Birds of California is one of the better post-#MeToo showbiz-kids –grow-up-in-Hollywood novels. Warm and inviting,with engaging characters who are enjoyable, it gets slightly dinged for pacing issues. Fiona St. James was once the child star on the family dramedy The Birds of California, which combined the joys of ornithology with various issues surrounding growing up. …
Meg Tilly does such a good job of the world-building in her tales of romantic suspense that reading her books always tends to be a treat. The Runaway Heiress is a little more fun than her more slice-of-life Solace Island series – which I already liked (and to which this book is lightly tied) –…
Find Me in Havana is a difficult book to grade. Startling, original, frank and powerful, it spellbinds and breaks a reader’s heart. The book tells the tale of Estelita Rodriguez, a Cuban actress whose time in the spotlight led to a supporting role in Rio Bravo and a series of Roy Rogers films. Estelita had…
Grace Turner – née Hyde – had it all; or so it seemed. A Hollywood starlet on the eve of a breakthrough into the serious acting world, she was plucked from England via a stroke of luck at the age of thirteen. In acting, she found a way to snag the attention of her parents…
Marie Benedict’s The Only Woman in the Room is the story of Hedy Lamarr, a woman best known for her roles on the silver screen. Ms. Benedict looks deeper into Hedy’s life, bringing us an engrossing tale of a woman who is both brilliant and beautiful. Hedy Kieseler is a Jewish woman married to an…
On rereading Barbara Hambly’s Bride of the Rat God for the purpose of writing this review, I was surprised once more by what a truly superb novel it is. On rereading, I found new details to savor, ones that I had overlooked before because I had been too caught up in the excitement of the…
Kristin Hardy begins the new Sex and the Supper Club trilogy with a great appetizer – Turn Me On. This is one hot book about rekindling an old love affair, and it features a wide variety of love scenes. Stef Costas is a top documentary film-maker preparing to direct the one project he’s always dreamed…
How do you combine Hollywood, the South, a movie very like Gone With The Wind, a mystery and a romance? Those are a lot of ingredients to combine in a novel, but Kathleen Gilles Seidel makes the mix shine in More than You Dreamed. The heroine, Jill Casler, has just inherited a huge sum from…