Julie Kenner, The Prada Paradox

The Prada Paradox

Julie Kenner

Downtown Press, April 2007, $13.00, 356 pp.

ISBN 0743496159

Play, Survive, Win is an online role-playing game where the target has a protector to save her from the assassin and this game has made it out into the real world where unwilling people participate in order to stay alive. Mega movie star Devi Taylor is making a comeback in a film based on someone who played and survived the game. Her only doubts about the film is her co-star Blake Atwood who played a big role in their very public breakup.

She is in her heavily guarded home working on her lines for the next days when Blake arrives, allegedly to read them with her but in truth he wants to win her back. A Fed Ex package arrives from Play, Survive, Win and when they open the site they learn that she is a target who was poisoned and if she wants to live she must follow the clues to find the antidote. Andy, a fellow worker on the movie, arrives saying he got a message saying he is the protector. Blake refuses to stop for the antidote which happens to be a good thing because he ingested the poison and now he has as much at stake as Devi who is targeted by the assassin. As they follow the clues, Devi realizes her love for Blake has never died and if they both come out of this alive, she intends to make sure nothing comes between them again

Julie Kenner has written an outstanding thriller that sends chills down the readers' spines as they watch with baited breath to see if the stars can beat the assassin and Blake can find the antidote. This work of romantic suspense is enjoyable to follow as the audience tries to decipher the clues along with the characters. THE PRADA PARADOX is a thoroughly enjoyable reading experience just likes it predecessors (see THE GIVENCHY CODE and THE MANOLO MATRIX).

Harriet Klausner