Re-Read Challenge Review: The Prodigal Daughter by Jeffrey Archer

Posted March 31, 2009 by Tracy in Reviews | 9 Comments

With a will of steel, Polish immigrant Florentyna Rosnovski is indeed Abel’s daughter. She shares with her father a love of America, his ideals, and his dream for the future. But she wants more to be the first female president.

Golden boy Richard Kane was born into a life of luxury. The scion of a banking magnate he is successful, handsome, and determined to carve his own path in the world-and to build a future with the woman he loves.

With Florentyna’s ultimate goal only a heartbeat away, both are about to discover the shattering price of power as a titanic battle of betrayal and deception reaches out from the past-a blood feud between two generations that threatens to destroy everything Florentyna and Richard have fought to achieve.

I read this book about 19 or 20 years ago and even then it had been out for a long time – having been published in 1982. I’ve had it on my shelf ever since and really wanted to read it again. I had read Kane and Abel, the first book in this series and it was great so immediately moved on to this one. I think I liked this book even better back then because after reading K & A I liked the bits of romance that The Prodigal Daughter had in it. The style of books that I enjoy now are much different that what I enjoyed waaaaay back when.

It’s interesting to me that the blurb for this book reads like a romance, which this book is not. It’s more a life story with a relationship intertwined. The book basically is about the life of Florentyna Rosnovski. It pretty much starts with her birth and moves on with great detail through her schooling, her successes and her failures – which there aren’t many.

Florentyna had wanted to be the President of the United States since she was 11 and her father was all for it. I don’t know that he actually believed that it was something that she could accomplish but he was behind her 100%. Her father being a polish immigrant that came to America and became a hotel mogul and subsequently a millionaire.

Florentyna made some decisions that her father didn’t care for…mainly falling in love with his life long rivals son, Richard. But they were very happy – she started her own business and eventually took over the hotel business for her father putting her political aspirations aside for many different reasons. Eventually she runs for office becoming first a Congresswoman then a Senator and eventually…well, I won’t ruin it for you if you plan to read it. 🙂

This is a really good book but I have to say it wasn’t quite as good for me as it was 20 years ago. The main issue I had with the book was the fact that I was told the story with a few instances of being shown thrown in from time to time. It drove me batshit. lol By the time I was a quarter of the way through the book I just wanted to say to the narrator, for that’s how it felt to me, to shut the hell up and let me read! It truly put a damper on my enjoyment of the book. What I didn’t even notice before drove me crazy now.

Again I say…this was a good book. It’s a great story and it’s interesting. But if you don’t like being told a story then this wouldn’t be good for you to read as it will probably have the same effect on you as it did me! I have the next book in this series that I never read but I think I’ll have to pass on it. Maybe in 20 years…

Rating in 1989: 5 out of 5

Rating in 2009: 3.75 out of 5

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Tagged: Jeffrey Archer, Re-Read Challenge Review, Review, Tracy's Reviews

What I’ve Been Reading This Week

Posted March 30, 2009 by Tracy in Features | 14 Comments

Happy Sunday (night)!

I kept meaning to post this earlier today but real life got in the way. My oldest has her state project due tomorrow and we were putting the finishing touches on her display board and her speech. Hopefully she’ll ace this one…I think she will.

The hubby’s b-day gathering with my family was fun. Everyone was late so we were starving by the time everyone got here. I swear I need to tell my family to arrive at least a 1/2 hour earlier than everyone else. Of course when they’re the only one’s attending… What’s a body to do?

And I just opened my email and got one from Kelley Armstrong! Holy shit if that’s not enough to put icing on the cake of a great weekend, I don’t know what is! lol She was just letting me know I’d won one of her books on DIK but dang – that’s very cool! If you didn’t get a chance to read her posts this past Thursday, Friday and Saturday you should – they were great.

I didn’t post it last week cuz there was so much going on but if you want to read my review on Bound and Determined by Shayla Black you can do so here.

Ok – so I didn’t feel like I read that much this week but when I stopped and looked at the list I guess I did. 5 were short stories so they don’t really count as 5 – just 1 novella, really. lol

So my first read of the week was Coyote’s Mate by Lora Leigh. Book 112 in the Breed series…ok, not that many but the latest. I liked the story but yet I didn’t. It hurt my heart. Truly it did. I thought that the heroine held onto her anger way too long but she finally let it go and saved herself nicely. Then the hero did something uber retarded…and frankly the way his character was written he should have friggin known better. He knew the score on soooooo many things – things other didn’t – in fact he made it his job to know. The fact that he pulled this thing and supposedly didn’t know what would happen was too unlikely for me – and I’m a damned forgiving reader. It made it just an ok read for me in the end. I still liked the series though and I’m looking forward to Cabal’s book.

Next up was The Prodigal Daughter by Jeffrey Archer for my re-read challenge. I’ll post my review on Tuesday. Oh and I’m only 2 weeks into the TBR challenge that I gave myself and I’ve fucked up already. This one has been on my shelf for so long I’m counting this as my re-read and my TBR. Yeah, I suck! lol (the book is so old I couldn’t even find a decent picture for it!)

Next were 4 short stories by Amber Kell…the Moon Pack Series – Attracting Anthony, Baiting Ben, Courting Calvin and & Denying Dare (all m/m stories). I read about these at Kris ‘n’ Good Books and since I like novellas and shorts I picked them up and read them quite quickly. While they weren’t the best shifter stories I’ve read…since out of the 4 shorts only 2 people actually shift, but they were cute. I had some issues with editing and words left out & giggling men (which is never my favorite) but other than that they were ok.

When I was buying the Moon Pack series from All Romance ebooks I got a free short called Friends with Benefits by Cat Johnson. A very short story about a couple who’ve known each other since 8th grade and just recently have become friends with benefits. However when one of them sleeps with someone else (they weren’t exclusive) then the female of the pair starts to look at her feelings about the relationship. Cute short read. Heroine a tad annoying but she was ok.

Gorgeous as Sin by Susan Johnson I read for The Book Binge. I’ll let you know when my review is posted.

Last but not least was Temptation Ridge by Robyn Carr. Good book. For the most part I really liked it. It was a little syrupy in parts but overall a good story with a lot going on…which is one of the things I love about the series. I have to admit that when I closed the book I said “awwwww” lol