Customer Reviews

The Stars Shine Down

5 star:		(15)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

This book, the star shines down tells about the life of Lara Cameron, who made her way through success by achieving one of the top world site builders over a traditionally male dominant society. Lara is the daughter of a boarding house owner in Glace Bay. She suffered lot of hardships to attain the ultimate success as a real estate performer. She becomes a successful real estate developer by converting an old hotel into an ultra model luxury hotel. She even had to make love with so many people, ruthless yet vulnerable to get her living. Coming from a poor family in Nova Scotia, She promised to herself to gain more power to show her father that he was wrong. In a global setting in many places she has ever desired and won. By doing all this she attains the pinnacle of success, but as days pass by she started losing them, and came back to her initial stage of her living, but yet had the strong support of her love and other working staff. The thrill and fun of the reality industry, the care for the staff and the true love which finds her back and the staff staying by her side are some of the interesting twists in the story. This book deals with the conceptual ideas of a young girl which turned into a dream by which she was made as a wonderful artist to avail her pride. The authors view for women to get her heights inspired me in the ways to develop the abilities in any such manner as Lara did. As it describes in a promotional manner the girl wanted to make her site the world's most used one for acquiring knowledge. This book would be the most inspirational one for every woman to achieve amongst any situation. Read it and get inspired.

I generally like Sheldon's "beach" reads. Usually great fun which decent premises. I'm not hard to please. However, this offering was dismal.

Storylines were picked up and dropped without resolution. Most of the characters were grossly underdeveloped or mere stereotypes. You know going into a Sheldon book that it's not going to be an English Lit assignment, but this one was weak in comparison with his other selections.

This book was something that I read in one day, just to pass the time. I really didn't care about the characters, and Lara seemed just too unreal to be true. She was too much of Scarlet O'Hara in her dealings with a real estate world dominated by men. I only finished it to find out what crisis happened that gave her an empty birthday party, but when I finally came to the end, it wasn't too satisfying.

After reading the reviews, I wondered if we had all read the same book. There was very little to like about the main character. She had a very difficult beginning, but the way she went about "raising" herself above her beginnings was not admirable as far as I was concerned. She began her "rise" by prostituting herself in order to get her first loan. Later on her business dealings, especially with foreigners, were unscrupulous, i.e. insisting on meeting while they were suffering from jet lag in order to gain an advantage. If you enjoy a book having a bitchy main character who has an affair with a much older married man, then this book is for you. I was very disappointed. Normally I enjoy Sidney Sheldon, but there was very little in this story that I really liked.

This book is definately worth reading, but it is not Sidney Sheldon's best work. The story was over a bit too quickly for my liking. The storyline and characters did not have the time to develop as nicely as in "The Rage of Angels" or "If Tomorrow Comes." Still, better than most novels by ordinary authors. Sidney Sheldon is the master at plot turns and this book is no exception. Makes nice reading if you are short on time.

This is a beach book if you don't have anything to read. I am not going to read another Sheldon's book based on this one. The plot is there but the whole novel read like a condensed version. The sentences are basic and bare. The events happened so fast you never feel involved. Try Nelson DeMille's or John Sandford's.

THE STARS SHINE DOWN is the story of Lara Cameron, who grows up in poverty in Nova Scotia (Glace Bay) only to become one of the richest women in the world through the developement of a vast real estate empire. The public only knows her as Lara Cameron, powerful real estate developer. She leads them all to believe her father was also a rich real estate developer from Scotland, but the truth is, she grew up with an abusive father who was only glad to be rid of her.

But through the contacts she makes early on in her life, she learns how to become independent and leaves Canada for a new life in the States. And from there her empire takes off.

Within the story is a mystery - as Lara gets more powerful, she notices "things" starting to happen. She befriends a man that she suspects is affiliated with the mafia, and they start an affair. At one point she suspects foul play (to her advantage) in the development of one of her buildings, and she starts to think that Paul Martin is behind it. She does not know if she can trust him.

As the story progresses, we learn more about the people who are close to her, and it is not until the very end that the mystery is unravelled and we learn who had been the one behind a number of accidents and other unscrupuolous dealings to help Lara build her empire.

I liked this book. It's one of Sidney Sheldon's better novels. As always, it was fast reading and well written. The characters are all memorable and you can always sympathize with the main character. A must-read for all fan.

In this rags-to-riches story, we follow the life of Lara Cameron from her beginnings in Nova Scotia to the United States as a young businesswoman. She emerges from being poor to a real estate developer worth millions, using whatever is necessary to close the deal, be it her brain or her body. Lara's power revolves around the empire she builds (mainly hotels and commercial buildings) and nothing will stop her. She drugs investors and torments tenants to make them leave property she wants to rebuild. Sound disgusting? Not at all!

You'd think with these characters, the reader would hate Lara, but Sidney Sheldon instead shows us her independence, courage and a determination for self-preservation to the point of the reader becoming Lara's ally. The most dramatic evidence to support this devotion is when Sheldon plays on our feelings for Lara during a series of events that could not only leave her penniless but could also convict her of crimes she appears to have committed on her path to the top. Instead of cheering for her demise, I found myself rooting for Lara to once again be successful.

Sidney Sheldon masterfully weaves past and present events to give the history of Lara without losing the reader to boredom. The ensemble cast of support characters are not as vivacious as Lara, but still vivid in their own right.

This tale has enough intrigue and drama to keep even the most finicky reader entertained. I found it an enjoyable way to spend a few days, much like a walk in the city.

The Stars really do Shine down on Lara. She was neclected, forgotten, not wanted and not loved but she turned her life around after meeting a older man with an intrest in some land. He helped her find away to excape from her lonely home. She got rich fell in love and Sheldon through his words brings you into her world. As you read you start to feel it and see it in your head. As always Sheldon grabs you from where your sitting and takes you on an exciting, wild, scary and sexy ride!

This wasn't what I expected from Sidney. Yes, it did have the usual but what made it worse, I think, mystery element. I absolutely hated it. Not that I hated the story. But the lies he told in this one were not at all dramatic as his before books that I read. It was simply boring. Just boring. I adored Lara and commend her for all the hard work she was able to do. I look up to no playing games, right on point, boss in high heels.. Yes it so sexy. And her love affair.Unfortunately I knew exactly where it would end up. And if your a huge fan of Sidney, like I am then you will know exactly what I am talking about. He is becoming so cliche now.