Riveting details of a fascinating hidden world support a ruthless takedown of misogyny and entitlement. One hell of a debut.
Inside the perfectly curated fortress of privilege that is the estate of a Hollywood billionaire, threatening tremors of a #MeToo earthquake are felt.
“Ted Stabler—the wunderkind who’d directed The Starfighter trilogy...was a late riser, but once he began his day he worked tirelessly, often until one or two in the morning. Teeing up the conditions he needed to task-shift seamlessly without squandering a minute would take all of Zanne’s focus.” Hart’s knowing, ripped-from-the-headlines debut takes us behind the scenes of Ted’s world on a day of reckoning—the day the Stablers host a “Bump and Pump” benefit for low-income women. Things get off to an inauspicious start when the party monkey pisses on the computer server, and sure enough, this is the day each of Ted's three wives (first wife, second wife, work wife) will watch the ugly truths of her position explode. Zanne Klein—described by her girlfriend as “Snow White, if Snow White was a daddy”—is the work wife, a queen bee in the hive of workers that includes everything from Ivy League graduates to a retired NFL star. Thanks to this group of people, Holly Stabler, Ted’s second wife, spends her days in what looks like glamorous ease but is actually infantilized hell. “Joe paid her bills, Flora made her bed, Erin made her doctor’s appointments and filled her prescriptions, Ilya and James drove her children to school, Katya packed their lunches, Mark hired and fired her household staff, Lauren tried on her clothes, Erin signed her name and impersonated her voice, Dawn and Zanne delivered her messages to Ted when he ducked her calls.” Holly is one of the few who know that Ted was previously married to a Korean American woman named Phoebe Lee, now an English teacher in the Bay Area. Phoebe was co-producer of the first two Starfighter flicks, but the couple split up before following through on their plan to produce her passion project, and she dropped out of sight. Now, after 20 years, she’s back in town. This book flies on a magic carpet of seamless, intricate detail, much of it from work experience the author acknowledges in an afterword. Whether we’re dropping in on Holly with her glam squad or watching in wonder as headset-wearing assistants track the movements of their bosses like world leaders, there’s never a moment's slip in authenticity or momentum.
Riveting details of a fascinating hidden world support a ruthless takedown of misogyny and entitlement. One hell of a debut.Pub Date: July 19, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-525-89976-8
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Graydon House
Review Posted Online: May 10, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
PERSPECTIVES
With captivating dialogue, angst-y characters, and a couple of steamy sex scenes, Hoover has done it again.
After being released from prison, a young woman tries to reconnect with her 5-year-old daughter despite having killed the girl’s father.
Kenna didn’t even know she was pregnant until after she was sent to prison for murdering her boyfriend, Scotty. When her baby girl, Diem, was born, she was forced to give custody to Scotty’s parents. Now that she’s been released, Kenna is intent on getting to know her daughter, but Scotty’s parents won’t give her a chance to tell them what really happened the night their son died. Instead, they file a restraining order preventing Kenna from so much as introducing herself to Diem. Handsome, self-assured Ledger, who was Scotty’s best friend, is another key adult in Diem’s life. He’s helping her grandparents raise her, and he too blames Kenna for Scotty’s death. Even so, there’s something about her that haunts him. Kenna feels the pull, too, and seems to be seeking Ledger out despite his judgmental behavior. As Ledger gets to know Kenna and acknowledges his attraction to her, he begins to wonder if maybe he and Scotty’s parents have judged her unfairly. Even so, Ledger is afraid that if he surrenders to his feelings, Scotty’s parents will kick him out of Diem’s life. As Kenna and Ledger continue to mourn for Scotty, they also grieve the future they cannot have with each other. Told alternatively from Kenna’s and Ledger’s perspectives, the story explores the myriad ways in which snap judgments based on partial information can derail people’s lives. Built on a foundation of death and grief, this story has an undercurrent of sadness. As usual, however, the author has created compelling characters who are magnetic and sympathetic enough to pull readers in. In addition to grief, the novel also deftly explores complex issues such as guilt, self-doubt, redemption, and forgiveness.
With captivating dialogue, angst-y characters, and a couple of steamy sex scenes, Hoover has done it again.Pub Date: Jan. 18, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-5420-2560-7
Page Count: 335
Publisher: Montlake Romance
Review Posted Online: Oct. 12, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2021
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
A boarding-school fantasia, with Hilderbrand’s signature upgrades to the cuisine and decor. Sign us up for next term.
A year in the life of the No. 2 boarding school in America—up from No. 19 last year!
Rumors of Hilderbrand’s retirement were greatly exaggerated, it turns out, since not only has she not gone out to pasture, she’s started over in high school, with her daughter Shelby Cunningham as co-author. As their delicious new book opens, it’s Move-In Day at Tiffin Academy, and Head of School Audre Robinson is warmly welcoming the returning and new students to the New England campus, the latter group including a rare midstream addition to the junior class. Brainiac Charley Hicks is transferring from public school in Maryland to a spot that opened up when one of the school’s most beloved students died by suicide the preceding year. She will be joining a large, diverse cast of adult and teenage characters—queen bees, jealous second-stringers, boozehounds young and old, secret lesbians, people chasing the wrong people chasing other wrong people—all of them royally screwed when an app called Zip Zap appears and starts blasting everyone’s secrets all over campus. How the heck…? Meanwhile, it seems so unlikely that Tiffin has jumped up to the No. 2 spot in the boarding-school rankings that a high-profile magazine launches an investigation, and even the head is worried that there may have been payola involved. The school has a reputation for being more social than academic, and this quality gets an exciting new exclamation point when the resident millionaire bad boy opens a high-style secret speakeasy for select juniors in a forgotten basement. It’s called Priorities. Exactly. One problem: Cinnamon Peters’ mysterious suicide hangs over the book in an odd way, especially since the note she left for her closest male friend is not to be opened for another year—and isn’t. This is surely a setup for a sequel, but it’s a bit frustrating here, and bobs sort of shallowly along amid the general high spirits.
A boarding-school fantasia, with Hilderbrand’s signature upgrades to the cuisine and decor. Sign us up for next term.Pub Date: Sept. 16, 2025
ISBN: 9780316567855
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: July 4, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2025
SEEN & HEARD
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