The Jewels of Tessa Kent (1998)

A Judith Krantz book can be as reassuringly familiar as an old blanket. You know, after all, what you're going to get when you crawl under the covers: lavish gowns, lavish homes, lavish sex, and a main character marked by passion, ambition, and — of course — beauty. In The Jewels of Tessa Kent the heroine, a good Catholic girl whose out-of-wedlock baby is raised as her sister while she becomes an Oscar-winning actress. Tessa Kent decides to claim her daughter only when she discovers she has inoperable cancer (nothing ever occurs in a Krantz novel in half measures). Needless to say, they all live happily, if not forever, after. This time, Ms. Krantz's blanket is starting to fray along the edges. B-