cast brings little sparkle to the predictable plot. Only in the final quarter is there excitement enough to carry the heavily padded prose to a spirited conclusion. Literary Guild and Doubleday Book Club main selections.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review

Daily News (New York) A hard book to put down.

Chicago Tribune Good, stylishly written fun. --This text refers to the Mass Market Paperback edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 632 pages
• Publisher: Pocket Books (January 1, 1990)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0671701258
• ISBN-13: 978-0671701253
• Product Dimensions: 6.6 x 4.1 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,355,221 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars A Ruling Passion, January 25, 2000

By 

Danelle Nix - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Ruling Passion (Mass Market Paperback)

I am a huge fan of Judith Michael. This husband/wife team has brought a great deal of style, mystery, romance and intrigue to the genre which I appreciate and eagerly await...most of the time! With A Ruling Passion, however, I am terribly dissapointed. It had the great "long book" look I love (which usually means wonderful depth and detail) but is completely disappointing from the start. I kept reading, thinking..surely it would get to their usual style...but, alas, no. This is a wholely disappointing novel. The characters lack depth, the plot is thin and the devlopment is vague and repetitive with one boring scenario emphasizing the same facet of character or plot over and over and over. I surely hope the dynamic team of Judith Michael will be back up to speed soon! I need summer reading!

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars entertaining, June 26, 1996

By A Customer

This review is from: A Ruling Passion (Mass Market Paperback)

Always a pleasure to read a Judith Michael book.
I like the fact that it's written by a couple; you get
both a woman and a man's perspective.
The Sybille character is evil but the other two, Valerie
and Nick, aren't perfect either. It gives the reader the
opportunity to make it's own mind on wether they will
like these people or not. This option is not dictated
to us by the authors.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars I couldn't put it down, June 19, 2003

By 

Kelly "chezkelly" (Singapore) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Ruling Passion (Mass Market Paperback)

The story started with a plane crash and how Valerie, a socialite who never really work, helped to save the survivors, found herself widowed and lost her wealth. Then it flashed back to 13 years earlier, to the college days of the 3 main characters, Valerie, Nick and Sybille. It took about half the book to tell the story from their school days right up to the plane crash. I found myself impatient to know the story after the crash, how the fate of Valerie, Nick and Sybille would met again.

Valerie was beautiful, rich and intelligent. She had no goals in live other than travelling to places she had not been, flying all over the world to attend parties, indulging in pleasures in life. She got bored and restless easily but generally she was kind and had a great human touch. It was easy to be jealous with someone like Valerie, who appeared to have everything without any effort. So Sybille was extremely jealous of Valerie. Sybille grew up with Valerie and strived to outdo everything about Valerie, going to the same school, getting the same men, gaining the same wealth and living in the same estate. Nick was Valerie's boyfriend till his proposal frightened Valerie away and Sybille found her ways to marry him. Thankfully, Nick finally waked up and divorced Sybille.

The story fascinated me right from the beginning and the plot was pretty good. It had very good character development, which often reflected how people around us probably reacted or felt the some way in different degree. For example, Sybille never really lived life at present but waiting for her life to begin after a future milestone, like after she left college, after she got a job at a TV station, after she moved to New York City, after her marriage, after her husband's death, after moving to the exclusive estate etc. She was often resenting her present life. She was unable to love and always lonely and angry. Don't we often find ourselves wishing that something is over or something would happen so that our life would really begin? Too often people spend the best time of their life waiting for the best time of their life. The story also told Valerie's and Nick's fair share of weaknesses and how they overcame it.

All in all, an engaging read.