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.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #74381 in Books
• Published on: 2008-04-08
• Released on: 2008-04-08
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 656 pages

From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. British bestseller Vincenzi (No Angel) pulls out all the stops in this orchestral saga. In 1985, three young British women meet in a Heathrow departure lounge en route to precollege sojourns. One of them, upon her return to England, secretly gives birth and abandons the baby in a cleaning supplies closet at the airport; "Baby Bianca" captivates the public's sympathies until she is adopted. The mystery of who her mother is serves as the spine of this fat, satisfying novel, and Vincenzi creates multiple intrigues around the three women: Jocasta, a rising tabloid journalist (Vincenzi wrote for Vogue and Cosmopolitan); Clio, a physician specializing in geriatrics; and Martha, a corporate lawyer running for Parliament. It's 16 years before they all meet again, and Baby Bianca has matured into a stunning blonde teen, Kate, who is summarily exploited by a ruthless fashion editor as she searches for her mother. The various narrative themes crescendo through several all-hands-on-deck scenes, including a swank party where daughter almost meets mother, and a packed funeral where someone figures out who the father is. Although some of the male characters are too overbearing to be believed (especially Clio's sneering surgeon husband), the women are, without exception, multifaceted, smart and brave, and their happiness is hard won. A U.K. bestseller, the book offers major escape and abandon for summer. (May)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist
Clio, Jocasta, and Martha, three college students on a backpacking holiday to Thailand, bond as only young women in an unfamiliar environment can: immediately, passionately, and with earnest intentions of adhering to their starry-eyed pledge of eternal friendship. Life, however, gets in the way. Some 15 years go by before the threesome--now a respected physician, tabloid journalist, and powerful attorney--are reunited. The catalyst is Kate, the adopted daughter of a staid, middle-class family who is determined to locate the woman who abandoned her after giving birth in a deserted corner of Heathrow Airport the same month Clio, Jocasta, and Martha returned from their Asian escapade. Vincenzi leaves no doubt that one of the three is Kate's mother, but cunningly leads both the reader and Kate on a merry chase as she weaves the trio's tumultuous lives into a captivating tapestry of failed marriages, unrequited love affairs, and political and professional subterfuge. The result is an absorbing tale rich in seductive intrigue and emotional impact. In spite of creating not quite fully dimensional characters, Vincenzi, wildly popular in Britain, will please her growing American audience, especially fans of Barbara Taylor Bradford, with this compelling tale of loves lost and found. Carol Haggas
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Review

“It’s time Americans caught Vincenzi fever, because it’s almost a crime she’s not better known here. Everything is outsized in Vincenzi’s fiction: sex, money, personality, emotions, plot. And yet she gets all the details about human behavior and women’s conflicted lives just right. It’s perfect escapism.” —USA Today

 “A juicy page-turner.” —Cosmopolitan

“Transcends the testosterone-drenched nature of a typical thriller, delivering vivid female characters through crisp, clean prose and in-depth coverage of their relationships, families, and personal anxieties . . . fascinating.” —More

Customer Reviews

Entertaining, fast-reading chick lit
I purchased this book while at the beach. While it seemed much too thick to be considered beach reading, the write-up on the back of the book enticed me. I compare this book to a soap opera, albeit a good one. I do not mean this as a negetive...quite the opposite. Just to let you know what to expect: well written chick lit. You can sit and read 5 pages or 30 pages and feel like you've taken something away. However, once you're done with the book, I'd be surprised if any deep thoughts lingered. Not sure if I'd pick up another Vicenzi novel, but would rec this one. And in fact have already passed it on to a friend headed to the beach!

Long and Dull
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
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.