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Book Review of Fashionably Late

Fashionably Late
Fashionably Late
Author: Olivia Goldsmith
Genre: Literature & Fiction
Book Type: Mass Market Paperback
reviewed on


Prominent designer Karen Kahn has just won the fashion industry's top achievement award. As this witty, energetic and sometimes caustic novel quickly shows, however, it's all downhill from there. Karen's company, KK Inc., needs a huge infusion of cash to expand, and her handsome but evasive husband, Jeffrey, who handles the finances, pushes for a $50 million buyout by the megacorporation NormCo. But will Karen lose control of her designs? And how ethically does NormCo run its business?
This novel by the author of The First Wives Club works at every level. An engaging, behind-the-scenes look at the fashion industry, it lays bare the frenetic pace, cutthroat competition and chronic backbiting of the world of couture.
An engrossing family saga, it shows 40-year-old Karen, who is infertile, desperately trying to adopt a baby and, as an adopted child herself, searching for her birth mother.
The narrative offers a hilariously dark portrait of Karen's immediate--and totally dysfunctional--family. A glittering New York social backdrop, plenty of namedropping, romance, some outstandingly creative characters and a mystic who applies a unique hex add up to a book that fairly hums with excitement.