Book Review: Platinum by Jo Rees

Platinum focuses on the lives of 3 women all scorned by one man and how their lives were ruined by the evil Yuri Khordinsky.

Frankie is a computer-whizz, but due to something that happened to her at home in South Africa, she's now a stewardess on board Pushkin, a yacht owned by rich businessman Alex. But when Frankie gets to know Alex better, is her life ever going to be the same? Peaches Gold is a high-class prostitute, running her own female-escort service (to put it politely!), and she knows secrets about the biggest names in Hollywood, but does someone know a secret about her? Finally, Lady Emma Harvey lives in England with her husband, who's about to open a Platinum mine in Russia.

But when Emma is shocked to her core, will she get to the bottom of what really happened? The three women are unlikely allies, but they decide together, they have to bring down Yuri Khordinsky and make him pay for the tragedies he has caused.



Being a story that has 3 main characters, the author Jo Rees has written the book in the third person and has chosen to dedicate a chapter at a time to each character, allowing us to get a good glimpse into their lives and the background story before diving into the main crux of the story. This allows us to develop a likeness for all 3 of the characters, show us their differences and engross yourself a bit in the unbelievably glamourous lives of the three women. I immediately warmed to Frankie, found Emma a little hard to like but loved Peaches because she was so outrageous! All 3 are incredibly different, each living in a different part of the world; Frankie on the boat in the Carribean and Marrakesh, Peaches in LA and Emma in England, adding to the sumptuousness of the novel!

You can probably tell from the storyline that this isn't a novel set in the "real world" with realistic characters - each of them lives a life most of us could only dream about, but I quite enjoy this style of book actually! It's nice to occasionally be transported out of your day to day life of being a mum around the world to Marrakesh, to the Cannes Film Festival, the dark depths of Moscow and the staely homes of London all in one novel as well! Rees really does a great job in bringing these places to life in the story, making you feel as if you are there with the three women, living the life of luxury! And this is what I really loved - the author has a great ability to make you dream about these places and really visualise them, which makes the novel just a fantastic read overall.

The story is primarily a revenge story, but I will say that it did take a while to get into the whole reason for the revenge against Yuri, and what exactly happened to the women to make them want revenge. In a way, I preferred this as you could get to know the characters well enough, and then when they were wronged, you wanted them to win against Khordinsky's character and therefore you get passionate about it, despite how silly it might seem. I did wonder how Rees would be able to weave 3 totally different characters together in a way which would work, but she has done just that. They knit nicely together when required, but not in a sickly sweet way, purely in a business/revenge sense and this works for the purpose of this book.

I didn't expect to like this book to be honest, because it sounded somewhat unrealistic and a little bit silly, but once I started reading it, I just didn't want to put it down! I was desperate to know what was going to happen to the women to make them want revenge, and then after that, I wanted to see how they were going to exact their revenge on him. The characters were strong, likeable women who were incredibly well written, the places in the story were well written and I loved travelling the world in one book.There were nice characters, horrible Russian mafia characters, American FBI officers and posh society friends, and each of them helped make the book a rich world that the reader can really imagine and get involved in! It's a fun read, a real page turner and I'd definitely recommend it as a great summer read!

Rating: 5/5

Many thanks to the publishers for sending us a copy for review.

Note: Jo Rees is another name for writer Josie Lloyd.