Lady Luck's Map of Vegas by Barbara SamuelWhat I liked: Another book that shifts between characters, time and place with an interwoven plot. There was a subtle humor, an irony, that ran through this book. The scenery was painted with broad and vivid strokes that have stirred a desire to see these things.
What I didn't like: If I wasn't paying attention to chapter titles, there wasn't a clear way to tell which character was telling the story or what the time frame was. The book bounced across 40 years in zigzag pattern. The characters were well-formed in appearance, but lacked an individual voice. The plot seemed hazy with no firm resolution.
Final Thoughts: An easy read with many historical facts and details about Route 66 without making it boring. Enjoyable even if not overly memorable.
Pub. Date: January 2005
Synopsis: A successful Web designer, forty-year-old India has a fabulously hip life in Denver and a sexy Irish lover in New York who jets out to see her on bi-weekly visits. The long-distance romance suits India just fine: Though Jack is the only man who has ever made India feel truly alive, she doesn’t want things to get too serious. But then her father passes away, and India must honor the promise she made to him: to look after her mother when he’s gone.
Suddenly India finds herself back in Colorado Springs with the woman who both intrigues and infuriates her. Eldora is sixty something and exquisitely gorgeous, but her larger-than-life personality can suck the air out of a room. True to form, Eldora throws India a curveball, insisting that they hit the road to look for India’s twin, Gypsy, a brilliant artist who lives a vagabond’s existence in the remote mountain towns of New Mexico. It looks like India can’t avoid her mother’s intensity any longer, especially after she discovers stunning secrets from Eldora’s past.
Thirty years ago, Eldora regaled her twin girls with glamorous stories about her days as a Las Vegas showgirl– stories of martinis and music at the Sahara, back when Frank and Sammy ruled the town. But the story of how she really ended up in Sin City, and the unsavory life she’d run from with her daughters in tow, is full of details she’s never seen fit to share – until now.
As mother and daughter sail down Route 66, the very road Eldora drove those many years ago, looking for Gypsy, while passing motels, diners, and souvenir shops, Eldora must relive a lifetime of memories that have tormented her before she can put them to rest once and for all.
Recommended Reading:
A Piece of Heaven by Barbara Samuel
The House at Riverton by Kate Morton
Hedge Fund Wives by Tatiana Boncompagni
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