The Liz Taylor Ring by Brenda Janowitz ~ a Review

by Susan Roberts

Three siblings. A priceless family ring. One legendary love story.

Amazon affiliate links are used on this site. A free book was provided for an honest review.

February 2022; Graydon House; 978-1525899874
audio, ebook, print (368 pages); women's fiction

In 1968, Richard Burton gave Liz Taylor a large diamond that she had made into a ring.  The diamond was his attempt to get their lives together again.  Lizzie had always been enamored of Elizabeth Taylor and the life she led.  Her husband, Ritchie, was aware of that and gifted her an 11-carat diamond after their nine-month separation.  The ring was a symbol of their love, at least until the love was gone and the ring disappeared.  Both couples had their ups and downs and this is Ritchie and Lizzie's story of their romance over the years.

This story is told in two time periods - 1968 begins the story of Lizzie and Ritchie when they start their tumultuous romance.  The present day part of the story is told by their three adult children - Addy, Nathan, and Courtney.  The ring that symbolizes their parents' love has been lost for years and when it is finally found in a safety deposit box, the three children each feel that it belongs to them.

Lizzie met Ritchie at a party and despite the fact that she knew her parents would not be happy with her relationship, she fell in love and married him. They loved each other deeply and even though she knew that Ritchie gambled for fun, she wasn't aware of his addiction to gambling until he lost their new house.  After that happened, she made him leave but they ended up together again after nine months.  When they got together again, he gifted her with the 11-carat diamond that symbolized their love.  Little did she know, but Ritchie lost the ring with his gambling and had a cubic zirconium replacement made to replace it.  Several times during their lives, he lost and then reclaimed her ring.  When the ring was stolen, Lizzie was upset but was it the real ring or the fake ring??

The three children also had problems in their lives.  Addy was married with twin daughters.  She always felt like the main decision-maker of the three and worked hard to keep her brother in line.  Nathan is only 11 months younger than Addie and they had been close their entire lives.  His mother always told him about the wonderful romance that his mom and dad had over the years and he was always searching for that perfect love.  He is gay and his desire for the great love his parents had, is causing problems in his marriage.  Courtney was 12 years younger than the older children.  She moved to California to become an actress but had not been successful in her endeavors.  She was a gambler and had started dating older men for money.  The two older kids never treated her well and when they all gather in Long Island, the old hurts and anger from their younger years re-surfaced.  After the ring is found again, all three of them feel like it should be theirs - Addie because she was the oldest, Nathan because he felt that he understood their lives more than the others, and Courtney because she was the baby also she needed it the most to get her life back on track.

Who will the diamond end up with?  Will it bring them together so they can move forward as a family or create divisions that can't be overcome?

I enjoyed this book from page 1.  The characters are all well written - flaws and all!  The plot is well thought out and the author did a great job of combining some facts about Liz Taylor and her life throughout the book.  This is a great story about family love and distrust, addiction, forgiveness, and hope for the future.

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Susan Roberts lives in North Carolina with her husband of over 50 years.  She grew up in Michigan but now calls North Carolina home. She enjoys reading, traveling, and spending time with her family. She reads almost anything (and the piles of books in her house prove that) but her favorite genres are Southern fiction, women's fiction, and historical fiction. Susan is a top 1% Goodreads Reviewer. You can connect with Susan on Facebook.

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