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If Margaret thought her life stank like week-old gym socks, it gets worse in the first chapter. Daddy is getting married again to a beautiful starlet named Kiki. Kiki doesn't want to live in their old house with all the memories of Margaret's mother, so it's going to be sold. Worse, Kiki doesn't think she can be a mother to a 12 year-old, so Margaret is being sent to Houston to live with her mother's mother for the summer.
Margaret doesn't want to meet Kiki. She's so upset that she can't get away fast enough even if she hasn't seen her Grandma since she was too young to remember her.
Grandma is nice and younger looking than Margaret expected. Grandma is hoping they'll have a nice, quiet summer together, getting to know each other. It doesn't work out that way, of course.
The first night, a neighbor and her two little kids come over because a guy with a gun is at their house. They're staying with Grandma awhile. The guy with the gun makes the news. That brings Uncle Dennis with an enormous hairball on legs called Flowerpot [no joke] because he wants Grandma to be protected. The "guard" dog turns out to be good for big, slobbery licks and tearing around the house.
Aunt Janet is all upset because her husband is very busy being a doctor and can't read her mind, so she uses the news as an excuse to come over with a burglar alarm and her two kids. Now Margaret has to share her room with little cousin Debbie, who can hog a bed worse than a cat. Her brother, Jason, is no angel either.
Aunt Sharon isn't upset with her husband, but she's worried about Grandma, too, so *she* comes to add to noise and crowding.
The aunts and uncle want Grandma to sell her house and move into a secure apartment. Grandma doesn't want to. They won't listen.
Margaret isn't used to this. She's got to get away. One of the local radio stations is having a contest for a dream vacation at the beach. Margaret buys over 200 post cards and fills them out to enter that contest. Meanwhile, the jerk with gun is out on bail......
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I have successfully used this process three times. When faced with intractable positions of the regulatory agency and my staff, the unanimity process resulted in amzing concurrence on mission statements, goals and objectives. The frame work plan was very effectively implemented.
Any one faced with developing an IMPLEMENTABLE action plan (for improving education, economic development, water, waste water or solid waste management, telecommunications, siting facilities etc) should read this book if they want to avoid the usual and ever present pitfalls. It is also well written and easy to read.
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The plot is not that complicated: the orphaned Margarita arrives in England to live with her maternal grandfather. He dies suddenly, leaving the new heir (his nephew of the half blood) to deal with his complicated estate and his granddaughter. The old earl has beggared his lands to build up a magnificent art collection, in part to revenge himself against his heir (whose parents he disliked), and perhaps in part for other reasons. At his death, the new earl Nicholas discovers that to gain possession of the art collection (and thus to obtain money to restore the family lands to good health), he must marry the young granddaughter. Margarita is penniless and has no other relations. She has no choice in the matter, if she is not to fall completely on the new earl's mercy. The couple are married almost immediately.
Herein lies the problem. In the past two years, Margarita has witnessed the deaths of all those she held dear - from her English-born mother and one of her four brothers in an earthquake to her remaining three brothers and father during the unsuccessful revolt against the Spanish government. She has witnessed the horrors of war close at hand, been transported to a different country (where she feels cold all the time) and then had her only remaining close relative die in a carriage accident. Her feelings and emotions are frozen; she simply feels numb. Furthermore, she realizes that the new earl, now her husband, did not want to marry her and sees her as an intruder. But they have a normal (read, physical) relationship for all that.
Her inability to respond physically or emotionally to her husband frustrates him. He returns to his mistress - one in the country, another in town. [It is not often that authors portray adulterous husbands as heroes]. Nicholas's own emotional development has been warped by his difficult childhood, during which his mother ran away with another man. Since then, he has provided for his mother but has refused to meet her. He will not acknowledge that he needs love or that he can need or love a woman.
Margarita eventually learns to respond to him, but only after she has given birth to their son. She realizes that she loves Nicholas, but he rejects that love - and turns to other women. At some point, Margarita realizes that he has been unfaithful to her, not just during her pregnancy but after the birth of their son. She is unable to cope with this knowledge, and with the fact that Nicholas can make sexual demands upon her. She runs away - taking her baby son - and finds refuge with Nicholas's mother...
I liked this book principally for the portrayal of Margarita, a very young and very sheltered 17 year old, pitchforked into a marriage with a stranger at a very difficult time in her life. The portrayal of the early years of their marriage is beautifully done, as is Margarita's slowly growing confidence and self-assurance (only after she has become a mother). I could also sympathize with Nicholas, as the young boy who rejected all love after his mother left him, and who tried to prove his independence by flagrant affairs - even though he hurt his wife in the process. [By the way, the blurb on the back is wrong as usual - Margarita's anger with her husband is expressed privately, not publicly and openly].
Reading this book is a nice contrast to a far more independent and self-assured heroine Juana Smith in Heyer's THE SPANISH BRIDE. While I confess to liking Juana far better, I do understand Margarita's position.
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This book is well written, concise and up to date. It could only be better than it is, if it was written in a few years time (after all Melissa's only 24) and it detailed more about her flourishing acting career and her recent venture into producing and/or directing Sabrina the Teenage Witch and other projects.
Melissa's works alongside her Mother, Paula Hart, who produces many films eg. Sabrina the Teenage Witch (tv series and 1996 film), Sabrina Downunder, Sabrina Goes to Rome, Two Came Back and Silencing Mary and two new projects, The Batchelor and the Bobby-Soxer and Backflash Blues which are produced by their production company, Hartbreak Films.
It would be nice to read about Melissa in a follow up book by this author when Melissa's in her thirty's, or read an auto-biography written by Melissa herself. I'd also like to see more merchandise become available eg. posters, calendars, sabrina tv series videos and dolls as well as an official website where we can contact Melissa at Hartbreak Films.
Thumbs up for a great book with an interesting topic.
Claire Rosser, Editor KLIATT