Secrets of the Hollywood Girls Club

Life at the top of the A-list is fabulous, but it’s a long way to the ground if you fall—and the cameras are always waiting to publicly humiliate you if you do. Jessica, Mary Anne, Lydia, and Celeste have stayed at the top by sticking together. The last time they collaborated on a project, the film was a huge success, launching über-agent Jessica’s boutique management company, making Mary Anne the hottest new screenwriter in Hollywood, landing Lydia the top spot at Worldwide Pictures, and solidifying Celeste’s position as the queen of Tinseltown. But this time, as these powerful movie mavens are called to the set, each of them has a lot more to lose. At thirty (ahem . . . thirty-six), actress Celeste Solange is starting to feel her age. Tiny lines are beginning to appear near her eyes, and she’s wondering how long she can hold on to her A-list status. But that’s not her biggest problem—not by a long shot. A compromising DVD she made with her husband during the wild early days of their marriage is making the rounds, threatening to break out onto the Internet and ruin her image and her career. So Celeste turns to her girlfriends for help—good thing they’re some of the most powerful players in town.Mary Anne, Lydia, and Jessica have troubles of their own. Mary Anne has started seeing Holden Humphrey, the hottest leading man in Hollywood, and everyone in America is watching—including his crazy young stalker, who wants Mary Anne out of the picture. Lydia is busy running a studio, putting out fires, and playing politics with the big mouths and big egos of the entertainment elite, and now someone is trying to blackmail her. Jessica is juggling a family, a demanding career, and an even more demanding list of clients. And meanwhile, publicist Kiki Dee seems to have a hand in all the secrets . . . and she’s willing to do anything to keep her spot at the top of the Hollywood PR machine. Can the Hollywood Girls Club hold their lives together and get a film made amid all the craziness?That’s life in Hollywood—where the right friends, and the secrets they know, can make or break a career.From Publishers WeeklyThe ripsnorter sequel to Hollywood Girls Club revolves around sex and plastic surgery secrets that, if revealed, would destroy movie queen Celeste Cici Solange and likely sink movie studios and destroy high-power industry marriages. If that sounds like fun, it is. Our world, our business, has nothing to do with substance or reality, lectures Kiki Dee, the bad-ass publicist who collects stars' secrets like Donald Trump amasses real estate. But superficial doesn't come cheap in Hollywood, where A-lister Cici covertly goes under the knife knowing her public expected her to personify youth and to age gracefully and that aging gracefully meant aging very little at all. The surfacing of Cici's other secret—a sex tape made by her ex—sets off a madcap plan to get it back before it hits big on the internet or her husband (and Worldwide Pictures honcho) Ted Robinoff finds out that it exists. Along the way, screenwriter Mary Anne Meyers rises to celebrity on the arm of screen idol Holden Humphrey; Jessica Caufield transitions from agent to big-time manager-producer-wife-and-mom; and production chief Lydia Albright's uncertain about her future. Marr's prose is fast and sharp, and she keeps the plots flying. (Apr.) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. From BooklistIn this lively sequel, Marr revisits the female power players from The Hollywood Girls Club (2007). Actress Celeste Solange is desperately trying to keep a lid on a sex tape made during her first marriage, to a kinky producer. Screenwriter Mary Anne Meyers is in the throes of a passionate new relationship with handsome movie star Holden Humphrey, but his ex-girlfriend, the mentally unstable starlet Vieve Dyson, will do anything to get him back. Producer Lydia Albright, the new president of Worldwide Pictures, knows keeping Celeste’s sex tape under wraps is the best way to ensure that Worldwide’s multimillion dollar deal with Celeste doesn’t go down the drain, so with the help of agent Jessica Caulfield-Fox, she tries to purchase the video and find out who’s been sending her taunting letters. While the women rally to keep one scandal under wraps, publicist Kiki Dee may have found another that trumps even a scandalous sex tape. Marr’s second novel is frothy, gossipy fun for US and People magazine addicts. --Kristine Huntley