Vegas Sunrise

FROM THE PUBLISHER

Fanny Thornton Reed, proud matriarch of the Thornton dynasty, will do anything to keep her family together. Her four children, all grown now, mean everything to her...as does Babylon, the most dazzling casino in Las Vegas - and the Thorntons' crowning achievement. But now, with her own children dispersed to far-flung corners of the globe, Fanny chooses Jeff, the illegitimate son of her deceased husband, Ash, to run Babylon. It is a decision she will live to regret. An unscrupulous schemer who will stop at nothing to achieve his ruthless ends, Jeff has devised a plan that turns Fanny's four children against each other. As the siblings vie for their rightful heritage, deceit, distrust, and thwarted dreams of power threaten to divide the Thorntons once and for all.

SYNOPSIS

The powerful conclusion to Fern Michaels's bestselling Vegas trilogy, about the intertwined destinies of the Thornton and Coleman families.

FROM THE CRITICS

Publishers Weekly

Who will run the Babylon casino? That's the millions-of-dollars question in the thin final volume in Michaels's Vegas trilogy. Fanny Coleman Thornton Reed, clan matriarch and widow of Babylon-builder Ash Thornton, thinks she has the matter in hand. Her son Sage despises the casino life; his twin, Birch, is in South America; daughter Sunny is incapacitated by multiple sclerosis while daughter Billie is running her own design business. So control will pass to Ash's illegitimate son, Jeff Lassiter, whom Fanny has embraced as family. Then Birch returns, unannounced, with his scheming new wife, Celia, and the jackpot spills trouble. The Thorntons may run the flashiest casino in Vegas, but they work like Calvinists, espouse family values and dress down. After three years in the jungles of Costa Rica with Birch, Celia wants some clothes, for heaven's sake, and she is instantly cast as the whore of Babylon. Alas, we do not really care who wins the day. The good guys are sanctimonious, the bad guys merely annoying. Out of the whole sprawling clan only Sunny is truly lovable, and she is reduced to a poster child for MS. As Michaels finds a man for Fanny, only Vegas addicts are likely to hang around for the payoff. (Oct.)

Kirkus Reviews

The final installment of Michaels's Vegas trilogy is even more over the top than its predecessors (Vegas Rich, 1996; Vegas Heat, p. 87).

Here, matriarch Fanny Coleman Thornton confronts all her old demons and some new ones too as she oversees Babylon, the family casino, with her by now characteristic blend of steel nerves and fluttering indecision. Her four children aren't always a help. Son Birch finally returns from South America with new wife Celia in tow—a conniving gold-digger as everyone (but Birch) knows. Birch's saintly twin Sage is having problems with his equally saintly (and pregnant) wife Iris. Sunny, who has inexplicably been institutionalized with multiple sclerosis despite complete wheelchair mobility and no negative effects to her mental capacity (she's still portrayed as the sharpest Thornton child), wants to marry her also-wheelchair-bound beau. And, finally, Billie, the child no one ever had to worry about, has been sneaking around Vegas incognito in a desperate attempt to conceal her gambling addiction from the family. When Fanny allows her former (and deceased) husband Ash's illegitimate son Jeff Lassiter to take over the day-to-day operations of Babylon, everyone's life is thrown into an utter uproar—especially after Sage discovers (thanks to longtime friends in service as spies) that Jeff and Celia are in cahoots. Meanwhile, the least appealing aspect of this third, and purported last, installment in the saga is that the dead Ash is given one of the leading roles; he appears to all the Thorntons as a vision in times of crisis, doling out advice in his customary crotchety manner. Before his demise Ash was tolerable, but as a ghost he's insufferable.

Far too many Thorntons and entrepreneurial schemes (casinos in Atlantic City, free-range chicken farms, fast-food restaurants, etc.) clutter this already jam-packed finale.