Book Review: Maestra is the effort by L.S. (Lisa) Hilton to write a new, but more upscale and fatal version of 50 Shades of Grey, a book for our times. It ends up being the literary equivalent of a glossy fashion magazine edited by Dan Brown, if Brown was only interested in clothing, art, money, travel, homicide, shopping, food, and sex, in that order. Sidney Sheldon, Jackie Collins, and the Financial Times are other names that come to mind. Anything is acceptable in the pursuit of money; sex is an afterthought. Narcissism is the new religion; greed is good. Judith is willing to pay 1000 Euros for sex and a little light S&M, but then shoplifts from a small shop. There really isn't that much sex (tho Hilton is aiming for erotica, perhaps porn, and this is an adult book), and what occurs is meant more to shock than stimulate, but to each her own. Love is a foreign country, friendship is a distant shore. The most interesting relationship in Maestra is entirely asexual. According to Lisa Hilton (or is that Paris?), our beautiful heroine's motivation is "rage," but actually it's only greed and self-satisfaction. The death of three or more innocents, her best friend losing his job, none of these deter our heroine. In Judith's world, "no lives matter," and being irksome is punishable by death. It's readable, tho not overly well-written (forget reasonable or plausible); only stubbornness kept me from DNFing. If you enjoy glossy fashion magazines, descriptions of posh clothes, fancy food, exotic locales, and Eurotrash without any pesky morality, logic, or human interaction, Maestra is the book for you. Since this has already been announced as a trilogy, you know how it ends. [2 Stars]
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