In My Mailbox: Week of February 28
Title: Poor Little Bitch Girl
Author: Jackie Collins
Received: From Jackie Collins for review
Synopsis: Three twenty-something women, one hot rich guy, two mega movie stars, and a devastating murder: Poor Little Bitch Girl has it all.
Denver Jones is a hotshot twenty-something attorney working in L.A. Carolyn Henderson is personal assistant to a powerful and very married Senator in Washington with whom she is having an affair. And Annabelle Maestro—daughter of two movie stars—has carved out a career for herself in New York as the madame of choice for discerning famous men. The three of them went to high school together in Beverly Hills—and although Denver and Carolyn have kept in touch, Annabelle is out on her own with her cocaine addicted boyfriend, Frankie.
Then there is Bobby Santangelo Stanislopolous, the Kennedyesque son of Lucky Santangelo and deceased Greek shipping billionaire, Dimitri Stanislopolous. Bobby owns Mood, the hottest club in New York. Back in the day he went to high school with Denver, Carolyn and Annabelle. And he connected with all three of them. Frankie is his best friend.
When Annabelle’s beautiful movie star mother is found shot to death in the bedroom of her Beverly Hills mansion, the five of them find themselves thrown together . . . and secrets from the past have a way of coming back to haunt everyone. . . .
Title: The Overnight Socialite
Author: Bridie Clark
Received: Public Library
Synopsis: In this beguiling retelling of the classic Pygmalion, we meet Lucy Ellis, a Manhattan transplant who dreams of making it as a fashion designer but instead toils away on a Garment District assembly line. Road-blocked each time she tries to score a break, Lucy is beginning to think the unthinkable: maybe it’s time to pack it in and move home to Minnesota. Then, during a torrential downpour, at her most bedraggled and disheartened, Lucy meets Wyatt Hayes IV.
Wyatt-man-about-town and bored Ph.D. anthropologist- has just been publicly dissed by New York’s reigning socialite, Cornelia Rockman, whom he’d been dating. He boasts to his best friend Trip that he can transform any woman- even a trailer-born nobody like Lucy- into this year’s “It” girl. “Give me a few months,” he tells Trip, “and I could turn her into a social luminary. She’ll make the rest of the pack look like dim little tea lights.” If Wyatt can fool the East coast aristocracy into thinking Lucy’s the real deal, he can reveal the farce behind Cornelia’s social superiority complex…and score a career-boosting book deal.
Headstrong Lucy challenges her teacher at every turn, but armed with a made-up pedigree and a wardrobe costlier than most studio apartments, she’s soon navigating a world in which the most photographed socialite takes all. Can Lucy survive in a wilderness where no girl wears the same gown twice, the Astors are considered Johnny-come-latelies, and weddings are more lavish than the coronation of Louis XIV? Will she forge the connections needed to make a name for herself in fashion? And can she surmount the schemes and suspicions of her newfound rival, Cornelia?
Three months of rigorous prep and test runs culminate in Lucy’s showdown at the Fashion Forum Gala, where she and Wyatt confront the ne plus ultra of society…and their unexpected feelings for each other. But the gaps between them-as well as Wyatt’s secret agenda-may make this improbable couple an impossibility.
Set against the gold-plated world of Manhattan’s social elite, The Overnight Socialite puts a witty twenty-first-century spin on a timeless story of transformation and unlikely love.
Title: Dirty Girls on Top
Author: Alisa Valdes-Rodriguez
Received: Public Library
Synopsis: The Dirty Girls are back, saucier and sexier than ever….but would it be wrong to ask them to be a little smarter, too?? Especially when it comes to men. And sex.
Lauren Fernandez is at the top of her game as the cleverest columnist the Boston Gazette has on board—but she can’t quite figure out how to pick a guy or how to eat (and not drink) like a healthy person. Usnavys is still sashaying all over town, 260 pounds of her dolled up in designer duds and ready for action—from anyone except her husband Juan, that is. He’s become just a bit boring staying home scrubbing the tub and cooking up chicken fingers for pre-schooler Carolina while somebody else brings home the bacon.
Maybe the other Dirty Girls could help Lauren and ‘navy out, but they’ve got their own messes to deal with: Rebecca Baca hasn’t gained a pound since college (well, who would, if they had an ounce of self-control?) but suspects her picture-perfect marriage may not yield the baby she longs for; Sara may be the star of her own decorating show on cable television, but her dangerous pull toward her ex-husband Roberto isn’t so pretty; Amber keeps renaming herself and doesn’t want to hear that her soulfulness and reinvention aren’t enough to make fans actually buy her music; and Elizabeth is discovering that a relationship with another woman takes more than bravery and a nesting instinct.
Dirty Girls on Top is about trying to figure it all out without quite as much time left as there was five years ago. And it’s about sex and love—getting it, not getting it, yearning for it, having it with the wrong person, fighting it from the right person, trying it a new way, giving up on it. And, in the end, if your fingers are crossed and the planets are in alignment, having it come out just the way it should.
Title: Drop Dead Beautiful
Author: Jackie Collins
Received: Public Library
Synopsis: “Like mother, like daughter. “No truer words for Lucky Santangelo’s sixteen-year-old Max, who goes looking for trouble when she hooks up with some guy she met on the Internet. Soon the beautiful, willful Max finds herself in deeper waters than she can imagine as she becomes a pawn in a greater scheme that leads back to Lucky and Billy Melina, the studly movie-star boyfriend of Lucky’s best friend, superstar Venus. “” If Max’s troubles weren’t enough, Lucky has her multi-billion-dollar Las Vegas hotel complex to contend with…along with Anthony Bonar, the illegitimate grandson of her one-time Godfather and lethal enemy, Enzio Bonnati. So begins a non-stop thrill ride as Lucky builds her dream resort–and gambles with all she holds dear. Max, too, is following her dreams, and as her high-flying triumphs prove, she’s more than just a little Lucky.
