From Booklist
Michaels wraps up her Vegas trilogy in typical fashion. As Fanny Coleman Thornton struggles to reunite her scattered family, remnants of her past with her first husband, Ash, prevent her from being at peace. To make amends with the past, Fanny places Ash's illegitimate son, Jeff, in charge of Babylon, the family casino in Las Vegas. Her son Sage has no interest in running the casino because he is focusing on his own family, and her daughter Sunny is learning to live with the muscular disease that changed her life. Fanny's other son, Birch, reappears with an avaricious wife in tow expecting to take over the casino but is disillusioned when he sees there is no place for him at Babylon. The last child, Billie, faces financial disaster as she is sucked into the gambling fever her father always feared. Disaster plagues the Thorntons until a deadly threat draws the family back together and everything is forgiven. Most of the plot twists are wrapped up neatly, but a few threads just disappear (maybe there will be another book?). Libraries will need
Vegas Sunrise to complete the trilogy, but it is weaker than the first two installments.
Melanie Duncan
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Kirkus Reviews
The final installment of Michaels's Vegas trilogy is even more over the top than its predecessors (Vegas Rich, 1996; Vegas Heat, p. 87). Here, matriarch Fanny Coleman Thornton confronts all her old demons and some new ones too as she oversees Babylon, the family casino, with her by now characteristic blend of steel nerves and fluttering indecision. Her four children aren't always a help. Son Birch finally returns from South America with new wife Celia in tow--a conniving gold-digger as everyone (but Birch) knows. Birch's saintly twin Sage is having problems with his equally saintly (and pregnant) wife Iris. Sunny, who has inexplicably been institutionalized with multiple sclerosis despite complete wheelchair mobility and no negative effects to her mental capacity (she's still portrayed as the sharpest Thornton child), wants to marry her also-wheelchair-bound beau. And, finally, Billie, the child no one ever had to worry about, has been sneaking around Vegas incognito in a desperate attempt to conceal her gambling addiction from the family. When Fanny allows her former (and deceased) husband Ash's illegitimate son Jeff Lassiter to take over the day-to-day operations of Babylon, everyone's life is thrown into an utter uproar--especially after Sage discovers (thanks to longtime friends in service as spies) that Jeff and Celia are in cahoots. Meanwhile, the least appealing aspect of this third, and purported last, installment in the saga is that the dead Ash is given one of the leading roles; he appears to all the Thorntons as a vision in times of crisis, doling out advice in his customary crotchety manner. Before his demise Ash was tolerable, but as a ghost he's insufferable. Far too many Thorntons and entrepreneurial schemes (casinos in Atlantic City, free-range chicken farms, fast-food restaurants, etc.) clutter this already jam-packed finale. --
Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
by Fern Michaels
by Fern Michaels
by Fern Michaels
by Fern Michaels
by Fern Michaels
