Sidney Shelton is a famous American popular novelist.His novels are good at describing women, the plots are fascinating, and they have certain social power, so he published a best-selling one, which has been translated into more than 30 languages.His main works include: , , "The Woman Who Betrayed God", "Doomsday War" and "Midnight Soul". In 1993, he launched his latest masterpiece (formerly known as "Starlight").After the book was published, it won the favor of readers because of its novel and unique themes, the ups and downs of the plot, and the fate of the characters. It soon became one of the top ten best-selling books in the United States and was all the rage.

The meaning of the title has been pointed out in the "Preface": "The stars are shining coldly, looking down on the world of fireworks, as if weeping, lamenting all living beings." The novel describes Lara, a girl from a small town. The real estate development industry, which only men dare to care about, has achieved initial success in his hometown.Then she advances into Chicago and the metropolis of New York, and experiences repeated risks in the shopping malls, but with the secret help of the mafia leader, she miraculously saves herself from danger.She made rapid progress and became a tycoon in the hot real estate development industry, but she fell into an inescapable crisis emotionally.Through the process of a strong woman's fortune and the complex spiritual world, the novel gives a multi-faceted perspective of the little-known insider information about the real estate business activities in the United States in the 1970s and 1980s, reveals various means of business competition, and reflects the intricate interpersonal relationships. Relationships help us recognize and understand an aspect of contemporary American society.

The heroine in the novel, Lara Cameron, is a shrewd and capable woman that the author strives to portray.Her background and experience determine the multiple and complex nature of her character.She grew up in a family without motherly love and joy.Her mother died just after she was born, and she was a disaster in the eyes of her father.Such a family environment created her stubborn and persevering character, and also made her mature prematurely.She took up the burden of life at a young age. After her father fell ill, she took the place of her father to collect rent from the tenants for the employer. In dealing with the tenants, she showed her extraordinary mobility.She endured the torture of poverty, longed to own her own things, and dreamed of having a piece of land of her own one day.In her young mind, there was a strong desire for pursuit.After she got in touch with tenants who had been engaged in real estate business, she came up with the idea of ​​running a real estate business.She is eager to learn from the tenants how to manage the real estate industry. She understands that the secret of real estate development is to "use other people's money to do your own business", and the principle of real estate development is to "choose the best location". I learned how to use bank loans, how to use mortgages, and how to raise follow-up funds.That's when fate opened the door for her into real estate development, offering her a rare opportunity: A tenant named Cohen, an agent for a company, was scouting for a new store for the company.Lara cared for him and won his favor.With his full support, the penniless Lara stepped onto the stage of the real estate development industry and began to emerge.She signed a ten-year lease with Cohen; she bought the land with a humiliating loan from banker McAllister;Finally, she built the first building through hard work, and achieved success when she was fledgling.At this time, Lara is shown in front of the readers as a woman who is alert, kind, assertive, able to endure humiliation, and whose talent is emerging.In order to further shape the image of a modern strong woman, the author pushes her into a wider space, and paints the scenes of her galloping in the real estate markets of Chicago and New York with heavy ink and color.

In Chicago, Lara hit a wall at first, and the bankers sneered and dismissed Lara who was seeking financial assistance.Lara was not discouraged, she persistently pursued her career with perseverance and tenacity.At this time, she got the sincere help of the bank clerk Howard Keller, and adopted his suggestion: invest a small amount of money to buy the dilapidated hotel and transform it into a luxurious shopping hotel.This wise choice proves that Lara is a business-minded woman, and she once again showed her talent in the real estate industry.In Chicago, she was an instant hit, but it didn't die down.She took advantage of the economic growth of the United States and the changing world in the late 1970s, and through joint ventures, she built the largest shopping mall in Chicago, office buildings, high-rise residential areas, skyscrapers and country clubs, and started a tertiary industry. , the profits follow.She became a man of the hour in the real estate industry.In the writer's pen, Lara is a courageous and enterprising woman.However, the writer didn't stop at the superficial description, after portraying Lara's shrewd and capable character, he began to explore the other side of her character.As a female tycoon, Lara, as her career flourished and her status rose sharply, she began to become domineering and assertive, and she ruthlessly kicked away anyone who stood in her way; , but it is often mixed with businessman's fraud, and even playing tricks, which is close to extortion.In order to obtain the property rights of a piece of land, she sent someone to pretend to be the buyer, and cleverly persuaded the shopkeepers to sell the property rights.In New York, in order to get the tenants who refused to move to give up the land, she instigated her staff to recruit a large number of homeless people to enter the apartment, making the tenants uneasy, and even asked the construction team to forcibly demolish the apartment to force the tenants to submit.In order to prevent the management office from refusing to approve the development right of a piece of real estate on the grounds of environmental pollution, she did not hesitate to fabricate a lie, pretending that she had a 10-year-old daughter who would live in a new building to be built, so as to defraud the director of the management office. Sympathetic, made an exception and gave her the green light.All these show that Lara at this time is not the same as Lara in the past. If she was still pursuing career before, now she is completely pursuing profit.Money annihilated her innocence and distorted her innocent emotions.For her own self-interest, in order to build a huge Cameron Empire, she not only played tricks, but also attached herself to the black forces, and even promised her body.If she was forced to sacrifice her virginity in order to obtain a bank loan from the banker Sean McAllister when she first entered the real estate industry, she was now committed to the mafia lawyer Paul Martin. , but willingly.Although she gained the wealth and status she dreamed of, she lost the kindness and sincerity of human nature.Fierce business competition has created a capable and tyrannical strong woman.She shines like a star, but it is a cold light, which is lamentable.A strong woman like Lara is a product of the Western society where the weak prey on the strong, and her character traits are inevitably branded by society.

Sheldon's novels are good at weaving plots, as well.The whole novel takes Lara's management of the real estate industry as the main line, and at the same time takes the emotional entanglement as the auxiliary line, with a unique conception.When describing Lara's real estate business, often when she was in a desperate situation, she changed her style of writing and wrote how she came back from the dead, which made people feel like "the mountains and rivers are full of doubts, and there is another village". Ups and downs, patchwork.When describing Lara's pursuit of the musician Philip, Howard Keller's love for Lara and the ambiguous relationship between Lara and Martin are interspersed, which make the plot complicated.

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