Product Description

The book beaches were made for. The Balcon sisters are London's paparazzi darlings. Serena, the country's most beautiful actress, Venetia the glamorous designer, Camilla the rising political star and Cate the feisty magazine editor. They have wealth, privilege and sizzling sex lives. But money doesn't buy you love. When their aristocratic and tyrannical father Oswald Balcon is found dead, the finger of suspicion points towards his glamorous daughters and their dazzling lives. Suddenly we find that beneath the ritzy facade of the Balcon family lies a web of deceit and betrayal that hides a thirty-year-old secret that threatens to destroy them all. From the sun drenched beaches of Mustique to Manhattan's elite society circuit. From the exclusive fashion houses of Milan to the star-studded streets of Cannes, the Balcon Sisters play out their lives in a whirl of glitz and the ultra chic. But as tragedy and danger stalks each one of them, the scene is set for a stunning climax.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #4681 in Books
• Published on: 2007-04-16
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 512 pages

Review
'Daddy's Girl's is the hottest holiday accessory this season. Slick, glossy and gloriously bitchy it's about sibling rivalry and the super-glam Balcon girls - but which one killed Daddy? The bonkbuster is back.' Elle 'Amid all the romping and camp one-liners, there are tart observations about race, class and family dynamics, too. The perfect beach read.' Marie Claire 'This glam and glitz, power and corruption romp of a book celebrates the genre of the great big beach read with no holds barred.' Good Housekeeping 'Is your holiday incomplete without a glamorous, suspend-disbelief read? Then grab this!The spirit of The OC bottled in a book.' Cosmopolitan 'A sizzling summer read brimming with style, sex and sibling rivalry!A pacy bonkbuster that you won't be able to put down until its explosive climax is revealed.' Closer 'A sizzling debut!one to devour on the beach.' In Style 'Tasmina Perry's Daddy's Girls is a hugely entertaining blockbuster that's impossible to put down.' Image Magazine 'A super--slick, seriously sexy murder mystery. Fantastic.' Company 'The bonkbuster is back -- but hipper, sexier and more intelligent. Debut author Tasmina Perry scores a winner with this dazzling tale of London paparazzi darlings The Balcon Sisters! Daddy's Girls is the perfect beach read; a sexy guilty pleasure you devour like a caramel Magnum! A brilliant antidote to all those girl--seeks--boy--and--shoes chick lit books, this is glittering escapism that gives you a peek into the fabulous lives of the rich and powerful.' Glamour 'An old school bonkbuster with beautiful bitches, lethal studs and a highly--charged plot.' Daily Mirror 'Engrossing from the first page, this is the perfect read to escape the everyday world with enough suspense to keep you hooked.' The Sun 'It Might blow your luggage allowance but this big, fat, glitzy story will keep you reading all holiday.' Grazia 'If you fancy some racy reading in the sun, Tamina Perry's Daddy's Girls is the perfect choice for you. Packed with glamour, romance and intrigue, it'll keep you glued from the very first page.' Heat 'A sizzling novel of suspense with an unexpected climax that'll keep you guessing to the very end.' Daily Express 'A very sexy, glam tale of murder and mystery.' OK 'Think glitz, think scandal, think decadence, think more designer labels than Posh's knicker drawer - this is a class act that's a strong contender to be our favourite book of the year.' Scotland on Sunday

Glitz is the point of British author Perry's fashion-obsessed debut, a beach read that was a bestseller in the U.K. in 2006.After his family's annual Christmas Eve gala, Baron Oswald Balcon falls from a balcony to his death. When his body is found floating in a moat on Christmas morning, Oswald's daughters are immediately suspects. The story then moves back in time several months, and the daughters' histories are relayed. It seems that ever since his wife's death, Oswald has undermined, controlled, badgered and bullied Venetia, Cate, Camilla and Serena Balcon, despite - or because of - the glory and notoriety all four have brought to the family name. Venetia, the eldest, owns a successful design firm and is married to a German aristocrat, Jonathon, selected by her father. Cate has her own travel/fashion magazine, Sand. Camilla, a winning barrister, has been tapped by the Tory party to serve in Parliament. Oswald's grudging favorite, movie star Serena, recently broke with her actor/director boyfriend Tom to dally in the higher echelons of power with vicious billionaire Michael. But Serena, pregnant by Michael, catches him in mid-orgy and dumps him. Her career nosedives. Daddy is no help - he's engaged to opera diva Maria, who threatens to produce a legitimate male heir and disinherit Daddy's girls. Bent on scuttling his other daughters' success, Oswald corners stock in Venetia's firm and mocks the fact that she has no children. Resentful of Camilla's political ambitions - his own fizzled - he threatens to divulge a "dark secret" from her past. When he's not reminding Cate that she's the ugly duckling of the family, he's discouraging potential backers of her magazine. After Oswald's death, his ghostwriter arrives to blackmail the girls with his Lordship's memoir-in-progress. The murder mystery takes up approximately the last 80 pages. Unsurprisingly, Oswald's past - the part left out of his memoirs - holds the key to his homicide, but readers may skim the obligatory clue-sifting to get to the epilogue, where Perry doles out paltry punishments and unearned rewards to her cast of puppets.Trash with little redeeming flash. (Kirkus Reviews)

Elle Magazine
'Daddy's Girl's is the hottest holiday accessory this season. Slick, glossy and gloriously bitchy…The bonkbuster is back.'

Good Housekeeping
This glam and glitz, power and corruption romp celebrates the genre of the great beach read with no holds barred

Customer Reviews

80s style bonkbuster for the noughties
The Balcon sisters are beautiful, successful young women who have each carved their own niche in life. Serena is the spoilt actress, Camilla is the barrister and would-be MP, Venetia is a designer and Cate is a magazine editor. They share a penchant for complicated lives, blonde hair and a tyrant of a father called Oswald. But Oswald is dead and one of them possibly killed him...

This is pretty much how the novel opens, it then zips back a year and tells the story of what lead up to Oswald's death or murder. The story is peppered with plenty of romance and sex and intrigue with lots of outrageous twist and turns along he way.

The problem is I am torn between enjoying this novel and yet thinking at the same time that it could have been so much better.

Firstly in my opinion there are too many sisters, they could have easily lost one (probably Camilla who seems pretty redundant, apart from a revelation about a dark secret).

Secondly there were characters who I could have read more about, Maria Dante for instance the bitchy opera star, rather than have to read more goings on with the rather dull sisters (Serena and Cate kept me reading, Venetia bored me and Camilla may as well not have been in the book at all). Likewise Oswald Balcon himself.

Thirdly, all the dark secrets should have been hinted at much more throughout the novel, I wanted to be able to try and figure out the mystery and the secrets along the way with more history and maybe chapters set in the past, the lives of Oswald and the sisters' mother Margaret was far more intriguing than anything the sisters got up to!

Which brings me onto the forth point, the ending or rather the climax of the novel. It all just happened so fast and seemed added on as an incidental. Why wasn't this all interspersed throughout the novel to draw the reader in more and more?

Having said all that it was an enjoyable enough read and even though I would probably rather curl up with and escape into a Shirley Conran or a Judith Gould I wouldn't turn my nose up at reading another Tasmina Perry.

Great escapist read, light and fun
I agree with most of the comments here, it's not going to win any literary prizes but if it's a tonic you're after like I was after a few heavy books, this is perfect.

nicely done
I bought this book at the airport on my way on holiday. I am a huge Susan Lewis and Louise Bagshawe fan and can i definately say that it did not disappoint considering the high standards of the afore mentioned writers. Very enjoyable, with likable characters (except of course for daddy and perhaps Serena to begin with) and it keeps you guessing right up till the end. I shall certainly be taking a look at the next Tasmina Perry novel.