Books I've Read: The Sunset Crowd

 

I picked this book up at the library because it sounded like it could be a fun read. I mean, Hollywood in the 1970s?  Kind of right up my alley, right?  

The book is told through the eyes of Bea Dupont, a New York rebel who wound up in LA after a stint is an exclusive Swiss boarding school and a failed attempt at college.  Making a living as a photographer, Bea is part of the downtown LA scene because of her profession, but isn't wholly a part of it.  her position behind the lens gives her a unique perspective and it from this viewpoint we meet the rich and famous characters that populate her world.

There's Evra, the daughter of Hollywood royalty who has turned her back on movies and makes her living by clothing the elite and famous from her iconic store, Sunset on Sunset. She parties with models and rock stars and sleeps beside the hottest up and coming screenwriter in Hollywood, Kai de la Faire.

Bea is Kai's oldest friend, having been to school with him in Switzerland. He wa the subject of her first great photograph and she's harbored a crush on him since she was fifteen.

When Theodora Leigh steps into Sunset one day, returning costumes from the Paramount lot, she catches everyone's eye.  Not only is she strikingly beautiful, but she speaks perfect mandarin and ushers through a $30K sale in Evra's store without blinking an eye.  

Before long, she's a part of the crowd, using every connection and invitation to advance her dream of producing a movie.  It's not until the group reach the Riviera and the Cannes Film Festival that the truth starts to be revealed and Theodora's facade begins to come down.

This was a fast-paced book full of intrigue and jealousy.  Theodora was a delightful villain, the depth of her ruthlessness and ambition revealed little by little as the pages turn.  And this is a rarified world few of us ever get to experience, so it was fun to get taken to these glamorous places and events, and to brush shoulders with the rich and privileged.

I do have to say, I wasn't a huge fan of the ending.  I was there until they left Cannes and the delightful series of reveals that sent Theodora's facade crashing, but everything after that didn't quite ring true to me.  And after watching Bea hang on the fringes for so long, I really wanted her to get her moment in the sun.

But, if you liked Daisy Jones and the Six, this is a pretty good comp title for that, and you'll probably enjoy it too.

But don't just listen to me.  Here's the blurb:

From Rodeo Drive to the French Riviera, Karin Tanabe's The Sunset Crowd is a tale of survival and reinvention, of faking it until you make it, and the glittering appeal of success and stardom, as it seeks to answer that timeless question―who gets to have the American dream?

Money and fame: in 1970's Los Angeles, everyone is fighting to reach the top, but very few have the talent, ambition, and luck to get there.

Meet LA darling Evra Scott. The daughter of an Oscar-winning director and a Brazilian bombshell actress, Evra is the city's reigning style queen. By day, she's at the helm of Sunset on Sunset, the store beloved by Hollywood's young and beautiful. By night, she's on the arm of Kai de la Faire, Hawaii's hottest export, and the screenwriter of the moment.

Enter Theodora Leigh. The twenty-something Paramount assistant looks like a big screen star, but her sights are firmly set behind the scenes, as she fights to become a movie producer in a town where sex and sexism sell. Theodora's got the talent and instincts, but she's not willing to wait. Luckily, getting ahead by any means necessary is LA's mantra.

Observing it all is Bea Dupont, a photographer for Rolling Stone and Vogue, who never misses the party, but always keeps to its fringes. A Manhattan blue blood turned West Coast bohemian, Bea holds Evra's Sunset crowd together. She's also Kai's oldest friend, and she's harbored a not-so-secret flame for him since they met at an elite Swiss boarding school.

But in Hollywood, no one stays on top forever. And it's not long before Theodora's unrelenting ambition sets in motion a dramatic quest for power in an industry that is as glamorous as it is duplicitous. From Rodeo Drive to the French Riviera, The Sunset Crowd is a tale of survival and reinvention, of faking it until you make it, and the glittering appeal of success and stardom, as it seeks to answer that timeless question--who gets to have the American dream?

Weekly Goals 16-6-25

 I had a pretty busy, social weekend this week, so didn't get a ton of writing done.  I did add about 2K to the MS though and started writing Devon's parts for later in the book. I figure she'll take control for about 20K in total, so we'll see how I do there.  I have a 4-day weekend this week, so hope to get a lot done over those days.  The Monday is a bonus day off, so I'll go and do a full day at the library writing.

Had one more rejection for A Stranger to Kindness.  Disappointing because that agent's MSWL sounded like she really wanted that book.  Still have quite a few out there, but a couple are reaching that "no reply means no" kind of length of time, so might be written off.  

So the goals this week are to write, write, write.  And to send out another small handful of queries.

What are your goals this week?

Celebrate the Small Things 13-6-25

It's the end of the week, so it's time to Celebrate the Small Things.

What am I celebrating this week?

It's the weekend!

I have quite a busy one this week, with two parties to go to tomorrow night and a movie to go to on Sunday - it's one of my all time favourite films, Sunset Boulevard which I'm pretty sure I've never actually seen in a cinema. So, looking forward to that.

I accidentally started a new book this week.  It's MG, which is not like me at all, but so far it's come really easily.  It is a story I've had hanging around for years though.  One of those books I wrote as a baby writer that never worked the way I wrote it.  I'm not putting any pressure on myself with it now, but it's kind of a fun thing to play around with.

It's been a long time since I had two novel projects on the go at the same time and I'm not sure how it's going to play out.  I'm definitely committed to Arlo and Devon's story first, but it's kind of fun to have an email window open to jot down bits and pieces of this other story whenever things come to me.  Which is how I've written what I have - I didn't realize it was close to 5K until I transferred it into Scrivener.  Quite a fun way to work, to be honest, no pressure, not work count awareness, just an email to myself to keep adding to as I wish to.

I hope to get some work done on Arlo and Devon's book over the weekend, but it probably won't be a lot to be honest.  Thankfully the following weekend is another long one, so I plan to get some serious writing done over that.

What are you celebrathing this week?

Books I've Loved: Glasgow Boys

 

I picked this book up at the library without really looking at what it was about, partly because I enjoyed Young Mungo and partly because the cover said something to me.  And boy am I glad I did!  This book could have been written for me.

It's about two boys in the foster system in Glasgow.  Finlay is 18 now, and out of care.  He's just starting a nursing degree at university and is struggling to balance coursework, a placement and the job he needs to keep himself fed.  He's always been shy and finds connecting with people both difficult and terrifying, yet he needs a support network in this new environment.  He's just not sure he can have it.  Not with Akash, the handsome medical student he hasn't seen since primary school, or with the two girls who seem determined to make him part of their group.

Banjo is a year younger and still at high school.  He's just been placed with a new family and has started a new school.  He wants desperately to stay here until he ages out, but is so filled with hurt and anger, he finds it difficult to contain and keeps getting himself into trouble. He meets an enticing girl at his new job and is quickly brought into her warm circle of family and friends, but even this isn't enough to keep him from seeking out violence to calm the rage blazing inside him.

Three years earlier, Banjo and Finlay were roommates at a care home and developed a bond that still ties them together, even though they haven't spoken in three years and both think their relationship has been damaged beyond repair.  

If these two boys are going to be able to move on, to love new people, they need to forgive each other and themselves.

Set against the grim background of Glasgow's working class, this book talked to my heart.  Both Finlay and Banjo are the kind of beautiful, broken boy I love to read about and, indeed, to write.  They have huge hearts, but have been so beaten up by life, it's hard for them to let them show.  There are definitely some massive parallels between this book and A Stranger to Kindness.  I understood these kids in a deep and powerful way.

It's a story about love and connection on so many levels.  Not a romance (but there are elements of that in there) it's really what I would call a true love story, a story examining all the different kinds of love that exist in the world.  And the power all those different loves haave to heal even the deepest of wounds.

So, I strongly recommend this one.  It's heartbreaking in all the best ways and will likely bring a tear to your eye more than once.

But don't just listen to me.  Here's the blurb:

A striking debut exploring the power of identity, community and the Scottish working class. This coming-of-age story is an incisive look at young masculinity and the way even the most fraught childhood is not without hope.

Neither Finlay or Banjo can remember the last time they had a hug.

Against all odds, 18-year-old Finlay has begun his nursing degree at Glasgow University. But coming straight from the care system means he has no support network. How can he write essays, focus on his nursing placement and stop himself from falling in love when he's struggling to feed himself? Meanwhile, 17-year-old Banjo is trying to settle into his new foster family and finish high school, desperate to hold down his job and the people it contains. But his anger and fear keep boiling over, threatening his already uncertain future.

Underpinning everything is what happened three years ago in their group care home, when Finlay and Banjo were as close as brothers until they stopped speaking. If these boys want to keep hold of the people they love, they have to be able to forgive one another. More than this, they must find a way to forgive themselves.

Weekly Goals 9-6-25

 Didn't get as much writing done over the weekend as I would have liked.  I'm at a point where I can't really move the plot to the next stage without the timeline being disrupted, so I need to think of some new plot things to happen in there to make the timing work.  Or just skip to the next bit I know the plot points and figure out how to fill things in later.  

With writing the book as journal entries, I can fill in a lot of dates with "nothing interesting happened" kind of entries, but I don't want to do weeks of those or the reader will get super bored.  But I also don't want to write a whole lot of stuff that's not important just to fill in the days.

So my goal this week is to figure out if I can switch up the timeline a bit and still have things work the way they need to.

And maybe to send a few more Stranger to Kindness queries out.  I got one more rejection over the weekend, but also sent out one more query because the book I just finished reading was so perfectly aligned with my own, I just had to query the author's agent.  Luckily she thanked her in the acknowledgments so she was easy to find.

What are your goals this week?

Cover Reveal: Standing Too Close

 It's that time!

Standing Too Close will be out in the world on 8 August and I'm excited to share the beautiful cover art!

Seventeen-year-old Blue Lannigan believes in exactly one thing: his two younger brothers deserve more than the crappy apartment and abusive, drunken mother they’re stuck with. And when he comes home to find one brother bruised and bleeding (again), the other cowering in terror (again) and their mother drunk off her ass, blaming all three of them for her tanked singing career (again), Blue decides waiting until he’s eighteen to leave is no longer an option. 

Deciding to hole up in an empty house at the lake until he can figure out what to do next, things get more complicated when the owner of the house arrives unexpectedly. Especially when Blue realizes the unconscious woman they’ve tied up on the couch isn’t a stranger after all, but someone who could give him just what he’s looking for.

After avoiding reality and playing house, a scene at the grocery store lands him in handcuffs and his brothers with a social worker. Add to that losing his job and being stuck in a group home he hates, and Blue’s sole purpose becomes finding his brothers and getting them out of whatever hellhole they’re in. Blue’s hopes unravel, and betrayal rips his heart in two as he tries to reconcile the role he plays in his brothers’ lives while trying to figure out his own.

Releasing 8 August 2025.

Celebrate the Small Things 7-6-25

 

It's the end of the week, so it's time to Celebrate the Small Things.

What am I celebrating this week?

It's the weekend! 

Winter appears to have arrived with a vengeance this week with wind and rain and cold.  Just in time for the weekend.  Luckily, I have very little planned for this weekend other than writing and the usual chores.

I didn't get much writing done during the week, but I did come up with an interesting plot thing that I'm going to go back and write into one of the chapters I wrote last week.  I think it opens things up a little more for future events and makes them more plausible. 

Only one rejection for A Stranger to Kindness this week.  I've sent off a few more queries too, to the agents who open only the first week of the month.  Fingers crossed one or more of them want to see more.

What are you celebrating this week?