A Stranger In The Mirror - Sidney Sheldon

The saying "Never judge a book by its cover" is completely true with this book. This is one of a pile of books my husband bought for me after rooting through for Jackie Collins books, the charity shop for me. I took one look at the cover and judged it as not a book I wanted to read. Then I got bored, I was almost crawling the walls looking for a book to read. I picked this up in desperation, and vowed never to judge a book by its cover ...
...the life of Josephine Czinski, a pretty young girl whose birth in to this world was hard on her and her mother and caused her father to have a heart attack and die. Her mother became a fanatical church goer, bringing her daughter up to believe she was the soul cause of her father's death. Her mother makes her living by making dresses and things for the rich oil tycoons and their families in, Odessa Texas. Josephine uses the cinema as an escape from ... more

The saying "Never judge a book by its cover" is completely true with this book. This is one of a pile of books my husband bought for me after rooting through for Jackie Collins books, the charity shop for me. I took one look at the cover and judged it as not a book I wanted to read. Then I got bored, I was almost crawling the walls looking for a book to read. I picked this up in desperation, and vowed never to judge a book by its cover ever again.

I found this book a tad difficult to get into to begin with, but I was soon so into this book that I just didn't want to put it down. So what is it about this book that I liked so much? Well, read on and I shall tell you!!

This book follows the life of Josephine Czinski, a pretty young girl whose birth in to this world was hard on her and her mother and caused her father to have a heart attack and die. Her mother became a fanatical church goer, bringing her daughter up to believe she was the soul cause of her father's death. Her mother makes her living by making dresses and things for the rich oil tycoons and their families in, Odessa Texas. Josephine uses the cinema as an escape from her mother's damnation and hellfire speeches.

This and the love of her life suddenly getting engaged to another girl led her to leave the small town in Texas and move to Hollywood to make her fortune. That is when she shed her old self and became Jill Castle instead.

The book also follows the birth and growing up of a young man called Tobias Templarhaus. Tobias is the only child of his parents and his mother totally dotes upon him. She tells him that he is destined to be famous. He grows up always being told this and always believes it. When he gets a young local girl pregnant he is told by his mother to pack his bags and leave town, before he has to marry the girl in question. She tells him she won't have her son held back from fulfilling his destiny by having to marry the girl. She gives him some money and makes him promise that when he is rich and famous that he will send for her.

He does eventually become famous, but his mother doesn't live to see it. The book follows Tobias' rise to fame and his transformation into Toby Temple. The biggest comic genius ever to climb from nothing. It also follows Jill's change from unassuming child to cold, calculating bitch.

This book in my humble opinion was rather reminiscent of a Jackie Collins book. Only without so much name dropping. The sex scenes, yes there are some in this book, are also written in a more polite way, not with the crudity that you can sometimes get with Jackie Collins.

I would highly recommend this book. If you are a Jackie fan you are likely to enjoy this.

You can get this book from Amazon.co.uk new for £5.49 or used for £1.35 plus postage and packaging.

Or you can purchase this book from Abebooks.com for $1 or 56p plus postage and packaging.

Thank you for reading.

Anna ©

 

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