Meet Josh and Evie Rose, heirs to the notorious legacy of Barbara and Jonathan. In The Children of the Roses, Warren Adler delivers a darkly comic, razor-sharp sequel about love, family, and the havoc we inherit.
Josh’s marriage to Victoria seems destined to avoid the mistakes of the past. But when a harmless prank involving missing Milky Ways at their son’s elite private school spirals into all-out war, everything changes. Josh and Victoria find themselves caught in a whirlwind of emotional chaos, fueled by a depraved headmaster, hidden affairs, and a meddling mother-in-law with a vendetta against men.
Meanwhile, Josh’s sister Evie, ever loyal and always ready with a comforting meal, tries to hold the family together. As tensions rise, even the children, Michael and Emily, plot their own desperate plan to keep their family from falling apart.
The Children of the Roses was first published in May of 2004. Book Whisperer, who will be rereleasing it on September 15, 2025, provided a galley for review.
After reading the original The War of the Roses earlier this summer, I was interested in seeing what its sequel had to offer. Adler jumps the story from the 80's into the 2000's as now we are focusing on the grown-up Rose kids in this new century.
This book is very much a focus on Josh's household and marriage with Evie serving as a secondary, support character until much later in the book. It certainly works for me. It is also about secrets and transparency, and how too much of the former and too little of the latter can lead to major problems. As with the first novel in the series, this one turns up the heat at a steady pace and brings the whole situation to an overflowing boil of emotion and reactions. It is interesting to see characters put through this kind of gauntlet.
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