Tuesday 13 February 2018

‘PRIVATE VIEWING’ BY DARCY LOCKHART




As I mentioned before, when it comes to Zebra books you really have to lower your expectation if you ever want to enjoy one of their publications. Like this 1989 Hollywood-type of a novel probably by a pseudonym. I came upon it by chance at a now-defunct used bookstore in Ottawa. It was one of the many trashy paperbacks I gathered up that faithful day, and PRIVATE VIEWING was the first that I found myself engaging in. It tells an effective tale of the shenanigans happening behind a hit TV series, and you all know how I feel about Tinseltown… If you don’t by now then you must be a newbie to this blog. Hope you stick around. 

Coming back to PRIVATE VIEWING, author Darcy Lockhart skillfully intertwines the lives of the rich and (no always) famous and ends up delivering an entertaining novel that is narratively fast moving and hard to put down. While her fixation on hot cars could have been omitted, the general feeling I got while reading this thing is that she clearly has fun baring the secret passions of her colorful cast of characters. Her writing is sharp, engaging and even emotional at times. She may not have reinvented the sub-genre but kudos to her for knowing how to create a fun and compelling read. 

As you can see, I was pleasantly surprised by the overall delivery. Like I said, it does follow the Jackie Collins School of Writing very effectively and turns out to be one of the good ones from the Zebra line. I would have loved to check out other books by this author but PRIVATE VIEWING seems to be the only one she has ever written under the Lockhart name. I’m still holding on to my beat-up copy in the hopes of returning to it one of these days. But with all those unread books gathering dust on my shelves right now I clearly doubt it. Hope you enjoy this one as I did if you ever grab yourself a copy.




Until next post—Martin

UPDATE: It appears that this title is the second book written by Lockhart. Her first is actually called BIGHORN (wink, wink) published in 1986 from Medallion Books and is all about ranching and sex. One word: yummy.











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