From Booklist
American Kick Keswick has been working for the esteemed auction house of Ballantine and Company for more than 30 years, a position that came by way of Oklahoma and a lengthy juvenile record. She met Ballantine's owner, Sir Cramner, while visiting London as a teenager and was his mistress until he died. Her expertise in antiquities and jewelry propelled her to executive secretary, and she expects to retire comfortably on a trust fund and the money she makes with her secret life--until the new owner, Owen Brace, blows in. Owen is a larger-than-life, brash American industrialist with lots of plans and an overactive sex life. Kick becomes enamored of her new boss and decides to stick around, but gets more than even she bargained for. Owen brings romance and great sex, but Kick's larcenous habit is nothing compared with what he contrives. Kellogg's sophisticated and lavishly fun tale of greed and daring in the high-stakes auction house world presents a full-figured, tough, and atypical heroine readers will cheer for. Patty Engelmann
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Review
“Great wines, elegant villains, remarkable sex and a surprise ending—what more could any reader ask for?” –Dorothy J. Gaiter and John Brecher, authors of Love by the Glass: Tasting Notes from a Marriage and The Wall Street Journal Guide to Wine.
“Marne Davis Kellogg’s portrait of a world of opulence and decadence is so vivid she must be an insider. Enjoy the guilty pleasures of Brilliant. I did.” –Harry Smith, CBS, Anchor, “The Early Show”
“Marne Davis Kellogg has written an elegant and luscious suspense novel, filled with intriguing twists and turns. As always, Ms. Kellogg’s characters are funny, sexy, interesting, and quirky. Great summer reading. Brilliant is, in a word, brilliant.” –Nelson DeMille, author of Up Country
“Here’s a heroine who loves diamonds, great food, and great ways to get revenge. What more could any woman want? Brilliant is a delicious novel you’ll devour like the most scrumptious meal. I loved Kick Keswick—I wouldn’t want to mess with her but I would enjoy hanging out with her.” –Janet Evanovich, author of To The Nines
Review
“Great wines, elegant villains, remarkable sex and a surprise ending—what more could any reader ask for?” –Dorothy J. Gaiter and John Brecher, authors of Love by the Glass: Tasting Notes from a Marriage and The Wall Street Journal Guide to Wine.
“Marne Davis Kellogg’s portrait of a world of opulence and decadence is so vivid she must be an insider. Enjoy the guilty pleasures of Brilliant. I did.” –Harry Smith, CBS, Anchor, “The Early Show”
“Marne Davis Kellogg has written an elegant and luscious suspense novel, filled with intriguing twists and turns. As always, Ms. Kellogg’s characters are funny, sexy, interesting, and quirky. Great summer reading. Brilliant is, in a word, brilliant.” –Nelson DeMille, author of Up Country
“Here’s a heroine who loves diamonds, great food, and great ways to get revenge. What more could any woman want? Brilliant is a delicious novel you’ll devour like the most scrumptious meal. I loved Kick Keswick—I wouldn’t want to mess with her but I would enjoy hanging out with her.” –Janet Evanovich, author of To The Nines
Review
“Great wines, elegant villains, remarkable sex and a surprise ending—what more could any reader ask for?” –Dorothy J. Gaiter and John Brecher, authors of Love by the Glass: Tasting Notes from a Marriage and The Wall Street Journal Guide to Wine.
“Marne Davis Kellogg’s portrait of a world of opulence and decadence is so vivid she must be an insider. Enjoy the guilty pleasures of Brilliant. I did.” –Harry Smith, CBS, Anchor, “The Early Show”
“Marne Davis Kellogg has written an elegant and luscious suspense novel, filled with intriguing twists and turns. As always, Ms. Kellogg’s characters are funny, sexy, interesting, and quirky. Great summer reading. Brilliant is, in a word, brilliant.” –Nelson DeMille, author of Up Country
“Here’s a heroine who loves diamonds, great food, and great ways to get revenge. What more could any woman want? Brilliant is a delicious novel you’ll devour like the most scrumptious meal. I loved Kick Keswick—I wouldn’t want to mess with her but I would enjoy hanging out with her.” –Janet Evanovich, author of To The Nines
Book Description
Meet Kick Keswick, an elegant and self-possessed American who has been at London's venerable Ballantine & Company Auctioneers for over thirty years. She is an expert on paintings, furniture, and objets d'art, and so far has lived a perfectly happy life with things on her mind other than love. In fact, Kick rarely lets anyone into her private world. She prefers it that way. She adores her elegant, cozy London flat, her books, her music, her delicious meals, and her jewels. Kick doesn’t need a man in her life, messing things up. But when American industrialist, scoundrel and womanizer Owen Brace grabs the faltering Ballantine & Company in a corporate takeover, he turns Kick's world upside down, opening her eyes to large-scale love, romance, and sensuous pleasure.
But something tells Kick that Brace's motives are anything but sincere. And when he gets near enough to threaten Kick's closely guarded life, Brace learns the dangers of underestimating this woman. From sophisticated London to cozy Provence, France, Brilliant is a playfully delicious novel of suspense, masterful revenge, and secrets (the multi-faceted kind).
Brilliant FROM THE PUBLISHER
"Meet Kick Keswick, an elegant and self-possessed American who has been at London's venerable Ballantine & Company Auctioneer, Ltd., for over thirty years. She is an expert on paintings, furniture, and objets d'art, and so far has lived a perfectly happy life with things on her mind other than love. In fact, Kick rarely lets anyone into her private world. She prefers it that way. She adores her elegant, cozy London flat, her books, her music, her delicious meals, and her jewels. Kick doesn't need a man in her life messing things up. But when American industrialist, scoundrel, and womanizer Owen Brace grabs the faltering Ballantine & Company in a corporate takeover, he turns Kick's world upside down, opening her eyes to large-scale love, romance, and sensuous pleasure." Something tells Kick that Brace's motives are anything but sincere, however. And when he gets near enough to threaten Kick's closely guarded life, Brace learns the dangers of underestimating this woman.
FROM THE CRITICS
Library Journal
Kick Keswick proves a strong, delightful and intelligent antiheroine as she leads the reader on a marvelous romp through London auction houses, the homes of the rich and famous, and the Provence countryside. Her early rough edges as an Oklahoma juvenile delinquent have been considerably smoothed under the 30-year tutelage of the elegant, now deceased Sir Cramner Ballantine, owner of Ballantine & Company Auctioneers. Remade as a lady of impeccable taste, Kick still has larceny in her soul and has made a successful secret career as jeweler and gem thief. Despite her lack of morals, she has her standards and thus deplores the takeover of the company by brash American businessman, philistine, and womanizer Owen Brace. As a woman of further contradiction, Kick also finds herself sexually drawn to Owen while flattered and intrigued by the attentions of detective Thomas Curtis. Full of fun and flare, Kick is indeed a kick, and Brilliant proves to be a gem of summer reading. Kellogg is the author of the Marshall Lily Bennett series (Nothing but Gossip). Highly recommended for popular fiction collections everywhere.-Sheila Riley, Smithsonian Inst. Libs., Washington, DC Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.
Kirkus Reviews
A witty page-turner from the author of, most recently, Insatiable (2001). The urbane Kick Keswick is senior executive assistant at the venerable London auction firm of Ballantine & Co. The daughter of an Oklahoma prostitute, Kick never had a leg up in the world until she was 18--when she was picked up (literally) by Sir Cranmer Ballantine, who spied her stranded in a pouring rain, gave her a lift to Claridgeﾽs, and made her his mistress. Eventually, Kick became Cranmerﾽs secretary as well, a post she kept when his son Benjamin took over the business--to disastrous effect. So incompetent was Benjamin that, within a few years, Ballantine had been bought out by American millionaire Owen Brace (though Sir Cramner had set up a secret trust that still allowed Kick anonymously to control 15 percent of the business). Owen brought in a passel of Americans who knew even less about the auction trade than Benjamin did, but he was smart enough to keep Kick, who knew all the upper-echelon secrets of the London art market and was able, for a start, to convince Owen not to wear gold chains when making sales pitches to British lords. Soon Ballantineﾽs is getting high-profile commissions again and Kick has once more become the bossﾽs mistress. But she has a few secrets up her sleeve: in fact, she has a secret identity. Not only does she control part of Owenﾽs business behind his back, but sheﾽs a jewel thief who processes her loot through a complicated network of Lichtenstein banks. Her latest haul came from Lady Melody Carstairs, whose boudoir Kick burgled while Owen was downstairs negotiating an auction contract: a contract that Lady Melody signed seconds before falling dead. As Kick prepares the jewelsfor sale, she grows increasingly troubled. Theft is one thing--but murder? Despite much insider lore about jewelry and objets dﾽart, a suspenseful account, with humor and a real sense of style. Agent: Robert Gottlieb/Trident Media Group
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