A rousing success: Moreno-Garcia proves, once again, that she is a master of her craft.
A bitter actor goes to war with a Hollywood newcomer in this historical novel.
It’s 1955, and Hollywood can’t stop talking about The Seventh Veil of Salome, a film that its beleaguered screenwriter calls “one of those sword-and-sandal flicks” and a “picture with a camel, a palace, and a garbage plot thinly inspired by a Biblical story.” The film has been in the works for years; one of the reasons is that its director has had trouble finding an actor for the title role, the first-century princess who plays a part in the New Testament. The director finally settles on a 21-year-old Mexican newcomer named Francisca Severa Larios Gavaldón, whom the studio renames Vera Larios. Vera’s rapid ascent irks Nancy Hartley, “a professional party girl more than she was an actress,” who nevertheless badly wanted the role herself. Nancy also wants Jay Rutland, a handsome jazz pianist who has his eyes set on Vera. Nancy is a racist with a nasty temperament—“God help the person who incurred her wrath”—which means she has no intention of letting Vera go unpunished. Meanwhile, Vera tries to adjust to her new life in Hollywood, deal with her overbearing mother, and avoid the unwanted attentions of a sex-pest actor who believes he’s entitled to her body. Moreno-Garcia’s novel is told from a variety of perspectives, and she captures each voice perfectly, with dialogue that’s artfully and subtly reminiscent of Golden Age movies. She also proves to be an expert at building suspense—she telegraphs that Vera and Nancy’s rivalry will end explosively, but still manages to end the novel with a genuine surprise. The author has proved with previous books like Mexican Gothic (2020) and Velvet Was the Night (2021) that she’s a master storyteller who can move among genres with ease, so it’s no surprise that this foray into historical fiction is intelligent, exciting, and written absolutely beautifully.
A rousing success: Moreno-Garcia proves, once again, that she is a master of her craft.Pub Date: Aug. 6, 2024
ISBN: 9780593600269
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Del Rey
Review Posted Online: June 15, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2024
SEEN & HEARD
Uneven but fitfully amusing.
Betrayed by her husband, a severely depressed young woman gets drawn into the over-the-top festivities at a lavish wedding.
Phoebe Stone, who teaches English literature at a St. Louis college, is plotting her own demise. Her husband, Matt, has left her for another woman, and Phoebe is taking it hard. Indeed, she's determined just where and how she will end it all: at an oceanfront hotel in Newport, where she will lie on a king-sized canopy bed and take a bottle of her cat’s painkillers. At the hotel, Phoebe meets bride-to-be Lila, a headstrong rich girl presiding over her own extravagant six-day wedding celebration. Lila thought she had booked every room in the hotel, and learning of Phoebe's suicidal intentions, she forbids this stray guest from disrupting the nuptials: “No. You definitely can’t kill yourself. This is my wedding week.” After the punchy opening, a grim flashback to the meltdown of Phoebe's marriage temporarily darkens the mood, but things pick up when spoiled Lila interrupts Phoebe's preparations and sweeps her up in the wedding juggernaut. The slide from earnest drama to broad farce is somewhat jarring, but from this point on, Espach crafts an enjoyable—if overstuffed—comedy of manners. When the original maid of honor drops out, Phoebe is persuaded, against her better judgment, to take her place. There’s some fun to be had here: The wedding party—including groom-to-be Gary, a widower, and his 11-year-old daughter—takes surfing lessons; the women in the group have a session with a Sex Woman. But it all goes on too long, and the humor can seem forced, reaching a low point when someone has sex with the vintage wedding car (you don’t want to know the details). Later, when two characters have a meet-cute in a hot tub, readers will guess exactly how the marriage plot resolves.
Uneven but fitfully amusing.Pub Date: July 30, 2024
ISBN: 9781250899576
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: Sept. 13, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
The mystery plot and the Italian idyl both play supporting roles in this fairy tale for grownups.
Scottoline’s latest links her great love of Italy with her long record of female-centered crime fiction.
Julia Pritzker has a presentiment that something terrible is around the corner, but she never imagines just how terrible: When her husband, Philadelphia attorney Mike Shallette, tries to protect her from a man who grabs her designer bag, he gets stabbed to death before her eyes. Julia’s grief becomes laced with guilt when she realizes that her daily horoscope had predicted a calamity she’s now convinced she could have prevented. The news from Italian attorney Massimiliano Lombardi that his late client has left her millions in cash and an estate worth nearly as much again doesn’t comfort her, but it does provide distraction—especially since she’s never heard of Emilia Rossi and has no idea why she’s been chosen as her heir. Since Julia, adopted at an early age by a couple who’ve been dead for years, wonders if Emilia might have been her biological grandmother, she travels to Chianti in hope of recovering some of Emilia’s DNA. Unfortunately, caretakers Anna Mattia Vesta and Piero Fano have burned all of Emilia’s clothing and personal items on her orders, so there’s nothing left to test. Growing convinced that the stars are directing her and that her history is rooted in Emilia’s decrepit house, Julia turns down repeated offers for the property and resolves to secure evidence confirming the relationship between Emilia and her. Now all she has to do is protect herself from the shadowy figures tracking and following her and recover from a series of vivid, hallucinatory nightmares that seem to be the cost of claiming her heritage.
The mystery plot and the Italian idyl both play supporting roles in this fairy tale for grownups.Pub Date: July 15, 2025
ISBN: 9781538769997
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: May 16, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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