The Starlet
A Novel
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- $2.99
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- $2.99
Publisher Description
It’s a not-so-well-respected rule in Hollywood that what happens on location stays on location. But when a hot young leading man winds up dead in his Rome hotel room, his costar’s life is about to go off the rails in a very public way—even by celeb standards.
At the tender age of twenty-three, Mercy Talbot has won an Oscar, battled addiction, wrecked more than her share of cars, and burned down her house. Her look-alike mother keeps her on a tight leash (and fueled with an endless supply of OxyContin and cocaine) and her producers demand a grueling schedule. By the time she stumbles across Juliette Greyson, a Hollywood insider on a much-needed vacation, Mercy is surrounded by photographers and about to emerge drunk, high, and naked from a public fountain. Whisking her away to an idyllic Tuscan ‘retreat,’ Juliette is about to discover another rule of Hollywood: wherever the starlet may go, the drama will follow.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
McNamara's over-the-top follow-up to Oscar Season brings back Juliette Greyson, head of public relations at an exclusive L.A. hotel. Juliette is vacationing in Florence when she sees drug-addled starlet Mercy Talbot about to dive into a fountain, much to the delight of the paparazzi. Reluctantly, Juliette rescues Mercy, who is AWOL from a movie shoot in Rome, and takes her to Cerreta, a country estate that Juliette half-owns. As Mercy seems less fraught out of Rome, the movie shoot relocates to Cerreta, and Juliette gets saddled with Mercy's harridan of a mother, dozens of Hollywood types weighed down by addiction, neuroses, and narcissism, and worst of all, Michael O'Connor, screen legend and Juliette's one-time lover. Attempted murders, detectives, overdoses, celebrity self-help gurus, and Cerreta's financial woes are all rolled into a messy but entertaining whole. The setting Perugia in the summer works well as a backdrop for this colorful, all-stops-out seriocomic romp.
