Helpful Score: 1
ollins (Lady Boss, etc.) returns to Hollywood (and New York and Kansas) in this perfunctory 20-year romantic saga between a small-town princess and a poor, rakish Italian-American stud- -nothing new from this author, but then who among her readers cares? Nick Angelo (think black hair, blue eyes, tight pants, dimpled chin) may have grown up on the wrong side of the tracks, but he's always been lucky when it comes to females--as demure Lauren Roberts discovers when Nick moves to Bosewell, Kansas, in the wake of his mother's death. Entering high school with plans to keep his head down and land the first girl willing to keep him warm, Nick is instead inexplicably smitten by prim, comely Lauren--who's unhappily engaged to the richest boy in town. A hot romance soon flares up, causing Lauren's outraged parents to lock her in her room and her would-be in-laws to see that Nick is expelled from school. Vowing to get rich quick and come back for Lauren, Nick takes off for Chicago, but a Kansas tornado, an unwanted pregnancy, and hard times in Chicago separate the couple until each is convinced that the other has given up on the affair. A decade later the two meet again in New York just as Nick Angelo (now Nick Angel, a film actor) is on the brink of success and Lauren, a New York businesswoman, is about to become an extremely well-paid model. This time Lauren's engagement to a wealthy older man and Nick's entanglement in a blackmail scheme stand in the star-crossed lovers' way, and it is many more years, romantic traumas, multimillion-dollar business deals, Beverly Hills parties, and Manhattan penthouse dinners before busy, thirtysomething Nick and Lauren find the time to fall into each other's arms once and for all.
