A Ruling Passion

I enjoyed this book. The story was interesting and all characters were integral. However, the misuse of punctuation, missing words and misspellings were very common. When I'm reading a book, I don't want to have to stop to figure out what the author is trying to say when a word is missing, etc., I want it to flow. I would think that the prices that are paid to Simon & Schuster would include thorough editing, but, obviously, I'm finding more and more that this is no longer the case. Books are simply rushed to press.

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.

Since the first page this book makes it very interesting, at about the first pages you want to keep reading more. You can't put this book down, you gotta keep reading. The characters each are very different, yet, they are the same in some ways. Sometimes it makes you want to be like them.

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.