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Sheer Abandon: A Novel | 
| Manufacturer: Doubleday
Category: EBooks
List Price: $17.95
Buy New: $9.99
You Save: $7.96 (44%)
Avg. Customer Rating:  20 reviews
Sales Rank: 3006
Format: Kindle Book
Media: Kindle Edition
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 640
Dewey Decimal Number: 823.914
ASIN: B000QBYF0Y
Publication Date: May 8, 2007
Shipping: Eligible for Super Saver Shipping
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
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Product Description
A number-one bestseller from one of Britain’s most popular novelists, Sheer Abandon is an all-consuming story revolving around the consequences of a desperate act . . .
Martha, Clio, and Jocasta meet by chance at Heathrow airport in 1985 as they are starting off on separate backpacking adventures, and they decide to spend the first few days of their trips together in Thailand. When they go their separate ways, they vow to get together in London the following year. But many years pass before the three cross paths again, and the once-capricious, carefree girls now all have thriving careers. One of them, however, harbors a terrible secret: On her return from her pre-college excursion, she abandoned her just-born daughter at Heathrow.
Clio has fulfilled her ambition of becoming a doctor, only to find herself trapped in a marriage to an arrogant surgeon who belittles her and her professional achievements. Martha is a highly paid corporate lawyer, just embarking on a political career. Dedicated to her job, she has had little time for personal relationships and lives a busy, but lonely life. Jocasta, a tabloid newspaper reporter with an infallible instinct for the big story, is in love with a charming colleague who can’t make the permanent commitment she longs for. The infant abandoned at Heathrow has grown up under the loving care of her adoptive family. Now a beautiful teenager named Kate, she sets out to find her birth mother—a quest that unexpectedly brings the women together and exposes the secret buried so many years before.
Impossible to put down, Sheer Abandon is top-notch women’s fiction.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 15 more reviews...
 Long and Dull July 16, 2008
I listened to this book on CD and it was incredibly long at 22 CDs and not terribly much happened. I would have thought there would have been more character development in this book. It really is true that the reader must find something likable about the characters to care what happens to them. The fact that the author practically broadcast who the baby's parents were so early in the story made it not nearly as fun. By the time the "revelation" came about I think I knew for at least one hundred pages if not more earlier. This one had the potential to be really great, but this is one I would pass on. I can't get back all of those hours of listening.
 No BOREDOM HERE July 11, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
I just finished reading SHEER ABANDON. I honestly found it hard to put down and this is the first novel in a long
time that held my interest throughout. Ms. Vincenzi is new to me and I'm anxious to read something else by her. Adriana Trigiani referred to her as the "plot twist queen" and she certainly was in this book. So many things happening to so many people at the same time creating a fast moving, interesting, well-written account of the lives of former travelling companions of years ago who meet up again and become enmeshed in each others lives. I found nothing far-fetched and everything believable. Emotions ran high in some places and I reached for the tissues more than once. I'm not particularly interested in English politics but
creating a new party by hard-driving individuals exemplified what the political scene is - any political scene - anywhere.
I truly liked each and every character - well, maybe not Janet Frean so much but she was interesting in her ruthlessness. I highly recommend this book.
SHEER PLEASURE July 5, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
This is the first Penny Vincenzi novel I'd ever read, and I was hooked from page one. It takes awhile to keep the cast of thousands straight, but once you do, you can't read fast enough. Vincenzi is my favorite kind of author -- she gives you drama, excitement, great characters, lots of plot, and plenty of pages for your money. And she also gives you something to think about, a moral dilemma or that gray area between black and white. Gee, I think it's called theme. I've already passed this book on to several reading buddies, and they're now solidly hooked, too. Since reading SHEER ABANDON, I've ordered copies of all Vincenzi's books, but I'm not reading them all at once. It's more fun to read one here and there and know I still have some to look forward to. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.
 good but not her best July 3, 2008
I have read 4 of Penny Vincenzi's titles and this one is not the best. She is a great writer of this genre, hard to put down modern women's fiction but this one drags on at the end to not much effect. The last third could have used a good paring down and the ending is disappointing. That said, it held my attention for most of it and as always with her books I stayed up way too late reading it. I do love her books and the Englishness of the settings. She could have done more with wrapping this one up. Try Absolute Scandal for Vincenzi in top form.
I'm with "Sheer Boredom" June 26, 2008
I'm with the reviewer who posted "Sheer Boredom". I greatly enjoyed the Lytton family trilogy, but this one is a real disappointment. In part, it may be the lack of historical trappings, along with the singularly uninteresting contemporary British political backdrop (and the author's pet peeves about socialized medicine), but I think the far more serious problem is the lack of character development. It's simply hard to care what happens to these cardboard cut out characters.
I haven't given up totally on the author, but will be cautious going foward.
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