Lily White

Rating:
Summary: Not as good as Almost Paradise
Review: After reading Almost Paradise, I wanted to read more of Susan Isaacs right away. Lily White was the first book I chose. It really was hard for me to get through this one. It dealt with way too much specifics on the law and such and not enough on developing the charachters like she did in Almost Paradise.

I made myself finish it, but was disappointed. It just didn't do that much for me.

Rating:
Summary: Not as good as Almost Paradise
Review: After reading Almost Paradise, I wanted to read more of Susan Isaacs right away. Lily White was the first book I chose. It really was hard for me to get through this one. It dealt with way too much specifics on the law and such and not enough on developing the charachters like she did in Almost Paradise.

I made myself finish it, but was disappointed. It just didn't do that much for me.

Rating:
Summary: Great read!
Review: Although the first chapters are a little slow in developing the character, the author eventually succeeds at riveting the reader to Lee's plight. My favorite elements of this book are the way Ms. Isaacs incorporates the present(Norman Torkelson)with Lee's past (family history and relationships.) . I enjoyed this book immensely.

Rating:
Summary: Very entertaining.
Review: I didn't think the author was trying to emasculate anyone; I think she was trying to throw the reader a major curve. There were some nice, unpredictable twists towards the end.

Rating:
Summary: The Con Artists and Lee White
Review: I picked this book because I thought it sounded like a murder mystery -- a female defense attorney trying to prove her client -- who is probably guilty -- innocent. I thought this book might be comparable to Ed McBain.

This book, however, was more character study than murder mystery, in my opinion. The mystery was still there -- with lots of great twists and turns -- some guessable and some not.

But the thing about Lily White, the book and the person, that made me give the novel 4 stars is that I identified with Lee (AKA Lily White). Sure, Lee is an ambitious attorney. Her family (at first I felt I knew too much about them, but this only made the end that much more heartfelt) is nothing like my own (thankfully loving family). The differences are night and day. And yet, there is something there, some part of Lee, that I would bet is in all of us. By the end of the book, I was cursing those who had wronged and conned Lee White, cheering her new beginning at the end and every struggle she had won.

As this book drew toward the end, I could not put it down! And then, when it ended, I wanted to know what was next for Lee White. I could have read another 500 pages. She had become a real person to me, someone I thought of as a friend.

And that, to me, is the mark of a good book.

Rating:
Summary: 2 interesting, 2 heartbreaking, 2 books in 1
Review: I read Isaacs' Compromising Positions a fews years back and stumbled across Lily White in the library. (incidentally, i found Compromising to be excellent.) Lily has it all. Suspense, intrique, emotion, laughs. The first time I read this book, I read it like it's written, starting with Lee White as a lawyer who is handling an interesting case while ex-DA office coworkers give her dirty looks for going to "bat for the bad guys". All the goings on of looking into the lives of some very strange people who will con their way out of a paper bag. This storyline gets swapped back and forth every chapter with Lee's parent's marriage, her childhood, her marriage (and ultimately it's demise), leading up to the moment she finds herself secure enough to live a happy-ending life. The style of this book was different and Isaacs takes care to not make it confusing to the reader. Her words are intelligent and the story kept me going til I put it down. A while after I read it through the first time, I picked it up and read every other chapter to follow that story, then went back and read all the opposite chapters. Different tone, but just as delicious. You get more for your money with Lily White.

Rating:
Summary: Is the con man's defense attorney being conned herself?
Review: That's the question criminal lawyer and JAP, Lee White(nee Lily White, with all the expected commentary), keepsasking herself as she prepares a defense for Normal Torkelson, a con man accused of murdering his most recent mark. At the same time that Lee is narrating this story, a 3rd person POV narrator is telling us Lee's history from birth through the present.
How do we know this? Because the Torkelson narrative is in Times Roman and Lee's, in Helvetica.
Using typography to differentiate, where the written word should suffice, is indicative of the problem with this novel: it is one big (459 pp.) snore. Isaacs never has decided what genre she writes in: does she write romances with a soupcon of mystery, or mysteries with a hint of romance?
I admit to bias here; I do not enjoy reading romance novels. So I think Isaacs is at her best when she is concentrating her efforts toward the elements of mystery and suspense. Had she done so with _Lily_White_, the book would have been half as long and four times a better read.

Rating:
Summary: Fabulous
Review: This was my second Isaacs book. This and "After All These Years" are the best as far as I am concerned.

Rating:
Summary: A Great Book
Review: What a fun book! The New York Times isn't lying when it calls this book "a big, fat happy feast of a book..." It makes the perfect beach, vacation, airplane book (especially those coast-to-coast flights).

The author's slightly sardonic tone works well here and drew me in from the first sentence. How refreshing to identify with a novel's character because she is FALLIBLE in many all-too human ways. The author also deftly meshes the current story with an engrossing and wonderfully written backstory then brings them together wonderfully at the end.

While the heroine is in truth one of those Danielle Steele characters of beauty, brains, and wealth, it takes you a while to figure that out. Her flaws and dysfunctional history make her believable and enjoyable. I never once wanted to BE the heroine, but I sure enjoyed reading about her. Along the way, Isaacs makes some rather interesting observations of what makes a family and what "family" really means, especially in today's society. What an unusual thing to find in a "mass market paperback."