Customer Reviews

The Stepmother

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4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

In Florida, wealthy sixty-five years old Steven Armstrong underwent knee replacement surgery and subsequent therapy. He soon falls in love with his physical therapist thirty-three years old Charlene "Charlie" Hendricks, who raises a young teen Tara by herself. He informs his son Matthew, who replaced him on the board of Ucandoit, a chain of hardware warehouses that he plans to ask Charlie to marry him. Matthew tells his two siblings; Hollywood actor Gary and art show sponsor Trish.

Realizing marrying a kind older man would help her daughter, Charlie accepts. However, someone is unhappy with her marrying the self made millionaire and tries to kill Charlie, but fails. A second attempt ends tragically with Steven dead and the police suspecting the new rich widow. She is unable to sit idly by while suspecting one of her step children is trying to kill her. To save herself, Charlie investigates the homicide assuming that she was the target not Steven in spite of evidence to the contrary.

Though the title seems like a poor B movie and the premise seems unlikely that at least one of the adult professional children would turn to murder, readers will appreciate this strong amateur sleuth thriller that grips fans with surprising twists. The story line is fast-paced from the first attempt to kill Charlie and never slows down until the final twist that will stun the audience. The key to this diamond of a tale is that like Charlie readers will believe one of Steven's children is the killer, but which one makes for a fine tale.

Harriet Klausner

Author and/or publishing company could use a proofreader, one who knows the difference between "desert" and "dessert" and "draws" and "drawers," among other punctuation errors. Good story, but as a proofreader, I can't help but be distracted (and disappointed) by all the typos.

I've read four of the seven novels that William P Kennedy has published under his female pen name Diana Diamond. Novels that substantially vary in quality from book to book. The Stepmother is certainly no masterpiece, it does get pretty unrealistic in parts and you'll see the twist at the end coming about half way through the book but it is an enjoyable quick read that will pass a few hours if you need something to pass the time and there's nothing better to read on the shelf.

Much better novels are out there to actually spend your money on about children who do not want to see their mum/dad marry someone else and plan on doing whatever they can to get the new person out of their lives. Twisted Minds by Hilary Norman and the masterpiece Mother's Boys by Bernard Taylor are the two best of this terrifying genre that I've read.

However if Diana Diamond books are what you are after and you are looking for somewhere to start with this author I would recommend The Trophy Wife as Kennedy's best work under his Diana Diamond Pseudonym. It's the best of the four that I've read.

In The Stepmother, Charlene Hendricks, a physiotherapist is struggling to provide as high a quality of life as she can afford for herself and her 13 year old teenage daughter. She counts herself lucky at the moment that her latest client 65 year old millionaire Steven Armstrong treats her well, allows her to be flexible with her time so that she can pick up her kid from school and has an excellent home that she has the run of which is of course her workplace. She knows though that he has completely recovered from his knee surgery and will soon be back in shape and that she will be shown the door soon enough. When the dreaded talk comes she is completely surprised to find out he has fallen in love with her and wants her to marry him.

Seeing it as a way to a better life for her daughter and herself as well as realising the fact that although she is half his age she isn't getting any younger herself, she decides that she is unlikely to ever find true love and that this situation is not a bad consolation prize. Who knows she may grow to love him with time.

Stephen's spoilt grown up children however see right through her, as they can see she's just like them, only interested in their father's wealth and not his love. They don't plan on sharing or having her influence her father's decisions to keep their projects afloat. They make plans to get her out of the picture one way or the other. However plans don't seem to be going as smoothly as they had hoped, the wrong person dies in a planned accident which non of them are admitting to each other they were behind. They decide the best thing to do is tell the authorities their father confided in them that Charlene was out to get him and his money so it's not long before she's up on murder charges. The only way Charlene can beat prison and the public opinion that will affect her daughter's future is to find out who is actually behind the murder.

I just discovered Diana Diamond recently. Normally I am not too fond
of present day writers but she is good. Her books are fast paced;
never a dull moment. This 65 year old multi millionaire is trying
to get his body back in shape with a beautiful 35 year old trainer.
He has a gorgeous home outfitted with complete gym . He has been
married and has 3 grown children and decides he is in love with
his trainer and wants to marry her. His kids(very greedy ones I
might mention) raise all kinds of ruckus; why cant he just shack
up with her; not marry her? Translation: that way she wont be
able to take any money away from them. She doesnt love their father
but respects him and after all she has had a hard life; supporting
an 12 year old girl barely scraping by. So she says yes to his
proposal. first thing that happens is that she is swimming and
someone tries to run over her with a b oat; she barely comes out
alive. Daddy doesnt want to believe it but wee bit of suspicion
tells him it could be one of his kids. she manages to escape
other attempts on her life and then something happens to her
new husband; i wont go into it here..from then on this book is
definitely a "hard to put down" one. Diamond in my estimation
is one of the best of the present breed of authors if not th e
best.

Picked up this hardcover in the bargain bin at Barnes & Noble. I'd never heard of the author, but apparently it's a pseudonym of one William P. Kennedy, who I've also never heard of but who writes adventure-type novels, I think. He's written several books under the `Diana Diamond' name - The Trophy Wife, The Babysitter, The Other Woman, etc. Female heroine, suspense-type stories, presumably.

In The Stepmother, Charlene `Charlie' Hendricks is a physical therapist providing rehab services to Stephen - an older, very wealthy man who falls in love with Charlie and asks her to marry him. Charlie is fond of the old man but not in love with him, but she's struggling financially to support herself and her 13-year old daughter and knows this would be the way out of that hand-to-mouth existence. She accepts his proposal but is honest with him about her feelings, which he accepts.

In the background, Stephen's parasitic grown children from his first marriage are appalled that their father's generosity towards their various projects might be threatened, not to mention their inheritances. Before Charlie and Stephen can even tie the knot, Charlie is almost killed and it may or may not have been intentional. Three short months after the marriage, Stephen himself is unexpectedly killed in a dramatic explosion - or was it really unexpected? All fingers point immediately to Charlie as the proverbial black widow out to set herself up for life, but Charlie knows that it was actually she who was supposed to die that day. Still, things look pretty bleak. She enlists the help of a lawyer and a hunky (of course; please record my eyeroll here) detective with questionable methods of investigating, and the story takes some interesting turns as Charlie heads for a trial in which everything seems stacked against her.

I liked the story fairly well. I didn't find Charlie all that likable, but many women probably would. She was your typical female heroine prototype - too moralistic for me, over-justifying everything she did and felt, which to me is just the common tactic used by authors who think (and may be right) that most people who would read this kind of book want their protagonists to be unrealistically heroic and sympathetic. I'd prefer a little realism and less moralizing, myself, but that's just me. Charlie's also one of those annoying, ineffective mothers who think it's better to be her daughter's `friend' than her parent. My main complaint, though - and it's not a major one - is that there was a little too much "telling" of the story and not enough "showing"; i.e., too much straight narrative outlining thoughts and feelings when they might have been more effective expressed in dialogue and action. Other than that it was a decent read.