SECRETS OF THE HOLLYWOOD GIRLS CLUB

Author: Maggie Marr ISBN: 9780307346315 4/2008 CONTEMPORARY Publisher: CROWN

Life at the top of the A-list is fabulous, but it's a long way down if you fall and the cameras are always waiting to publicly humiliate you if you do. Talented actress Celeste, successful agent/manager Jessica, powerful executive producer Lydia, and hot screenwriter Mary Anne have stayed at the top by sticking together and creating great films. But when these powerful movie mavens are called to the set this time, each of them has a lot more to lose. Celeste is starting to find tiny lines near her eyes and she's wondering how long she can hold on to her A-list status and her uber-successful boyfriend. Screenwriter Mary Anne Meyers has started seeing Holden Humphrey, the biggest leading man in Hollywood, and everyone in America is watching. Jessica is juggling a family, a demanding career and her husband. While Lydia's running one of the busiest film studios around, and now someone is sending her creepy notes and trying to blackmail her. Meanwhile publicist Kiki Dee seem to have a hand in all the secrets...and she's willing to do anything to keep her spot at the top of the Hollywood PR machine. Can the Hollywood Girls Club hold their lives and romances together while still getting a film made amid all the craziness?

RRAH's THOUGHTS AND PONDERINGS:

Maggie Marr is addictive! I just powered through HOLLYWOOD GIRLS CLUB and its sequel, SECRETS OF THE HOLLYWOODS GIRLS CLUB, and I couldn’t get enough. These books are the perfect fun, trashy Hollywood novels, where nothing is sacred except friendship and occasionally love.

I’d recommend reading them in order, because you’ll miss some of the detail that enriches the story if you don’t read the first book. Celeste, Jessica, Lydia and Mary Anne, Hollywood players extraordinaire, have continued their friendship for years now. Mary Anne joined the quartet in the first book, which was about four years ago. She’s the wholesome midwestern gal, but now the hot screenwriter is becoming as big a star as the others.

Kiki, a minor character in the first book, comes to the forefront here. She’s an aging publicist with all the secrets. It’s hard to believe there are any in this version of Hollywood, with cameras and recorders apparently picking up every move. But all these details aren’t meant to be concealed from insiders, just the kind of people who read Vanity Fair and go to the movies.

Drugs, plastic surgery, sexual orientation —all these things need to be a secret from the rest of the world. Snippets may sneak out, but proof can’t ever. In a town where you don’t even trust the people you supply paychecks to, how can you ever stay on top? Everyone is a barracuda. But with friends and lovers on your side, it seems you can succeed on your own terms, even in Hollywood.

Heather Hiestand