The Secret Heiress

A superstitious father separates his twin daughters at birth. He believes their appearance is a curse that will be the downfall of the business empire he has toiled to achieve. In a bid to foil fate, he chooses the one he believes to be good and sends the other away never to learn of her heritage.

Nikoletta Papadaki was born into wealth and is the sole heiress to her father’s fortune. Twenty-one years old and now head of Papadaki Private Holdings Limited, she considers the world to be her oyster. Having been groomed for this role from childhood she considers the power that comes with her position as her right rather than a responsibility. She is beautiful, willful, and completely without conscience. This does not bode well for the business or for those most defenseless to industrial abuses.

A board of advisors was set up by Niki’s late father and they are appalled at the course PPHL is taking under the direction of this spoiled woman. Unscrupulous business decisions have made the company a target for the ecoterrorist group called Mother Earth’s Children. Agreeing that something must be done to save Nikos Papdaki’s legacy they set into motion an outrageous plan of switched identities that depends on a not so lost twin taking the helm.

Ariadne has led a normal and quiet life growing up with foster parents in a small town in Connecticut. She is studying for a business degree and immersing herself in art when her life takes an unexpected turn and nothing will ever be quite the same again.

Those who pick up this book expecting much in suspense will be disappointed. Most of the first half of the book was used to display the ruthlessness of the bad twin and to showcase how she victimized those in her path. On ocassions where the machinations needed subterfuge they were so thinly veiled that this reviewer had no sympathy for the victim.

Niki will certainly be a villainess that readers will love to loathe. There is a complete lack of feelings for anyone other than herself. The lengths which she will resort to in order to achieve what she wants regardless of who she hurts or how she hurts them, is truly shocking. Her selfish disregard is the same in the boardroom and in her personal life. Unfortunately, this unrelenting portrayal with nary a finer feeling to be found makes our heiress something of a cardboard cutout rather than a well fleshed character.

Twin sister Ariadne may be the better woman but even with a synopsis of her background given, she is not very decisively drawn. While we feel that one would find her to be pleasant enough if one were to meet her, she is not particularly remarkable somehow. That her bodyguard and love interest Matt Foster as well as the board of advisors feel differently is clear.

This is not a plot to take with much seriousness and indeed it does not bear well under overly close scrutiny. Learning enough about a person’s mannerisms, attitudes, and mixed European accent to adequately make an impersonation in extremely limited time is mind boggling. The element of suspense in murder attempts by a violent ecological group keeps the latter half of the book moving and allows for a tidying of lose ends though not perhaps very credibly.

THE SECRET HEIRESS takes us into the world of the glitterati that was terribly popular to read about in the not so distant past. The playgrounds, lives and the whims of the privileged international jet set are delved into with much glee. This may be a guilty pleasure read for those who love the escapism of the soap opera drama intrigues with their displays of wealth and sex. Viewed as such it is a successful diversion from everyday life.

November 2006