Category: Santangelo Saga

Blast From The Past: Lucky

~ Wendy-Marie ~ Leave a comment

What’s next for the Santangelo clan now that Lucky’s avenged her father and the slain Dario and Marco? Well, if you think Gino the Ram is going to shuffle off to The Villages and play canasta while waiting for the Early Bird dinner or that Lucky’s going to renounce men and Marvin Gaye records you’re a) insane or b) Blacklight. Actually Blacklight would be all “What? Lucky who? Papa Gino’s pizza? Huh?”

Luckily…heeheehee…Jackie Collins doesn’t leave us hanging. Because Lucky, the next book in the Santangelo saga named after everyone’s favorite feline dusky beauty is a peach! Gino the Ram gets ensnared in the gold digging claws of Susan Martino (widow of the comedian Tiny Martino who loved to lose his salary at the Mirage tables in Chances). If Dlisted.com had existed back in the 1980s Susan Would have been Hot Slut of the Day AND in the Gold Diggers Hall of Fame. Because girl brings a wheelbarrow AND shovel.

Think Miss Lucky DOES NOT LIKE THIS? Do I have a Starbucks addiction? Is Stephen Thompson (creator of The Onion’s AV Club, Pop Culture Happy Hour panelist and raised by nerds) my secret, don’t tell Blacklight NPR boyfriend? (Blacklight: “Umm…it’s NOT A SECRET! Wait…he’s the one with the vintage video games and from The Onion? Cool….”).

Yeah…so Lucky isn’t a happy camper. Then again, neither is the sexy, dirty blond comedian Lenny Golden. He’s got girl trouble, career trouble and can’t seem to get a sexy, feline like beauty out of his head. And also at the life kinda sucks table is Lucky’s old school friend Olympia (think Christina Onassis). Being a pretty Greek heiress with huge bewbs and millions upon millions might buy you all the coke in the world and get you laid but it can’t buy you skinny.

In best Jackie Collins fashion, there are, scandals, drugs and love triangles galore! Love triangles off the top of my head: Gino/Susan/Paige. Susan/Gino/Money. Lucky/Lennie/Marco’s ghost. Lucky/Olympia’s dad/Lennie. Lennie/Lucky/Olympia. Lucky/Olympia’s dad/Francesca. Olympia/coke/food.

Will Lucky end up with Lennie? Will Olympia and Flash (think Zombie Keith Richards) make it? Will Gino learn Susan is a stone cold GOLD DIGGA? Will Paige keep her legs shut? Will Gino and Lucky reconcile? Will Lucky go to jail for a murder she didn’t commit?

Rest assured everyone bad gets theirs. Lives are changed. Marvin Gaye is grooved to. Drugs are snorted. The booze flows. It’s not Shakespeare. What Lucky is like any good Jackie Collins novel is an escape into a glittering world written by someone who has actually been on a private plane or three and partied with the high and mighty and the people on the slide. You can sit back on Mr Couch and think “wow, I’m glad I’m not Olympia. Or my husband might not be world famous but at least he’s not a junkie monkey like old Flash there…” If you need an escape or just want to reveal in the 1980s goodness Lucky is a helluva time machine!

Chances

~ Wendy-Marie ~ Leave a comment

Back in the days lost to memory when I was a very young Gwen, Hollywood Wives seared into my brain, I was scouring the shelves of the S-bury library and stumbled across a brick of book with one of those special plastic library binding covers that feel like the padded parts of a booth at Friendly’s. Durable, sturdy, easy to wipe down. And between those indestructible covers with their cigarette scented pages (my hometown was full of heavy smoking old ladies thanks to a bazillion and one posh retirement communities) was mind blowing.

If Hollywood Wives is Jackie Collin’s slice of Hollywood life circa 1982 masterpiece, then Chances is her War and Peace.

Okay, STOP SCREAMING! Hear me out.

If War and Peace gives you a glimpse into what life was like in Russia, Chances gives you a glimpse at what life is like as a made man. Or a junkie. Or a rich bitch. Take your pick. To me, Chances feels researched more than just sitting in your husband’s nightclub and watching people on the dance floor. I like a little history in my trashy novels. It’s like eating a big juicy burger and having the sweet potato fries vs the onion rings.

Now if Chances is the burger, Gino the Ram Santangelo is the meat. We first meet Gino as a cocky teen, surviving the mean streets of New York on his own. He’s not a total babe but worth a second and third look. He’s a guy whose going places. His daughter Lucky? The cheese and bacon. She’s the dark gypsy Jackie Collins heroine, all feral, sexy and smart as a whip. Don’t mess with this girl. And the side dish of sweet potato fries with just the right blend of salt and pepper? Carrie, the young prostitute turned society hostess.

Now check in with these characters over a span of sixty years and you have a trash classic epic. Gino, young thug turned made man turned businessman turned mafia legend with fingers in everything. Young Carrie, forced into prostitution after a brutal rape by her Uncle Leroy, goes from turning tricks in shabby room to Welfare Island to head girl in a brothel to junkie to locked in mental ward to madame of her very own brothel. Lucky, beloved daughter to exiled school girl to child bride to business mogul with every bit of the Santangelo cunning her younger brother Dario lacks. Add some murder, sex, drugs, rackets, world wars, Hollywood, the jet set and sit back to enjoy the ride.

Sure Chances is a brick, will eat up a good chunk of the weekend even for a faster reader and isn’t Shakespeare but when it’s good Jackie Collins, it’s a good read. Try not to cheer when Lucky manages to get the Magiriano (a top notch Vegas casino named for her late mother Maria and Gino the Ram) built and a huge success. It takes big brass ones and luckily Lucky’s got them. Or want to scoop up the collapsed Carrie, sprawled naked on the floor of Clementine Duke’s fancy dan party while the party guests stare in shock. Little moments like this make all the Lucky is the sexiest feline offbeat beauty ever stuff worth the read.