Items related to Pandora (Windsor Selection S.)
No picture ever came more beautiful than Raphael's Pandora. Discovered by a dashing young lieutenant, Raymond Kelvedon in a Normandy Chateau in 1944, she had cast her spell over his family - all artists and dealers - for fifty years. Hanging in a turret of their lovely Cotswold house, Pandora witnessed Raymond's tempestuous wife Galena both entertaining a string of lovers, and giving birth to her four children: Jupiter, Alizarin, Jonathan and superbrat Sienna. Then an exquisite stranger rolls up, claiming to be a long-lost daughter of the family, setting the three Belvedon brothers at each other's throats. Accompanying her is her fatally glamorous boyfriend, whose very different agenda includes an unhealthy interest in the Raphael.
During a fireworks party, the painting is stolen. The hunt to retrieve it takes the reader on a thrilling journey to Vienna, Geneva, Paris, New York and London. After a nail-biting court case and a record-smashing Old Masters sale at Sotheby's, passionate love triumphs and Pandora is restored to her rightful home.
During a fireworks party, the painting is stolen. The hunt to retrieve it takes the reader on a thrilling journey to Vienna, Geneva, Paris, New York and London. After a nail-biting court case and a record-smashing Old Masters sale at Sotheby's, passionate love triumphs and Pandora is restored to her rightful home.
"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.
Review:
Jilly Cooper readers can always count on her to deliver the goods in her larger-than-life novels: a host of colourfully drawn characters, outrageous situations (always kept just the right side of plausible), compulsive plotting and (of course) a healthy dose of unbuttoned eroticism. Pandora has all the Cooper fingerprints and is the kind of shameless wallow that the lively Ms Cooper always unfailingly provides.
Review:
Raymond Belvedon is a young subaltern in 1944, advancing with the troops across Normandy, when he encounters a burning château. Recently occupied by a Nazi commander, the château is now deserted, and on the wall Raymond sees a small painting of Pandora unleashing the seven deadly sins from her famous box. Thinking he's found a Raphael, Raymond takes it from the frame and escapes. Four decades pass and Raymond has now established himself as a top art dealer with his own prestigious gallery in Mayfair. The picture of Pandora is the pride of his impressive Cotswold home where his six children were born. But he has a surprise in store: another grown child makes an appearance with her seductive boyfriend, Zac. The latter has designs on Raymond's Raphael. Under cover of a firework party, the Raphael goes missing.
Cooper's breathless narrative whisks the reader from London to Vienna, Geneva, Paris and New York in the hunt for the missing painting, building towards a sharply handled court case and a tense sale at Sotheby's. Cooper's territory here is the international art world, which has all the pre-requisite angles for Cooper-style drama, with its duplicitous dealers, avaricious artists and casual morality. There are some strong new protagonists here, such as the selfish artist Sienna, and Cooper also includes some familiar characters (including her trademark beguiling animals). Raymond, too, is one of her most richly drawn creations. Cooper fans need not hesitate. --Barry Forshaw
"Open the covers of Jilly Cooper's latest novel and you lift the lid of a Pandora's box. From the pages flies a host of delicious and deadly vices... Cooper's sheer exuberance and energy are contagious... Cooper fans will be waiting eagerly for the next novel" (The Times)
"The whole thing is a riot - vastly superior to anything else in a glossy cover" (Daily Telegraph)
"This is Jilly in top form with her most sparkling novel to date" (Evening Standard)
"One reads her for her joie de vivre, her maudlin romanticism, her love of arty references and her razor sharp sense of humour. Oh, and the sex" (New Statesman)
"Cooper is astute when describing the complex relationships between men and women. She's also on the nail when it comes to teenage-speak and can bring the English countryside alive more deftly than many literary stars... She's irresistible... Like Harvey Nicks and the promise of romantic dalliance, she frees you from the daily drudge and deposits you in an alternative universe where love, sex and laughter rule" (Independent on Sunday)
"The whole thing is a riot - vastly superior to anything else in a glossy cover" (Daily Telegraph)
"This is Jilly in top form with her most sparkling novel to date" (Evening Standard)
"One reads her for her joie de vivre, her maudlin romanticism, her love of arty references and her razor sharp sense of humour. Oh, and the sex" (New Statesman)
"Cooper is astute when describing the complex relationships between men and women. She's also on the nail when it comes to teenage-speak and can bring the English countryside alive more deftly than many literary stars... She's irresistible... Like Harvey Nicks and the promise of romantic dalliance, she frees you from the daily drudge and deposits you in an alternative universe where love, sex and laughter rule" (Independent on Sunday)
"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.
- PublisherChivers Large print (Chivers, Windsor, Paragon & C
- Publication date2002
- ISBN 10 0754017680
- ISBN 13 9780754017684
- BindingHardcover
- Number of pages824
- Rating
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