Hollywood Girls Club
by Maggie Marr
Published by Crown Publishers
Click on book
cover to order
at Amazon.com
Reviewed by Julie Failla Earhart
Lawyer, motion picture literary agent, and now novelist, Maggie Marr has released her debut novel, Hollywood Girls Club. The first in a series is set in modern-day Hollywood and focuses on the lives and loves of three power players.
—Jessica Caulfied is president of the most powerful talent agency in town.
—Celeste Solange is the newest, hottest Hollywood babe, demanding $20 million per picture.
—Lydia Albright is a powerful movie producer with equally powerful enemies.
Although the three women are longtime friends, in a place where friendships last only a nanosecond, they are about to embark on their first project together, “Seven Minutes Past Midnight” (which sounds like a great title for a short story). A fourth star, the just-discovered writer Mary Anne Meyers, has the task of polishing the Seven Minutes script.
Each chapter is told from one of the characters’ point of view and each chapter heading begins with the character’s name and a style of shoe (Alexandra Neel Pumps, Louis Vuitton Marble Leather Pumps, etc) Not a shoe connoisseur, the chapter headings were lost on me. This character-driven novel gets off to a slow start mainly because of the parenthetical author intrusions that deviate the reader’s attention (this is really annoying).
Another problem with the story is that all three women are interchangeable, which is a deft comment on those who are reaching for the stars. For about the first half of the book I kept having to revert to the dust jacket for clues on which woman owned the chapter. However, about mid-way, Marr seems to gain confidence in her characters and her story. Full of catfights and sex, Hollywood Girls Club is a rather predictable read. However, I think if Marr is just cutting her teeth in this first book, the story has a great structure, yet longs for compelling characters.
Armchair Interviews says: Ahhh, more about Hollywood.
Author’s Web site: http://www.MaggieMarr.com