Feminine Force

Up from poverty with "beautiful, glamorous" ex-Washington "social hurricane" Mosbacher, 45, who here releases her secrets for getting what she wants - including marrying a millionaire (in her case, three); buying and selling businesses at a profit (using her divorce settlements as seed money); and conquering the Washington social scene by raising pots of money for political campaigns. The moral: Any woman can serve her own interests if she'll harness the gale-force drive called "feminine force." Like most books promoting the power of positive thinking, this is part inspirational biography, part celebrity gossip, and part instruction manual. Mosbacher's "feminine force" was handed down through three generations of poor but independent Indiana women, and outlived two divorces - from kind but boring (and possibly insufficiently rich) L.A. mogul Robert Muir, whom the author married at 23, and from George Barrie, the elderly, drunken, and abusive but very rich and powerful CEO of Faberg. (Later, the author pressed into marriage a reluctant ex-secretary of commerce, Robert Mosbacher, richer and more powerful than either of her previous husbands.) Feminine force has carried Mosbacher through the buying and selling of La Prairie cosmetics, the founding of her own company, and the painful episode of discovering that her beloved brother is an alcoholic. Her secret: Early on, she remade herself to "bring out the inner me." She understands that "attention is power" and so promotes her image wherever she goes - including to White House dinners her husband can't attend. Although she never gives up, she does compromise: "There are differences between men and women," she writes, including a man's natural inability to worry about dinners and clean socks - that's a woman's job. A thoroughly American, unflaggingly cheerful view of life that will appeal to many readers. What sourpuss would ask for rigorous honesty besides? (Kirkus Reviews)