THE DILEMMA
Penny Vincenzi
The Overlook Press
Fiction
ISBN: 9781585679492

The Overlook Press was the first American publisher to introduce the novels of Penny Vincenzi, a bestselling author in her native England, to American audiences. Although U.S. readers have yet to give Vincenzi the attention she deserves, her most recent novels have garnered the attention of a major U.S. publisher, Doubleday. Overlook Press, however, has continued its efforts to bring Vincenzi's backlist to American readers, and their latest endeavor is to release Vincenzi's debut novel (originally published in 1996) to the United States for the first time.

At the start of THE DILEMMA, Francesca is a young and ambitious, but still rather insecure, woman at the very beginning of her career. In an act of bravado, she responds to a televised "advertisement for a wife" delivered by business tycoon Bard Channing. It takes several years of miscommunications, missed opportunities and many missteps before she is finally able to take up the charismatic Channing on his offer of marriage.

Despite the wealth, fame and luxury afforded her by becoming Mrs. Isembard Channing, Francesca experiences difficulties adjusting to her new life. She's passionately in love with her husband, of course, but the ambitious Francesca has a hard time giving up her own prominent career in advertising in order to be a full-time wife and, soon, mother.

The fact that Bard categorically refuses to share anything about his business with his new wife, let alone hear her advice on professional matters, doesn't make things any easier. Nor do Bard's four children from his two previous marriages, who view Francesca with varying levels of tolerance, ridicule, bitterness and disdain. The course of their early years of marriage is a rocky one, indeed, but when Francesca's emotional insecurities collide with Bard's growing secrecy, bad temper and business problems, can Francesca and Bard's love survive the crisis on the horizon?

THE DILEMMA is Vincenzi's debut novel, and readers already familiar with her subsequent fiction will notice how many elements of her successful novelistic formula have their genesis here. The quickly-shifting plotlines, the burgeoning cast of dozens of characters whose disparate lives soon become entangled for better or for worse, the oblique references to economic and political issues --- all these hallmarks of Vincenzi's more recent novels can be seen in THE DILEMMA as well.

Vincenzi's first novel, however, is not without its weaknesses. Although she has long shown a facility for weaving together numerous plot lines, most notably in her Spoils of Time trilogy, it's clear that in THE DILEMMA Vincenzi had not yet fully mastered this difficult technique. In addition, the main plotline, which hinges on a series of complicated business and banking maneuvers, is not as compelling as those in some of her more recent novels.

Finally, in Francesca, Vincenzi has created a character who can at times be more exasperating than fascinating, particularly for many female readers, who may lack sympathy when Francesca expresses thoughts like "She had tasted huge wealth and she knew very well…it had brought her no real pleasure."

Nevertheless, despite its weaknesses, THE DILEMMA is still a hugely entertaining and even captivating read. Once American fans discover Vincenzi, they'll want to read everything she's written, and reading her debut is the perfect way to trace how Vincenzi skillfully developed the fiction-writing techniques that have served her so well in her many bestselling novels to date.

    --- Reviewed by Norah Piehl

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