Lace

Lace #1

by Shirley Conran

Four women, Judy, Kate, Pagan and Maxine, are summoned to a New York apartment where they are asked which one of them is the mother of the host. As they unlock the past, the women remember the things that tie them together.

Genres: Fiction, Romance, Chick Lit, Drama, Contemporary, New York, Adult Fiction

751 pages, Mass Market Paperback

Published November 7, 1992

About the author

Shirley Conran is the ex-wife of British designer, restaurateur, retailer and writer Sir Terence Conran. She is the mother of designers Sebastian Conran and Jasper Conran. A bestselling author in her own right whose most memorable books include Lace and Superwoman.

She was educated at the University of Portsmouth. In addition to novel writing, she wrote regularly for The Observer newspaper's women's page and was the first women's editor of The Observer Colour Magazine and women's editor of The Daily Mail newspaper where she launched the weekly women's magazine 'Femail'. She also has great experience as a designer in textiles and as a colour consultant - she had her own paint range. She handled the publicity for the Women in Media Campaign devoted to sex discrimination legislation. She was on the selection committee of the Council of Industrial Design for eight years. She also has been a columnist for Vanity Fair (magazine).

Shirley Conran is well known for having said: "First things first, second things never".

She was successfully treated for skin cancer several years ago.

She has homes in France and London.

Reviews

[Zinnat · Rating 3 out of 5]

The first time I read this I was 11 years old (yes, really) because I had finished reading the stack of books I'd taken out of the library and, as I often did when I sped through my tower of borrowed books, I stole a book off of my parents' shelves.

This was hardly shocking to me at 11, until I got the chapter where the Arab prince is pleasuring his concubine, and that image has since stayed with me in a weird way. I learned about things reading books that were not meant for me long before I should've known any of these things. Even now I'm not sure I ever needed half of that information.

That being said, the book is entertaining. It's got that overly dramatic, shoulder-padded glamour that embodied the 80's and it's fun to delve into the scandalous lives of these women and their adventures through life.

Though it's been a while since the last time I've read this, I remember it being a fun and campy ride and is a great companion to your fancy umbrella drink as you lounge poolside.

[Tea Jovanović · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sjajna visokokvalitetna komercijalna ženska knjiga... aktuelna i zanimljiva i 30 godina posle originalnog objavljivanja... I sjajna ekranizacija... Čipke... :)

[Min Kimber · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Which one of you bitches is my mother?"
Simple literary genius! We've all heard lines in movies that have stuck with us forever, but this was the first time I'd read a book and had that happen to me!
My love of literature began early in my life, but Shirley Conrans' Lace was one of the first novels that got me excited and hence I remember it vividly (although I re-read it recently, just to be sure you see).
But as an enthusiastic teen I read the book and then I awaited the mini-series of the same name with baited breath. Because if they didn't use that line... well they just HAD to! I was not disappointed. (I maintain firmly that one should always read the book BEFORE one watches any re-enactment of it! NO EXCEPTIONS! And this is not the last time you will hear me say this!)
But back to Lace...
As a teenager I loved Lily! I wanted to BE Lily! She had been hard done by, she had a terrible upbringing, but she was not going to let that stop her being who she wanted to be and by God, she would make those accountable for her misfortunes pay!
And she always got what she wanted.
Lace is a great story, about women, our fierce love and protective instincts for our children, our lovers, and our girlfriends as well as our abilities, our talents and our passions.
Of the four possible mothers of Lily my bet was with Pagan. I identified with Pagan, like me, she was rebellious, questioning of the rules (just because it's always been that way, doesn't mean it always should be) and sometimes she got things terribly wrong.
The characters in Lace are all like this, they have very realistic and human qualities, imperfections that endear them to us as we can see ourselves in there somewhere.
But there was just a 25% chance of my being right about Pagan, after all there was Judy, the poor American girl, Maxine, the wealthy French girl and Kate, the English girl (like Pagan) to consider. The four friends had made a pact many years ago to never reveal which one of them was actually pregnant.
But Lily wanted to know, and she would stop at nothing to find out.
So, was I right about Pagan? And did Lily find out who her mother was?
Well, that would be telling.
You'll have to read it to find out. And when you do... OMG... look out for the bit with the goldfish!

[Hannah Greendale (Hello, Bookworm)]

Sometimes you just need a trashy, controversial read. 🤷‍♀️

I heard about this book in Blurb Your Enthusiasm, where author Louise Willder describes Lace as having one of the greatest lines in the history of the written word: Which one of you bitches is my mother?

Willder also says it represents the zenith of the "bonkbuster" genre (which I've never heard of).

bonkbuster: A term coined in the 1980s to describe a novel with explicit content, turbulent drama, and high-stakes content. The word blends "blockbuster" and "bonk" (slang for having sex). FUN!

Curiosity got the better of me, so I'm giving this one a read. It's a whopping 742 pages, so I'm counting it toward PROJECT TOME (in which I strive to read the behemoths in my collection).

PROLOGUE
Nothing says controversial like kicking things off with a 13-year-old girl getting an illegal abortion. 🫣

CHP 01
Maxine (age 47) travels with douches and suppositories. Clearly she likes order more than comfort. 😅

Judy (age 45) succeeded in life quickly against the odds. She leads a glamorous life yet likes to be thought of as warm-hearted and hard working. 💼

Pampered Pagan (age 46) never so much as takes sleeping pills or other medicine, not even aspirin. She's terrified of getting hooked again. 💊

Kate (age 46) is a successful magazine editor and but still must live up to her father's expectation that she be on at the top of the pile. 📖

All four women have been invited by superstar Lili to a secret meeting, for what reason, they have no idea.

💥AND THERE'S THE ICONIC LINE: "Which one of you bitches is my mother?" 💥

Something tells me, this is gonna be good. 🍿

CHP 02
Wait, WHAT?! ⁉️ Is this seriously happening? 🫣 Did Pagan's mom just... ? To KATE? 🫢 OMG.

CHP 04
Why does everything bad happen to Kate? 😭

He didn't seem to realize his thing was showing. The lavender-pink penis reared up from its nest of black hair, balls wobbling beneath it.
How ugly it was, Kate thought.

Maxine is getting some action, but WHAT DO YOU MEAN SHE COULD "SMELL HIS DESIRE"? 👃

Now she could feel his muscular nakedness and smell his desire.

OMG... 🫢 What happens to Pagan is horrific.

👉 Let's do a 100 page check-in: I feel like I'm reading a Danielle Steele novel written for a YA audience (in a good way).

CHP 05
Kind of loving how (French) Maxine's cursing is written:

"Ow, merde, sheet, ferk, dammit, bloody beech."

👉 Let's do a 200 page check-in: Admittedly, the last few chapters centered on Judy's burgeoning career in fashion were a little slow. I'd like less clothes and more scandal, please and thank you.

CHP 15
So there I was, thinking I was reading a lovely story of young Lili growing up in the Hungarian countryside, but NO. Suddenly it's all Russian invasion and running for their lives and the most horrific conclusion to the chapter, which sees.... Lili's wonderful stepfather saving her life then having his throat torn out by dogs. 🫢😭

CHP 17
Maxine getting kinky, IN PUBLIC! Reaching an explosive climax like "a cork bursting from a bottle of champagne." Go, girl! 🍾💥

CHP 19
Maxine's living the good life remodeling a French château to transform it into a lucrative hotel, but her husband is kind of a freak? He demands that she not wear underwear so he can get at her goods whenever he wants (hence, she's always doing it in public).

🌶️ HOT OR NOT? 🚫 - Maxine defies her husband's demand that she not wear underwear, and when he finds out, this happens:

...he had stopped the car and roughly told Maxine to get out. There on the grass verge of the country road he made her wriggle out of her panties, then he threw the flimsy scrap of peach chiffon over the hedge, pulled Maxine into the backseat, put her over his knee and spanked her.

Apparently Maxine likes it, so... 🤷‍♀️

CHP 23
HOLY SMOKES! Some serious drama playing out between Kate, her fiancé Robert, and Pagan... Kate is engaged to Robert, but Robert's dad says Pagan would make a better wife, so Robert is gearing up to dump Kate and marry Pagan instead!‼️

CHP 25
Oh... OH MY GOSH. I have arrived at the infamous goldfish scene. 😵‍💫 I can't even with this...

With silken cords he would bind the wrists of the more adventurous ones to the bedhead and then he would dip one golden hand—his skin wasn't very dark, just a permanent sun-bronzed tone—into the bowl of golden fish that always seemed to be at his bedside. Abdullah would quickly scoop out one little fish and swiftly push the wriggling creature into the girl. At this point, she generally stiffened and shrieked with surprise, but Abdullah threw his body on top of hers and held her hard against the mattress until she relaxed and was able to enjoy the strange erotic sensations as she felt the little fish move inside her warm body. As soon as the girl started to groan with pleasure, Abdullah would slide down her body and—with great dexterity—he would languorously suck out the goldfish.

Like, WHAT?⁉️


I'M TRAUMATIZED 😭😭😭

CHP 26
Poor Pagan. 🍇😢

CHP 28
Happy to report that Pagan & Kate... are friends again. Huzzah! This is after Kate's fiancé Robert dumped her for Pagan. He sent Kate away and lied to Pagan, saying Kate broke up with him. Then he intercepted letters between Kate and Pagan, so they didn't learn the truth about what happened for YEARS. Meanwhile, Robert was a lousy lover, lasting on 2.5 minutes in bed and assaulting Pagan in a rage. OOF.

I've just realized that I probably should have been trying to figure out which woman is Lili's biological mother. 😶 I'm ruling out Pagan because her husband accused her of being unable to have children, and I think a post-pregnancy belly would have given away that she'd had a child before. 🤔

CHP 29
OMG, Pagan's new guy is MAKING LOVE TO HER ARMPIT?!?! ⁉️ Making love, as in, paying arduous attention to it with his tongue, but still... 👅🤢

His thrusts were slow and insistent until the moment when she gave the wild shriek of a gull as it soars to heaven...

LIKE A SEAGULL. 🤣

CHP 30
Oh man... Pagan's guy had a massive heart attack, and now he can't have sex anymore. EVER. Pretty sure that's not a thing. 🤔 Maybe he's just tired of licking her armpit? 🤷‍♀️

Let's do a 400 page check-in: SO MUCH DRAMA! LOVING IT! 🙌

[Fiona · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well, colour me surprised, but I loved this.

I was told it was trash. I went into it expecting to be mildly entertained. True, there is a very definite target audience and as a general rule it has a vagina, but I had so much fun with this book.

Which one of you bitches is my mother?

Thus does Lili, famous gorgeous actress, attempt to find out from four women which of them is her birth mother. The women, Maxine, Judy, Kate and Pagan, went to finishing school in Switzerland in the late 40s. One of them got pregnant and had a baby, which got put up for fostering. Lace follows the four potential mothers, and the daughter, as they grow up. They all do exciting things, and difficult things, and spend a lot of time hopping to and fro across the Atlantic, and all but one of them gets married at least once. There are a miscellany of men, who are pretty much all secondary characters, and some of them are awful and some of them are lovely. By the time it got to the end, I had narrowed down the potential mother to one of two, and of those two it was not the one I had expected.

I don't really read books for sex (I swear! shut up), so I was far more interested in the gooey relationship and Career!Woman stuff than anything else. I have three observations to make on that front: 1) there wasn't as much sex as I had been led to believe, 2) apparently it is quite easy to overuse the word 'erotic' as a descriptor, and 3) the goldfish scene is indelibly burnt into my memory and that is NOT HOT, GUYS. NOT HOT AT ALL. YKINMK, apparently, but I stand by the fact that GOLDFISH ARE NOT MY IDEA OF A GOOD TIME. Good grief.

That aside, Lace is very much a product of its time, in terms of content as much as in terms of style. There's a very good article in the Guardian about how it's actually quite feminist, which basically sums up a lot of the reasons I enjoyed it. I really recommend the article, if you have ten minutes.

I think I also enjoyed this book because I came to it at the right moment - right now, I've just finished my degree(s), and I'm trying to work out what to do with my life. I identify a lot with some aspects of all the characters, in terms of how they react to where they are in life, and what they want to do with it. I'm glad I read this now, because it was remarkably reassuring. I wonder, if I come back to it in a decade's time, whether I will think the same thing. (It is, after all, quite a sheltered novel about very sheltered and privileged people - on which more in a second.) I also wonder how much more it will have dated in another decade, because it really has dated in the last 30 years. That didn't at all detract from how much I loved it, though - in fact, I think that escapism of being set in a different world to the world of 2012 made the bits I did identify with resonate more.

Let's talk briefly about how sheltered and privileged the characters in this book - and the book itself - are. And that is, very. They do well, when they want for money it is not on a desperate level, and they make up for it with luck, and influence. I don't even care how privileged it is, it's escapism. The world that Conran writes is clearly one she has grown up in. She's been to a Swiss finishing school. She can spot vulgarity at sixty paces. She describes the outfits of every character with a relish unparalleled in the sex scenes, and it's marvellous. Surprisingly, that doesn't grate with me at all - there's some quality to the book that just feels really observed. I am a bit of a snob about my describers of old money - it's very difficult to pretend, and Conran's rich set sounds right, in some indefinable way. I liked it.

When I picked up Lace, I expected it to be the sort of thing I'd file under 'guilty pleasure,' or 'books I like but would never be seen reading.' I know a lot of people, after all, who would roll their eyes at how much I enjoyed it. But I did enjoy it, very much indeed, and I can think of several friends to whom I will almost certainly be recommending it. Interestingly, at least two of those are people I met as a teenager at school. Four stars.

[Barry Pierce · Rating 4 out of 5]

Before you read my review, siddle up to your mother and ask her about the goldfish scene in Lace (1982). Watch her blush. I doubt there is a woman alive who lived through the 1980s without reading or watching Lace. The novel opens with one of its most famous scenes, the young actress, Lili, has gathered four women to a hotel room in New York. The four women were childhood friends and have all made waves in their respective careers. Lili stands above them and delivers her killer line, ‘Which one of you bitches is my mother!?’. A classic is born.

I went into Lace well-aware of its infamy. The numerous sex scenes present in this novel gave way to a new genre, the bonkbuster. However, Lace is far more than just 750-pages of erotica. I would genuinely call it a feminist classic. After the Lili’s confrontation in the first chapter the novel jumps back to our four ‘mothers’, Maxine, Kate, Judy, and Pagan, in their teens in a boarding school in Switzerland. We then follow their lives as they all become highly successful and influential women. This is where the underlying feminism becomes present. This is a novel about women owning their own lives. There is literally one prominent male character and he is an actual barbarian. Lace is The Women’s Room meets Deep Throat.

I think it is obvious that I adored this novel. It has sold three million copies for a reason. However it is quite of its time. I doubt we’ll never have another Lace. New editions of Shirley Conran’s bibliography were re-published after the phenomenon of 50 Shades in order to show the world exactly how erotic bestsellers are done. Conran was ordained ‘queen of the bonkbuster‘ a few years back and I can definitely vouch for that title.

[Elaine and Tess the Springer. I won’t be on GR for a bit. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Delightful.

A book I have had for five years, and I wish I had read it then because it was more to my taste than it is now. It is an excellent read and although it is 734 pages it wasn't padded at all. It's a story of four sex-crazed girls at finishing school in Switzerland and their lives afterwards. It's an amusing and very enjoyable story.

[Oliver Clarke · Rating 4 out of 5]

It really does all revolve around that classic line: “Which one of you bitches is my mother?” but Shirley Conran nevertheless manages to spin it out over 750 very readable pages.
It’s full of sex (at times weird/horrible sex) and glamour and sisterhood and it’s compulsively enjoyable stuff. Not hard to see why it’s still in print after 40 years.

[Tony · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'd never read this or seen the mini-series when it first came out (sorry, but I have to admit to being old enough for that); then everyone started doing Grey comparisons and I saw, somewhere, that this was the "Original BONKBUSTER", so I had to read it.
I liked the characters, I liked the plot; the storyline drew me in, and some of the set-piece situations are nothing short of brilliant. Weaving 5 strands of a story over a 20+ year timeframe was very skilful, and the various red-herrings kept the suspense going right up to the end.
Now I need to read Lace 2.

[BookAddict ✒ La Crimson Femme · Rating 4 out of 5]

I thought I posted a review on this years ago. Obviously I did not. Which is where because I remember this book aver 27 years. I was but a wee child of 12 when I read this book. One of the girls I knew, her older sister was reading it one day at a picnic. So I read a few pages and was like, huh. Then she gave me a few looks into where Lily is with the Arabic man and being sexually used. There were several erotic scenes in here that as a 12 year old really intrigued me due to my predisposition towards kinky sex. Some may say that this is inappropriate, it may have been. But I read it and enjoyed it anyway.

What I remember most is the submission in this story. Forget that is is Lily demanding to know which of the 4 women is her mother... "Are you my mother?" Instead, there is the slight incestuous taboo with possibly having sex with your father which was guiltily arousing. Not that I would ever want to have sex with my dad. But to have relations with a male who had sex with your mother is wrong yet exciting.

I also remember some of the kinky scenes in here back when this was very rarely written. I read parts over and over again. For me, this is a pivotal book in my youth which gave me an idea that I was a bit different than others when it came to physical interaction. There are three other books which had similar impacts. It, Flowers in the Attic and The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty. I read these at age 11, 13 and 14 respectively. For those who have similar kinky desires, you will know exactly which parts that attracted me.

I remember when I read this book if I was sick or something was wrong with me. I wish I had someone to talk to who could have explained it to me. I wish the internet was around so I could look up information. As it was, I fumbled around as a child. Still, I survived. This book holds a special place in my mind because of its influence. If I went back to read it now, I probably wouldn't think much of it.

[Angela · Rating 5 out of 5]

Awesome novel! Very well written and kept me surprised and very interested. I would recommend it to anyone. Warning... There is a second novel called Lace 2 (how original, right?) I'm telling you, do not google it and ruin the plot event for yourself. Turns out it was a television series back in the day. Naturally my curiosity got the best of me as I was trying to figure out what the second book was called and came across BIG AND BOLD the whole premise the story is based on. I was only half way through the book and my world shattered! Do me a favor, don't ruin it for yourself!

[Hellen Riebold · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book was full of every cliche possible, it had no overarching story seeming rather to be a collection of as many sexual situations the author could think of, and these were not well written. Having finished the book it seemed to me that the first and final parts were connected but that almost the entirety of the rest of the book could easily have been skipped without detracting from the reveal at the end. This book is very long and not worth the investment it demands.

[Linda · Rating 1 out of 5]

Quivering....

All the women in this book have experiences which involve quivering: whether he quivers, she quivers or they both quiver at the same time, after a while I shook my head every time the word was mentioned. It must appear every two to three pages.

For a book supposedly about strong, intelligent women they sure go from one man to the next, their whole lives seem dominated by relationships.

It has such an unbelievable ending, I thought I was reading a spoof parody. The book seemed to go on and on and I ended up scanning it rushing to the end. Thankfully I only paid 99p for it.

If this book was the book that defined a generation, according to the cover, thank goodness I wasn't born during it and influenced by it!

[♥ Marlene♥ · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read this book at least 3 time or so and this was a 5 star book for me back in the days.

Still have the Dutch hardback and my daughter wanted something to read. Gave her Lace and she loved it. Wanted to read the sequel as well.

Great book if you want to read something light.

[Joanne · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Which one of you bitches is my mother?" I instantly knew I was hooked after reading this line.

Lace centres around the lives of four best friends depicting their lives from the forties to the late seventies. One of the close group has a teenage pregnancy and this mystery of who the father is lies at the heart of the story. The book is epic in scope taking us on a sweeping journey through Gstaad to Paris to Hungary to Cairo to the Middle East to London and New York. I also liked that Conran based the characters' lives and experiences on aspects of her own life. Lace is not as trashy as most people believe. There are, in fact, feminist overtones to it with strong female characters who are all successful career women. Plus, the miscellany of men involved are secondary characters and serve mostly as lovers ranging from a king to a transvestite husband. There is far less sex than I was led to believe too. I also liked the detailed descriptions of the glamorous clothes through the eras.

I thoroughly enjoyed the glittering, melodramatic and fun ride that Shirley Conran took me on. Looking forward to watching the Lace mini-series and also continuing the characters lives in Lace 2. Just one more thing... I will never look at a goldfish in the same way again!

[Freda Malone · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ok, so I watched the movie many years ago and decided to read the book. I'm glad I watched the movie first. Once in a while I'm into the chic lit drama that seems to attack my inner child and give in to the juicy, bad mouthed, mystery of 4 women whom one had birthed a child in secret. The book was written very well and held my attention as flashes of the movie came into play. It was long until the pages were becoming a blur as I was able to follow each scene, saying to myself "Oh, yes. I remember that part". However, I think I outgrew the chic lit drama scene in my 30's so it wasn't as enjoyable the new phase of crime mysteries I read. Still a good book. Had I read this in my 20's I'd have rated it higher, I'm sure.

[Ane Margaux · Rating 3 out of 5]

"Which one of you bitches is my mother?" Priceless. That line took the story.

[Lisa Norcross · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this first when I was a teenager in the 80s and all I really remembered about it was that there was a lot of sex. However, when I read Samantha Ellis' spin on it as a career woman's manifesto in How to be a Heroine, my curiosity was piqued and I decided to read it again.

It is certainly a page-turner and i ploughed through it pretty fast. The writing is a bit clunky and old-fashioned, some of the characters are flimsy, and the plot is a bit unbelievable. But, I read it as a story that is really about female friendship and how important that is in the lives of the four central characters. I applaud Shirley Conran for that, as I'm not sure there are that many books which at their heart are about friendship, and for me, that is such an important part of life that I forgive Lace for all it's other failings and don't regret re-reading it.

[kagit kiz · Rating 5 out of 5]

Konusu İsviçre de yatılı okulda okuyan dört kızımızın yıllar sonra bir otel odasında ünlü film yıldızı Lili nin “…taklar hanginiz benim annemsiniz “ sorusuyla başlar.Bu dört kadının yaşamını bir dantel inceliğiyle anlatan kitap içinde her duyguyu barındırıyor .Genç kızlıktan kadınlığa geçiş ilk aşklar ilk deneyimler kendi cinsel kimliklerini bulma çabaları hayal kırıklıkları aldatılmaları ama her şeye rağmen ne olursa olsun dostluklarını yitirmemeleri o kadar güzel anlatılmış o kadar ayrıntılı ki yaşamış gibi tanık oluyorsunuz ayrıca romanda dört kadının yanı sıra ünlü yıldız Lili’nin üzücü yaşam öyküsüne de tanık olacaksınız yer yer çok üzüldüm su an bitirdim ama hala etkisindeyim muhakkak okuyun

[M.J. Fredrick · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read repeatedly when I was a teenager!

[Pooja Peravali · Rating 3 out of 5]

"Which one of you bitches is my mother?"

An engrossing read, though overly long.

[Johanna · Rating 4 out of 5]

I didn't had a clue how much would possible happen in this book's pages. Wow. This was one chunky book but there was five main characters so there was indeed a lot to tell about them.

This was far way shocking than I thought beforehand and I think it has been even more shocking when it has been freshly published.

I found myself really enjoying this one even though the beginning was a bit slow.

[Marie · Rating 4 out of 5]

From the prelude I was hooked. This is by far the chunkiest book I’ve ever read but at no point did I think that I wouldn’t get through it! With the last line of the first chapter ending with “which one of you bitches is my mother?” I needed to know.
A great story about strong females and true friendship.

[kingshearte · Rating 2 out of 5]

Four elegant, successful, sophisticated women in their forties have been called to New York to meet Lili, the world-famous movie actress.

Already a legend despite her youth, Lili is beautiful, passionate, notoriously temperamental... Each of the four has a reason to hate Lili. And each of them is astonished to see the others; for they are old friends who first met in school, old friends who share a guilty secret - old friends whose lives are changed when Lili suddenly confronts them and asks, "Which one of you bitches is my mother?"

The answer to this question - a question that has obsessed and almost destroyed Lili - is at the heart of Lace. As the reader travels from an elegant Swiss finishing school in Gstaad to the glittering places where the rich and successful congregate, the book traces not only the life of Lili herself - abandoned, seduced, exploited, but at last rising to triumph as a star - but the lives of the four women, one of whom is her mother.

The blurb actually goes on for several more paragraphs, and I was tempted to include them, because I wanted to point out a few things in there that make me wonder if whoever wrote the blurb actually read the book, but anyway.

I don't actually have all that much to say about the book, although I enjoyed it. It fits a formula, that of 3 or four women who meet in school and become close friends. They're all wealthy, except one, who either marries into wealth by the end or creates her own. One of the wealthy ones has been raised to feel perpetually inadequate. One of them's foreign. There's bound to be some exotic royalty (sometimes one of the women, sometimes someone else). And there's some sort of secret scandal, usually involving somebody's pregnancy. It's good light chick reading, although not as light as, say, the Shopaholic series.

This particular incarnation of that formula was actually quite good. Well-developed, believable characters, in well-written situations. I was starting to think Conran had issues with men, but all the girls eventually found love, and I guess we all go through a few Mr. Wrongs before we find Mr. Right.

One thing I did think was really kind of neat about this book was the way she depicted female friendship. In fiction, female friendships are almost always torn apart somehow when they feature so prominently in a story. The deeper the friendship is portrayed in the beginning, the more likely it is to fall apart by the end. This one didn't. The four women went their separate ways after school, but remained close friends who stayed in contact, visited often, and were always there for each other if one of them needed help. There was one blip between two of them, but as soon as they figured out that it was engineered by th guy involved, they immediately picked up where they left off, with no lingering feelings of resentment or suspicion. Right to the end, they protect each other. After Lili finds out which one is her mother, and wants to know who her father is, the mother hides the truth to avoid hurting both Lili and one of the other three (even though it was ancient history), and all three know she's lying, for various reasons, but instead of suspecting the worst, they believe that she has good reasons, and not one of them calls her on it. It's nice to see female friendship portrayed like that, because that really is how the really good ones are.

I've learned that there's a sequel, in which Lili goes looking for her father (the stated father is dead, so I guess she learns that that wasn't true after all?), and I think I'm going to read that, because there really were good reasons for her mother to keep that information to herself, so I'm actually quite curious how all that's going to go down.

[Dee (dees_book_blog) · Rating 3 out of 5]

Lace was the Tsundoku Squad Book Group read for May. It’s a biggie at 750 pages, so we split this one into 5 parts seeing as there was an extra saturday in May. We had some great conversations during the month and it brought about a lot of topics we weren’t expecting.

For starters we thought there would be a lot of sex, one or 2 of the group were a bit dubious going into it, and although there are a few graphic scenes, it wasn’t as much as we thought. The Goldfish was a very unwelcome surprise, and the cellar scene was a bit much.

The book is very outdated in certain ways, but it was advanced for its time in others. We were expecting an old book but it wasn’t what we got. The outdated parts were definitely not something that would be written today, being told to ignore your husband cheating was a big one, waking up to someone erm doing things to you and saying what a lovely way to wake up, I think you’ll find that’s assault. There were a lot of controversial topics in the book, and the opening chapter was a rough one. There was a big part in the middle involving Lily which was hard to read too and I think a lot of the group may have skimmed through that bit. Most of the men in the story are awful, but the book throws quite a surprise at you towards the end.

But there were good themes too, of strong women, beautiful friendships, and a lot of love. We all loved the friendship between the girls, they were always there for each other, fling across countries to help each other. It’s the kind of friendship you want in your life, maybe you haven’t seen each other in while, but you know if something is wrong, you will be there for each other.

There are strong triggers in this book, I won’t go into much detail but if you want to know these they will easily be found. Overall I gave Lace a 3 star, and Tsundoku collective was also a 3.

In the end I wasn’t sure how much I actually enjoyed it, but I did love the fact it brought up great conversation in book group. I’m glad I read it.

[Tory · Rating 2 out of 5]

The basic story line and plotting was OK. There were no moments of absolute wow or a desire that keep reading no matter what, but it was an interesting and engrossing read.

The major downfall for me was the timing of the story. The book is divided into about 11 or 12 parts, with no discernable reason for this division. A part does not solely concentrate on the actions or adventures of one of the five main women, not a one single part cover a specific time period. Instead you follow one woman for a while, hear some of her adventures and then skip over to another. There are no dates to identify when each section is taking place and often the age of the woman concerned is disregarded. The only timeline identifier is usually "two years later" or something similar. Quite often I was wondering two years later than what, when we last saw this woman or two years after the last section finished. It soon became apparent that each time you changed characters, you changed time periods. As there was often little interaction between the four women or mention of them in each others lives this made dovetailing where each section of the story fitted together rather difficult.

I also found it difficult to establish an emotional connection with any of the women involved. For the majority of the book there was nothing emotionally substantial. It was just descriptions of what happened, not how any of them felt about it. This could be because the book was written in third person with five lead characters. However this lack of connection made it hard for me to care about the outcome. The majority of the time I found the women to be uninspiring and self-absorbed. Rarely did they think beyond their own circumstances or question motives of the males around them, unless a reason to do so was thrust in their faces. For a book that appeared to be about the power and success of women, it very often showed these women as needing men in their lives to succeed and be happy.

The ending of the book appeared very sudden. The emotional attachement that was suddenly formed in the last chapter between all five women, seemed very rushed and unconvincing. I felt that it finished without answering any questions and leaving more issues to be resolved than had been hinted at during the entirety of the book.

In short, LACE has a confusing timeline and chronology, distant characters which is hard to form any attachement to and a hasty abrupt ending leaving more issues unresolved than not. I know there is a sequel to this book, but I am not in any hurry to spend any more time with these women. This is not a book I am in any hurry to read again, nor would I particularly recommend it to anyone of my acquaintance.

[Melinda · Rating 2 out of 5]

I found myself rolling my eyes a bit more than I expected with this one. The basic plot: four women meet in a finishing school. Men are introduced. One of the women finds herself pregnant, but the author keeps the identity of the mother a secret from the reader. The child is born and put in foster care. Over time, the women become ridiculously rich (of course) and wildly successful (of course) and have problems finding that one true love (deep sigh). The child grows up without knowing the identity of her true mother (or father) and is objectified and used for nefarious purposes. The child and mother are reunited at the end.

The chapters concerning the women as adults are tedious and fairly unnecessary, unless you are easily impressed by gross displays of wealth and gratuitous sex. The author also seemed to try really hard to justify the title of the book. (Hey reader, did I mention her shawl was LACE? Did you notice that her PR company was named LACE?! Her corset WAS LACE!!!) The ending was abrupt and not all that satisfying. Maybe I was hoping for one of the king's lions to enter stage left and eat them all or something... but alas, that didn't happen.

[Alex · Rating 3 out of 5]

I don't know why there are so many saying this is "trashy". I didn't find it to be at all. I though it was a well plotted book, and pretty skilfully done.
It's almost puts you as a reader in the place of a detective, given that you know what's going to happen right at the beginning and then you're sort of connecting up the pieces all the way through.

I did find it to be quite long though (there are 754 pages), which I guess makes sense given the sheer amount of stuff that happens in it. It manages to take you through 5 entire lifetimes, which left me at the end with the uneasy feeling that life really is very short. Also, there was quite a lot of vocabulary relating to fabric and fashion which I didn't know, which a nice opportunity to learn that vocabulary even if it did distract me from the story at times.

In general a pretty good read.

[Daisy · Rating 5 out of 5]

I can honestly say I didn't know anything about this book or that it was a series before I even picked it up. I was browsing barnes and noble and I'm not a romance type of reader but this book has open a new door for me. I read the summary figured might be a good read and boy was I right. I was hooked and read the whole book in less then a week. I'm not gonna be a spoiler about the book but it's a great read about a companionship between a group of ladies. One of the girls gives birth to a girl at a young age and she grows up and is in search for real her mother. It keeps on your toes as they all grow up and you go through the journey with them. Def. is one of my fav books. I read this back in 2008 and have reread it a couple of times.

[Anbrill · Rating 5 out of 5]

my long time favorite.... the plot was great. It was full of twists and excitement... I read this long time ago and I wanted to have a copy of this again. It's worth reading and I feel like reading it again. I'm amazed how the four girlfriends hid their secret for such a long time.... and how the story reveals the same.