Wednesday's review reminded me how much I love dishy Hollywood novels so I'm reprising my review of one of my favorites. This is a great fall weekend reading option. The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo is catnip to anyone who loves old movies. In Evelyn, Taylor Jenkins Reid has created an amalgam of all the old glamor girls: Lana Turner and Elizabeth Taylor for ... Read More...
The Seventh Veil of Salome
The Hollywood studio system reached its zenith in the 1950s. Young women and men were discovered, groomed, coached, and molded into some of the movie industry’s biggest stars. Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s new novel, The Seventh Veil of Salome uses the original Biblical tale as the underpinnings beneath the making of a big-budget picture based on Salome’s story to dramatic ... Read More...
I’m Glad My Mom Died
How to review a memoir with a title so jarring I felt bad for even looking at it? Especially as my mother has always been one of the biggest supporters of my writing and reads every review (Hi, Mom, I love you!). Here goes. Jennette McCurdy was a child actor on a popular Nickelodeon show called iCarly. Now in her mid-thirties she’s released her memoir, I’m Glad My Mom Died. The ... Read More...
Siren Queen: A Novel
After the penetrating reality of displacement in An Unlasting Home I opted to change reading direction and dive into fantasy. My choice, Siren Queen, led me deep into a 1920s Hollywood that was at once recognizable, but darkly surreal. A world one young American Chinese woman is desperate to be a part of, but only on her own terms. This premise alone gives Nghi Vo plenty of ... Read More...
Been There, Married That
What happens when powerful, high profile Hollywood producers decide their old wife is tired and they want a younger model? We all know the answer, as does Gigie Levangie, the former wife of uber-Hollywood exec, Brian Grazer. They may have been divorced for decades but Levangie has been successfully mining her private life to write snarky fiction for years. She’s back with her ... Read More...
Delayed Rays of a Star
The premise for Delayed Rays of a Star is one I love. In 1928 young photographer Alfred Eisenstaedt took a photo of three women at a party in Berlin (see below). One of them, Anna May Wong, was already famous as a Hollywood actress, but the other two, Marlene Dietrich and Leni Riefenstahl had yet to achieve celebrity. Author Amanda Lee Koe takes this one photograph and spins it ... Read More...
