THOUGHTS ON THIS 'n THAT

Behind the glitter and glamour of Hollywood, a lot is covered up, so fans don't know what their favorite stars are really like. THE HOLLYWOOD FIX (PostHillPress) by Richard Kirshenbaum takes readers behind the scenes, and it's not always pretty. It's the Golden Age of Tinseltown. Studio heads produce movies while creating silver screen stars. It takes a machine to create and manage while the country is in the middle of WWII. The stars don't always shine, and it's the public relations department's job to clean up the mess. Kirshenbaum's novel is a fun romp with a cast of characters readers will get to know well and a plot that reads like a movie script. I couldn't turn the pages fast enough. A nobody named Bartie finds his way into the most important film studio and chief, Sol Myers, becoming the fixer everyone loves and trusts. Each fix is its own job, and Bartie is busy from sunrise to sunset cleaning  up scandals of money, sex, larger-than-life stars,...

  Can these exes rekindle their love this Hanukkah? Evelyn Schwartz has the perfect Hanukkah planned: eight jam-packed days producing the live-action televised musical of  A Christmas Carol.  Who needs family when you’ve got long hours, impossible deadlines, and your dream job? That is, until an accident on set lands her in the medical bay with one of her chronic migraines, and she’s shocked to find her ex-husband, David Adler, filling in for the usual studio doctor. It’s been two years since David walked away from Evelyn and their life in Manhattan, and his ex-wife is still the same workaholic who puts her career before everything else—especially her health. But when Evelyn begins hallucinating “ghosts” tied to her past heartbreaks, and every single one leads to David, he finds himself spending much more time with her than he anticipated. And denying the still-smoldering chemistry between them becomes impossible. As Evelyn revisits her ghosts of Hanukkah past, she a...

  Life can begin with a single story. You just have to Bring Your Own Book… For three decades, Grace supported her husband Frank’s passion for books, even though her own love for literature paled in comparison. Since his passing, the shelves echo longingly, and Grace's heartache has only grown.​ ​When Grace’s grandson suggests joining Frank’s old book club, she hesitates. How could meeting with a bunch of strangers possibly fill the void he left behind? Despite her doubts – and desperate to feel close to Frank again – Grace decides to attend.​ Yet, upon arrival, Grace is puzzled to find this isn’t your typical book club: here, you settle in for an hour of silent reading. Disappointed by the sparse attendance and confused by the lack of chatter she flees. But when equally lonely member, Annie, convinces her to stay, Grace is determined to ensure that neither Frank – nor his beloved book club – are forgotten.​ And as she breathes new life into the group, she might just find this is w...

   THE GALLAGHER PLACE (ZibbyMedia) is a layered exploration of family secrets, sibling misconceptions, and an unsolved murder in this chilling debut set in New York’s Dutchess County.  When Marlowe, an illustrator living in New York City, returns to her family’s bewitching Hudson Valley estate for the holidays, she discovers a murder on the property that draws her back into the haunting case of her teenage best friend’s disappearance twenty years earlier. Marlowe soon finds herself unraveling the tangled dynamics of this small town and the legacy of a summer home that holds both secrets and scars. What follows is a gripping mystery that weaves between past and present as Marlowe confronts the fallibility of her own memory, the shocking truth about her lost friend, and an ultimatum that will change the course of her life. In this chilling debut novel, Julie Doar parses themes of family loyalty, class tension, friendship, and identity, building toward a dramatic payoff tha...

  The riveting new novel by author, Jason Mott, the 2021 National Book Award winner. People Like Us  is Jason Mott’s electric new novel. It is not memoir, yet it has deeply personal connections to Jason’s life. And while rooted in reality, it explodes with dreamlike experiences that pull a reader in and don’t let go, from the ability to time travel to sightings of sea monsters and peacocks, and feelings of love and memory so real they hurt. In  People Like Us , two Black writers are trying to find peace and belonging in a world that is riven with gun violence. One is on a global book tour after a big prize win; the other is set to give a speech at a school that has suffered a shooting. And as their two storylines merge, truths and antics abound in equal measure: characters drink booze out of an award trophy; menaces lurk in the shadows; tiny French cars putter around the countryside; handguns seem to hover in the air; and dreams endure against all odds. People Like Us ...