Official Stuff –
Author – Laura Lippman
Pages – 320
Publisher – William Morrow Paperbacks
Summary –
In the comfortable suburb where Heloise Lewis lives, she’s just a mom, the youngish widow with a forgettable job who somehow never misses a soccer game or a school play. In the state capitol, she’s the redheaded lobbyist with a good cause and a mediocre track record.
But in discreet hotel rooms throughout the area, she’s the woman of your dreams—if you can afford her hourly fee.
But now, after a decade, her secret life is under siege. Her once oblivious accountant is asking loaded questions. Her longtime protector is hinting at new dangers. Her employees can’t be trusted. One county over, another so-called suburban madam has been found dead in her car, a suicide. Or is it? And then she learns that her son’s father, a killer and former pimp, might be released from prison. With no formal education, no real family, and no friends, Heloise has to remake her life—again. Disappearing will be the easy part. The trick will be living long enough to start a new life.
My Rating – 2 Stars
I received a free copy of this novel through the Arcycling blog
(Trying something a bit different with my reviews. Please let me know if I should change it back or keep it.)
This book should have been named “Daddy Issues” because that it basically all it’s about. Heloise/Helen has been a prostitute (escort) since she was nineteen years old. She dropped out of school (though she was pretty much a straight A student) and ran away from home with the first guy she slept with because she thought he loved her. She blames this on her father, because he was cruel to her and beat her and her mother.
She eventually hooked up with a pimp, who also beat her occasionally, this she also blames on her father. And her mother for putting up with her father. She blames her father for her not graduating high school. She blames her father for every bad thing that’s happened in her life. She takes no responsibility for the decisions she’s made that led her down the path of prostitution.
I understand that children that are abused by their parents suffer mental consequences, but there comes a time when you need to take responsibility for your own actions. Heloise never learns this lesson, because her in twenty years of hooking, she never once gets caught (unlikely).
She’s also boring and very pretentious for someone who never graduated high school. She has a son, Scott who is constantly described as a “dream child”. He is perfect in almost every way and he has been since birth. He hardly ever cried, slept through the night, few tantrums, polite, smart, and athletic.
There are no real twists or turns in the book, you can see the “twist” from a mile away. Also the book is very dry and it took me a few days to get through it. It flips back and forth from her current life to her past, leading up to how she became to be a suburban madam.
This book just wasn’t for me.