Trials - Hardcover

Wallach, Anne Tolstoi

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 052594091X ISBN 13: 9780525940913

Publisher: Dutton Adult, 1996

Synopsis

Pax Ford and Rosa Macario, friends since childhood, find themselves competing for the same seat on the appellate court in Manhattan, and to their surprise, competing for the same man. By the author of Private Scores. 50,000 first printing. $50,000 ad/promo.

About this title

Review:

This lollapalooza of a potboiler revolves around a child-custody dispute in which a ballet dancer named Tom D'Arcy battles for the very soul of his deceased lover's daughter. Meanwhile, an assortment of secondary players swirls around the periphery, scheming, lying, and forming an enormous daisy chain of adulterous relationships. Anne Tolstoi Wallach doesn't seem particularly at home in a judge's chambers, but no matter--in Trials, after all, the boudoir is where the important decisions are made.

From Booklist:

Wallach's books sell because they are shrewdly formulaic and topical. Her newest revolves around the friendship (or is it rivalry?) between two New York City women judges, Pax Peyton Ford and Rosa Macario. Predictably, they hail from different sections of the genetic pool. Waspy Pax, the descendant of lawyers and judges, is a tiny, porcelain-skinned 49-year-old widow; Rosa is Puerto Rican, the color of honey, 35, absolutely gorgeous, single, and "up-from-the-barrio." Pax's uptown courtroom is the epitome of oak-paneled luxury; Rosa sits in the Bronx. How did these two diverse but strong-minded women become friends? Rosa's mother was Pax's mother's maid. Now, years later, they find themselves competing for the same man, a rich and sexy lawyer. Complications multiply as quickly as flies, and everyone has some dreadful secret to hide, but the main conflict is a high-profile and extremely controversial custody battle involving Caitlin, the 6-year-old daughter of an impossibly wealthy and famous gay artist known as Johnny California. Caitlin's mother died years ago; now her father has been killed in a skiing accident of all things, and his longtime lover, a ballet dancer named Tom, wants custody of Caitlin, whom he adores. But Johnny's estranged sister rears her ugly head and insists that she should get her niece. What Wallach has wrought here is a perfectly respectable soap opera featuring a cleverly vicious courtroom contest in which homophobia is pitted against dysfunctional family values. Donna Seaman

About this edition

• Publisher: Dutton Adult
• Publication date: 1996
• ISBN 10: 052594091X
• ISBN 13: 9780525940913
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 382