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Great Translations: The Yellow Eyes of Crocodiles by Katherine Pancol
Sisters: one is introverted, bookish and frumpy; the other is extroverted, sexy and has all the guys wrapped around her finger. And yet there is some justice in the world.
The Story: In this French novel, the sexy sister, who married into money through her good looks and appears to have it all, gets her frumpy sister, a medieval research historian, to ghost-write a historical novel for her. The story follows the intellectual sister.
The medieval historian is in dire financial straits with two daughters and an ex-husband who just ran off to Africa with his girlfriend to raise crocodiles for the Chinese market. Her two daughters repeat the sister pattern: the older one is hot and has all the guys mooning over her and doing her bidding; the younger daughter, like her mom, is plain looking and a timid wallflower.
The ghost-written novel is wildly successful and we get a bit of come-uppance because the deal is that the plain, intellectual sister will earn all the money from the book. The other sister already has money and she just wants to take to the airwaves to do PR for “her” novel. I’m not giving away any plot…
