The Stars Shine Down

by Sidney Sheldon

Overview

Lara Cameron, an insecure, ruthless, and beautiful self-made billionaire finds that everything she has ever desired and won has become swiftly imperiled.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780062007865
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	06/22/2010
Sold by:	HARPERCOLLINS
Format:	eBook
Pages:	320
Sales rank:	104,251
File size:	1 MB

About the Author

The late novelist and screenwriter Sidney Sheldon remains one of the world's top bestselling authors, having sold more than 300 million copies of his books. Are You Afraid of the Dark? is his most recent in a long line of huge bestsellers. He is also the only writer to have won an Oscar, a Tony, and an Edgar. The Guinness Book of World Records heralds him as the most translated author in the world.

Hometown:

Los Angeles, California

Date of Birth:

February 11, 1917

Date of Death:

January 30, 2007

Place of Birth:

Chicago, Illinois

Education:

Northwestern University, 1935-36

Website:

http://www.twbookmark.com/features/sidneysheldon/index.html

Editorial Reviews

Imagine Donald Trump as a drop-dead gorgeous woman and you'll have an approximate image of Lara Cameron, the heroine of Sheldon's latest--barely tepid--potboiler. A super-successful real estate developer, Lara has made millions of dollars--and a few enemies--in her ascent from a childhood of deprivation to the upper echelons of the business world. When she falls in love with a renowned concert pianist, she sets about ``winning'' him as she would a prime piece of waterfront property. But her ties to a lawyer with Mafia connections and her shady way of doing business threaten her happiness and eventually her income and reputation. In settings that vary from Canada to Chicago and New York, bestselling novelist Sheldon ( The Other Side of Midnight, Rage of Angels ) brings real zest to the high-stakes poker game that provides the novel's backdrop. But his pancake-flat characters are as insubstantial as the paper fortunes that drive the real estate business. Moreover, the characters have an annoying tendency to speak in overwrought cliches; sounding for all the world like Scarlett O'Hara, young Lara laments, ``Someday . . . I will have my own land, and no one--no one--will ever take it away from me.'' Frankly, by the final chapter, readers won't give a damn. First serial to Cosmopolitan; Literary Guild main selection. (Oct.)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

With his usual lightning pacing, Sheldon whisks readers through the story of real-estate tycoon Lara Cameron as she claws her way to the top. Fleeing Nova Scotia and the memories of her lowly roots and drunken father, Lara builds an empire in Chicago and New York that is based on snap decisions and gutsy gambles. But with only the platonic friendship of her financial adviser and a passionate but shallow liaison with a married Mafia boss, it's lonely in the penthouse until Lara meets concert pianist Philip Adler. As Lara's love life takes off, however, her career starts being sabotaged. Setting them in just enough romantic locales, Sheldon weaves just enough of the details of power-brokering and the lives of the rich and famous into the tight plot to ground but not slow the action. His latest racy read will be a Literary Guild Main Selection and a serial in "Cosmopolitan", so expect the usual clamor for it.

Candace Smith

It may conclude in 1992, but Sheldon's latest is sheer 80's excess—the compulsively readable, sin-laden saga of a tycooness who's part Donald Trump, part Leona Helmsley. Though Sheldon's recent heroines (Memories of Midnight, etc.) have been sexy saints, his earlier leading ladies had a crueler edge—just like young Canadian Lara Cameron here, who in a series of canny real-estate deals uses her body as well as her wits to climb out of backwater poverty. With $3 million in her pocket, Lara moves to Chicago, multiplies her fortune, and, in 1984, takes on N.Y.C. There, even as she puts up a Monopoly board's worth of hotels and office buildings, including the world's tallest; battles sexism in the industry; and proves wildly generous to her employees, Lara reveals a darker side—slapping one worker; drugging prospective investors with Valium; harassing tenants by turning their building into a de facto homeless shelter; bedding mob lawyer Paul Martin. Is Sheldon depicting the evolution of a monster? Not at all—for outweighing these flaws, he hammers home, are Lara's "independence and courage, her talent and vision and generosity." And her loneliness, dispelled by marriage to star pianist Philip Adler, the perfect icing on Lara's cake. So where's the drama? It comes in spades in the late 80's, as the market crashes: Lara's fortune dwindles; her ex-secretary writes a tell- all book; and the law starts poking into the casino that Lara set up with Paul Martin's crooked help, and into the attack by a thug—hired by a jealous Lara?—who cut Philip's wrist and career. Can it be that, like another hotel queen, Lara will end up wearing stripes? Don't bet on it. SavvySheldon knows that nothing becomes the rich and famous like a little scandal, and that a faux-morality tale like Lara's needs an upbeat ending to play big—as this one will, right to the top. (Literary Guild Dual Selection for November)

Kirkus Reviews