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Platinum
Unavailable
Platinum
Unavailable
Platinum
Audiobook14 hours

Platinum

Written by Jo Rees

Narrated by Laurel Lefkow

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

4/5

()

Currently unavailable

Currently unavailable

About this audiobook

Three sassy, but very different heroines: knock-out brunette Peaches Gold, LA's most influential madam, who in her late thirties is certainly fooling everyone that she's much younger than she looks; twenty-something blonde South African yacht stewardess Frankie Willis, and English socialite Lady Emma Harvey - in her prime at nearly fifty. The hooker, the maid, and the lady. They have every reason to distrust and despise each other, but their hatred for one man will unite them. Forever.
LanguageEnglish
Release dateDec 1, 2008
ISBN9781407431116
Unavailable
Platinum

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Reviews for Platinum

Rating: 3.807692369230769 out of 5 stars
4/5

13 ratings5 reviews

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  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    A very guilty pleasure filled with all of the gossip and scandal that makes the entertainment industry so interesting. King's writing is down to earth and her knack for conveying emotion kept me wanting more. Great summer read.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    If you're old enough to have been reading in the early 80s, you'll remember all of the hubbub over Jackie Collins' Hollywood Wives. Just in case you're not familiar with it, it's the beginning of her steamy series about what goes on in the lives of some of the most rich and famous, but of course, names have been changed to protect the innocent. Part of the fun in reading her books was trying to figure out who was whom.With Platinum, Aliya S. King has become the millennium's version of Jackie Collins. Think Hollywood Wives then replace it with the world of rap. Think west coast and then replace it with the east coast. Think scheming and conniving characters, then...think scheming and conniving characters.Freelance writer Alex Maxwell is engaged to an up and coming rapper. She's covered some of the biggest names in the industry. An assignment from Vibe finds her interviewing the wives, fiances and girlfriends of some of the most famous men on the east coast.Beth Saddlebrook, wife of aging rapper "Z", has been with her husband since she was 15 and he rescued her from her impoverished life in West Virginia. The mother of four, with another on the way, she's lived a pretty spectacular life. That's if you don't count the verbal and occasionally physical abuse, along with the cheating and drug use. As Z's career begins its descent, his behavior becomes more sporadic and Beth is sure he's using again.Kipenzi Hill is Beth's best friend and a star in her own right. Working in the industry since she was 3, Kipenzi is more than ready to get out of the game and marry her long time boyfriend Jake.The elegant Josephine Bennett is married to the hottest producer in the game. Josephine has everything she ever wanted in Ras. She's happy with her home and her design business. She'd be even happier if she was able to conceive.And finally there's Cleo Wright. Cleo's not married or dating any high powered men. She merely sleeps with them for blackmail purposes. Every man that's ever used her is about to have his life disrupted. She's about to score a big payday with her tell all novel co-written with Alex Maxwell.What did you like about this book?This is the perfect beach read. Though there are some disturbing moments here and there, the story never gets weighed down by them.What didn't you like about this book?There's been a lot of speculation on the web about whom the characters in Platinum are based on. With few exceptions, I didn't like the characters enough to even try to figure it out.What could the author do to improve this book?Though I didn't particularly care for some of the characters, I can't help but to think that was the author's intention. I would still be interested in reading a sequel because King does a great job of leaving the reader in suspense.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Sex. Scandal. Drugs. Groupies. You name it, and you’ll find it in Platinum, the latest novel by freelance journalist Aliya King. Inspired by an article written in 2006, King states in her book’s acknowledgments, “This novel was born out of a story written for VIBE (magazine) several years ago.” The article was entitled, The Secret Lives of Rappers’ Wives. True to its inspiration, Platinum highlights the life of Alex Maxwell, a freelance journalist for some of the hottest publications around including VIBE and the New York Times. Alex loves her work and the fact that it brings in quite a nice salary for her. It is also how she met her fiancé Birdie. Alex hooked up with Birdie after interviewing him which is typically against her rules. But hindsight is 20/20, and now Alex is planning their wedding while playing stepmom to his daughter. To add to her already busy life, Alex has agreed to take on the role of ghostwrite for video ho’ Cleo Wright. Not really knowing what she was getting herself into, Alex soon finds out that Cleo has the dirt on many well-known artists. Cleo is ruthless and out for blood, but smart. It seems that every move she makes is like playing chess, strategically thought out. In spite of having her doubts about the morality of this project, Alex did as agreed, and everything was fine until she received a piece to write about the inside lives of the girlfriends and wives of rappers from VIBE. It seems that all the women chosen as editor picks had men that are to be featured in Cleo’s tell-all book. Alex is left clueless as to how she will interview Beth, Kipenzi and Josephine with integrity while harboring nasty secrets about their partners. So getting to the nitty gritty. Beth’s husband is Z. Z is a rapper that has surpassed his prime and can’t seem to stay away from that dope. Like most addicts, you can’t tell him he has a problem, but there’s no need for that since Beth is his captain save a … Her life revolves around having countless babies by Z in spite of him being on dope and her constant state of denial. The entire time I was reading about Beth and those babies, all I could think was, “You already have a baby that is sickly, and you still having babies by this druggie.” To add fuel to the fire, Beth’s oldest son Chris , I mean- Zander has become a You Tube sensation over night and has hooked up with Ri-Ri , I mean- Bunny, a hurricane looking for land. Beth is worried about her son because he is starting to let the five- minutes of fame go to his head and looks to be on the path for an unhealthy relationship. Hopefully, Beth’s best friend, Kipenzi, is able to talk some sense into Zander. Kipenzi is like an aunt to Zander and just so happens to be a multiplatinum-selling R&B singer who is “unofficially” dating Jake, a rapper and record label president. They have this unspoken of relationship; everyone knows they're dating except for them. They try hard to make it seem as if they are not an item. Their hard work only makes them more suspect in the eyes of their fans. I must admit, the content of this book is more than I expected. When I read the synopsis, all I could think was The Real Housewives of Atlanta are about to meet the NBA Wives; that can only lead to some hot ghetto mess. However, when I read this novel, I enjoyed it. It was at times funny, suspense-filled and at other times, it just made me angry. I like how Aliya developed the characters and was able to maintain my attention throughout the entire novel. I would recommend this novel but I could only give it 3.5 out of 5 stars. I wanted to give it 4.5 stars out of 5 but I’ll share with you why I couldn’t. There were instances in this novel when I felt that Aliya was taking some low blows. It’s one thing to create fictitious characters to imitate people, which is fine, but to purposefully insult people. I’m not cool with that one. I will list the two examples that really made me blink twice. “Why not go out fighting?” Jake asked.“Like you and Puff and Jay? Forty years old and still rapping?Putting out a farewell album every other year like it makes sense?”&"Kipenzi hesitated. Her mother had been her only stylist—in the beginning because she couldn’t afford anyone else. And now, in the end, because it has become her mother’s identity. Kipenzi had grinned and borne it with several of her over-the-top sequin-covered creations. “These are just two examples that made me give this novel 3.5 stars out of 5. It is one thing to write about the lives of people but the insults, for me, is a real turn off even in fiction, when it gets too close to people real lives. When reading those comments, as fans, many of us already know who they are in reference to, but it was just poor judgment in my opinion. Others may not mind these references and may even find it funny, but I couldn’t. If this novel were without those insults, I would easily rate it a 4.5. As I read this book, I felt that this story had the ability to show that celebrities and their partners are people, too. I may be wrong, but that was just my interpretation. In spite of the aforementioned mishap, I hope there is a sequel. It should be awesome if written with the same style and tone as this novel, of course, without the sly insults.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    This was so much better than I thought it was going to. the cover art sugests it's going to be trashy and it is certainly better than that. Tells of 3 very different women who all have their loves ruined by one particularly nasty Russian businessman. In the case of Emma, I could see part of the ruination comming from a long way off - but not the whole extent of it. Frankie struck me as being the least rounded of the three, seeming very young and rather wide-eyed in her innocence. Her fate was probably the least believable of the three. And then Peaches was some creation - and I had no inking what was going to happen to her until it was upon me. Then there's the question of how do these three disparate women ever meet each other. They do and then revenge is had. It's all very glamorous, with the yachts and the parties and yet it wasn't just a shallow "bonk buster" so popular during the 80s. These women have substance and they come through in the end. I listened to the last few chaperts in the car in a traffic jam, bouncing up & down in my seat in excitement. It was really so much better than expected and I'm glad I listened to it.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I bought this book last summer in the sale and didn't expect much of it. Curiousity got the better of me and I was pleasantly surprised. Platinum is a fast, well structured, unpredictable and thrilling story. I had to get through the sense of doom you get in the first part of the book, because you have to witness the main characters's lives fall apart before they can take revenge, but it was worth it. Rees hasn't made this into a "She-Devil" tale (although I liked that story too!), but has added a lot more layers.I could have done without the happy ending in the mines - that made it a bit much.