Career Girls

Louise Bagshawe

Average Rating 7/10 (1 Review)

Once they had been best friends; now they were deadly rivals. Their hatred would take a lifetime to die... or so they believed.

Rowena Gordon, an upper class Brit and Topaz Rossi, a feisty Italian-American redhead, meet and become best friends at Oxford. Both are determined to succeed in their chosen careers -Topaz as a journalist and Rowena in the music industry

But Rowena takes her best friend's man, and does not know how to right the wrong. Instead she lets her betrayal develop into a lifetime feud. Rowena is hell-bent on getting to the top in the music business. Not easy for a woman - especially for a woman with an enemy on her tail, one determined to see her fall.

'A fat, sexy book that throbs with vitality from the first page.'

Review by Chrissi (010802) Rating (7/10)

Review by Chrissi
Rating 7/10
This would make great beach reading, I am sure. The story is rather formulaic, but really works well, with rivalry and jealousy, but the transatlantic touches are rather unnecessary. It would have worked just as well with two English or two American women.

We meet the two women at University, Rowena is an upper class English woman, cool, regal and rich, and Topaz is a brash American, flamboyant, tough and from what would have been the wrong side of the tracks had she not won a scholarship. They become best friends, teaming up to try to win the offices that they want in the Oxford Students Union. Topaz wants to be a journalist, and becomes head of the union newspaper, Rowena wants to be President of the Union, but in canvassing for the support of Topaz' lover, she becomes irresistibly attracted to him. Knowing that he should be out of bounds, she finds herself betraying her friend and despising her friend for the betrayal.

Needless to say, Topaz finds out and is none too chuffed about the whole thing. Withdrawing her support from Rowena's campaign without telling Rowena, she effectively denies her the position that she wanted, setting the scene for years of personal rivalry.

After University, Topaz returns to America where she works on her career. Rowena, meanwhile, spurns the support of her family to pursue her career in the Music Industry. Both rise to positions of authority, but the enmity results in a tit for tat battle where Topaz uses her newspaper connections to rubbish Rowena's musical interests.

Needless to say, there comes a time when they need each other, and they have to make up. The cheesiest moment, though, has to be when Topaz names her twins. I will not say what, but it could have been a sick bag moment - really.

Apart from the smell of cheese, it is a good story - well paced, you can really get your teeth into it, the girls are great, but you cannot help but wonder if they had managed to sort it all out before, would there have been no story?
Chrissi (1st August 2002)