Summer Thrills

‘Scandalous Women’

Author Gill Paul imagines a friendship between two glamorous women in her latest, Scandalous Women. Jacqueline Susann was the first to shock the publishing industry with her now iconic Valley of the Dolls, which remains one of the all-time best-selling novels in history. Two years later, in 1968, Jackie Collins published The World is Full of Married Men, which also made the best-seller lists. Paul writes of an imaginary friendship between the two ambitious, over-the-top authors sharing a mentor-mentee relationship. The two are fighting against a misogynistic publishing world, critics who loathe both their work, and audiences who eat their books up by the millions. Paul gives the two extraordinary writers their due – women with their fingers on the pulse of the sexual revolution. 

‘Behind Every Good Man’

When Beverly Diamond walks in on her husband canoodling with his secretary, she sets out for revenge. She talks her way into a job assisting the senatorial campaign of a young underdog in Maryland, who just happens to be the political rival of the incumbent senator who employs her husband. In Behind Every Good Man, Sara Goodman Confino has written a humorous, yet heartfelt story of a 1960s woman determined to find her place in the work force as a newly single woman in the very male dominated political world of Washington, D.C. politics. 

‘The Hollywood Assistant’

The Hollywood Assistant is another fast-paced thriller from author May Cobb. Drawing on her years as an assistant for an A-list director and his beautiful actress wife, Cobb crafts a compelling story about Cassidy, a girl who finds herself at a crossroads in life. Bruised from a recent breakup, she leaps at the chance to move to Hollywood and start a new life. Her job seems too good to be true; there are shared cappuccinos in the morning and numerous glasses of wine at the end of the day. The actress is kind, and the husband is hot, and Cassidy quickly develops a crush on him, believing her feelings are reciprocated. All seems fine until he winds up dead in the bedroom with his wife looming over him. 

‘The Instrumentalist’

Author Harriet Constable uncovers a fascinating story of a group of orphan girls set in 18^th century Venice, Italy. The resulting historical fiction, The Instrumentalist is a moving portrait of a child prodigy violinist. Anna Maria della Pietà knows she is good and will do anything to become the greatest violinist of her day. If not, she will be married off to someone not of her choosing. Anna Maria comes under the tutelage of the temperamental Vivaldi who seems just as likely to break her as to let her become a serious rival to his talents. Anna Maria refuses to give up under his difficult tutelage, willing to sacrifice everything to become the greatest musician of her day. 

‘The Witch’s Daughter’

Musician Orenda Fink has written an incredibly moving, raw and vulnerable memoir entitled The Witch’s Daughter: My Mother, Her Magic and the Madness that Bound Us. Night after night, growing up, Fink sat with her mother who told magical tales of being a witch over countless glasses of booze. Fink, her sisters and both parents lived in near squalor in the south, in homes that battled an infestation of rats along with the demons their mother fought. Fink escapes when she starts a band with a friend. Moving away, she finds herself continually pulled back into the violence and the drama created by her mother. It will be nearly twenty years before Fink can extract herself through meditation, music and the discovery that her mother is most likely an undiagnosed borderline personality. This is a very special memoir of hope and resilience and the power of art and love.

‘When the Night Comes Falling’

Howard Blum’s When the Night Comes Falling: A Requiem for the Idaho Student Murders is a compelling masterpiece of investigative reporting. On the scene shortly after the four murders occur, Blum delves into the dark side of the college town of Moscow, Idaho, which involves a church sex scandal, drug use, and now the seemingly random killing of four young students. Unsparingly but with laudable sensitively, Blum delves into the lives of the victims, their devastated families, and the accused: a troubled criminology student. The book has already been likened to Capote’s masterpiece In Cold Blood. There is a reason Blum’s coverage of this tragedy had him nominated for a Pulitzer Prize. 

‘The Quiet Tenant’

The recently published paperback version of The Quiet Tenant by Clémence Michallon is a heart-pounding and creepy story, a must read for fans of psychological thrillers. The book starts with the “woman in the shed” who has been held against her will for five years. Okay, I know you are already saying “too creepy,” but what is genius about the story is the way Michallon crawls into the minds of all the characters involved. Written from the perspective of the three most important people in the killer’s life; his victim, the girl who wants to be his girlfriend, and his adored and very sheltered young daughter. It’s so good.