Magdalena's Shadow

by E. E. Orme

Overview

As the secret love child of supermodel Magdalena, Coco Rodriguez idolizes her mother, hoping to someday be reunited with her. When tragedy strikes, Coco becomes the guardian to Magdalena's five month old daughter and modeling empire. Coco is thrust into a world of drugs, celebrity and high fashion. As the paparazzi and business magnates invade her life, Coco is forced to grow up but struggles to maintain her authentic self in the face of luxury and fame. What follows is an empowering and shocking love story that focuses on forgiveness. Coco must take on her new world with shy steadfast determination to be more than an abandoned child cast off to live or die in Magdalena's shadow.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780998595306
Publisher:	The Wow House LLC
Publication date:	02/24/2017
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	440
File size:	796 KB

About the Author

E. E. Orme writes upmarket new adult and women's fiction with an emphasis on love, loss, empowerment and finding identity within relationship. Husband and wife may make a marriage but it is their uniquely expressed individuality that makes the marriage work. As a person living with Complex PTSD, E. E. Orme understands the importance of finding personal identity and empowerment after loss and disillusionment. E. E. Orme lives in the beautiful Pacific Northwest with her husband, son and stellar dog Aria.

Editorial Reviews

2017-03-28
In this poor-little-rich-girl YA story, a supermodel's daughter suffers, loves, and dazzles. Tall, gorgeous, 16-year-old Coco Rodriguez lives in a Chicago high-rise, abandoned there in early childhood by her jet-setting Argentinian supermodel mother, Magdalena, and left to the care of housekeepers. For three years, one housekeeper, Rosa, has abused the girl and told other people that Coco suffers from bipolar disorder. When Rosa's wrongdoings are exposed, Coco's life improves with a new housekeeper, Tia, who discloses that the new infant in the house—Bebe—is Coco's sister. One day, the teenager meets Rob Banks, her penthouse neighbor, a handsome lawyer who has sole custody of a young daughter, Mila. Soon Mila and Bebe are having play dates as 28-year old Rob and Coco, now 17, fall in love. The teenager never tells Rob that she's underage, and she also lets him believe that Bebe is her own daughter. Later, Rob is horrified when he learns that he's unwittingly committed statutory rape, and he ends the relationship. However, Coco is secretly pregnant with Rob's child. After Magdalena dies, the teenager becomes an instant hit as a model, taking over her mother's fashion labels. She later finds herself in physical danger, but a vision of Magdalena grants her peace and purpose. Debut writer Orme gets things off to a rocky start in the story's over-the-top opening section, which reads almost like horror fiction; in it, Rosa is painted as a broad, unpleasant caricature: "her double chins wobbled while spit flecked her fat lips." The novel also never answers some head-scratchers, such as how the inexperienced Coco manages to successfully run a business. Lovers of fashion, though, will enjoy the fantasy of a supermodel's daughter being showered with free designer outfits and instantly becoming a lauded model herself. Also likely to please are the details of Coco's and others' clothing designs and insider looks at the fashion world. Coco's abandonment issues also deepen the story, as she learns to handle both independence and motherhood. A sometimes-unbelievable novel that offers the melodramatic appeal of a telenovela.

Kirkus Reviews