THE JEWELS OF TESSA KENT

THE JEWELS OF TESSA KENT Judith Krantz (Crown, $25.95) 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 Jewels the heroine is Tessa Kent, a good Catholic girl whose out-of-wedlock baby is raised as her sister while she becomes an Oscar-winning actress. Tessa 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- -- Vanessa V. Friedman