Free to Love - Softcover

Plucky Czech socialite Katrinka Graham returns (For Love Alone--not reviewed)--this time juggling a fleet of hotels, a new marriage, a late pregnancy, a social life in St. Moritz, Palm Beach, New York, and London, a surly son, and a lethal ex-husband- -all of which give her only an occasional moment to mutter philosophically, ``Ay yi yi yi, what a world.'' Having finally rid herself of hateful Wasp spouse Adam Graham, lovely 43-year-old former model Katrinka settles down with her handsome, rich new husband--self-made newspaper magnate Mark van Hollen--in a freshly redecorated Manhattan townhouse complete with a nursery suite for their soon-to-arrive baby girl. Pregnant, in love, owner of a successful luxury hotel business and surrounded by affectionate high-society friends, Katrinka wishes only to share her happiness with the rest of the world, but, sadly, the rest of the world has other ideas. Ex-husband Adam, furious that Katrinka, who failed to bear him an heir, has so easily become pregnant with Mark, plots to destroy both her marriage and her husband's publishing empire. Katrinka, who has just located Christian Heller, the 23-year-old son she gave up for adoption when young and single in Czechoslovakia, is too busy showering Christian with a Mercedes, a Central Park West apartment, a job in Mark's company, and introductions to friends' children to note the warning signs in Adam's behavior--or, for that matter, in Christian's, as the brilliant but unsavory young man responds to her overtures with insults and betrayals. The world is filled with jackals, in short, and Katrinka and Mark must watch their step, steadfastly sticking by each other in the face of the boldfaced lies, media harassment, marital separations, SEC investigations, kidnapping, rape, blackmail, spontaneous cosmetic restructuring, and worse that come their way. Ay yi yi yi, what a world. Yet Trump's practical, optimistic heroine beguiles the reader even as her glitzy, international milieu dazzles and entertains. -- Copyright ©1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

The ennui of the rich and recherche proves contagious as Trump ( For Love Alone ) unpacks a steamer trunk of scandals already over-familiar to gossip-column readers. Katrinka van Hollen, beauteous Czech Olympic skier and ex-wife of cutthroat billionaire Adam Graham, keeps busy expanding her hotel empire and revelling in her second marriage to media honcho Mark van Hollen. Her happiness galls the dastardly Adam, who plots to bring her crashing to earth. Meanwhile, she jets to social hot-spots, bounds through countless parties with friends whose cash can't buy them decent relationships, defends her sulky, long-lost son Christian (a Eurotrash poster boy) against date-rape allegations, fends off Adam's legal broadsides and commiserates with Mark, whose company is threatened by a takeover attempt only a few weeks after he's targeted by a femme fatale employed by a Mayflower madam to wreck their marriage--and that's just the short list. Trump writes smooth prose and whips up a plot with more kinks than the Kama Sutra, but she substitutes brand names for evocative descriptions, so her glitz never really glitters. Clumsy machinations and a bevy of one-note characters further mar the novel, which will probably reach bestseller lists nonetheless.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.