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reading a pile of books; nor did she ever mention
 

However, she couldn’t fail to notice that over the family holidays of 1988, Thanksgiving and Christmas, there was apparently no place on earth where Maggie Horvath was expected, nor did she ever mention any normal, conventional regret at not being able to join her family for one reason or another. Maggie, looking not at all depressed, spent the long weekends sleeping late, puttering in her tiny kitchen, reading a pile of books, going alone to movies, and devouring with gratitude the leftovers Polly brought back from the big Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners to which she'd been invited.
      Was she an orphan? Polly wondered.

ex Judith Krantz, The Jewels of Tessa Kent : A Novel (1998; 2011) : 287 : link
formerly at archive.org, all removed : link
 

Judith Krantz (1928-2019)
wikipedia : link

readers (even one New York Times reviewer) seem to like this book, for a variety of reasons.
see also :
“What trashy novels taught me about life — They’re derided as being frothy thrillers bursting with sex and shopping. But for Sarah Hughes, these so-called ‘bonkbusters’ are filled with words of wisdom about friendship and feminism”
Sarah Hughes The Guardian / The Observer (31 January 2021) : link
 

6 January 2024<br />