Cutting Loose

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Kacey Barlow had no idea it would be this hard to get into grad school. Her well-to-do family has been attending IU for generations, and admissions had been recruiting her since high school! She was a shoo-in--that is, until they gave her the boot.

She can't tell her parents, and can't stand the thought of her friends going off to grad school without her. Her grades are slipping. Her professors can't remember her name, and her tutor, Taylor, won't stop hitting on her when they're supposed to be studying.

Okay, maybe that last one isn't so bad. But it's not going to help get her a seat in another school...and applications are due in two weeks...

All over Hollywood, men are dialing O—for orgasms. Her steamy naughty talk fills them with lust and longing, and helps them perform like the studs they claim to be.

In truth, the industry's favorite "erotic phone operatrix" is Nina Harte, a struggling actress who has put her career on hold so that her husband, Nathan, can pursue his own dreams of stardom. When Nathan's career takes off, so does he, leaving Nina and their four-year-old son, Jake, for his diva costar, Katerina McPherson. Then "Kat 'n' Nat" are crowned the media's newest celebrity sweethearts, and Kat labels Nina an unfit mother in order to win custody of Jake, just so that she can have that highly-coveted celebrity accessory—an adorable child—sans any unsightly stretch marks.

The one person who does care about Nina is Nathan's agent, Sam Godwin. In fact, he's in love with her. And because he has both a heart and a conscience, Sam feels guilty for having put Nat in Kat's path in the first place . . .

Then again, how will he feel when he learns that Nina and O are one and the same?

Glamorous parties, flashing lights, red carpets—Tally Jones has worked hard to join Hollywood’s A-list since she moved to Los Angeles. She finally gets her break on the hit nighttime soap opera Dana Point, with a coveted role that allows the former small-town girl to trade her crisp waiter uniform for a breathtaking ball gown, a career as a glittering starlet, and a red-hot arm charm: chiseled hunk Gabriel McNamara, the king of prime-time medical drama.

Ratings have skyrocketed since Tally replaced veteran diva Susie Sheppard on the show, and her performance earned her an Emmy nomination. But celebrity has its dark side, too. Tally’s financial adviser makes off with her savings, and Gabriel’s kinky sexploits and paparazzi baiting have Tally wondering why there isn’t a better leading man in her life.

There is: the successful film producer Mac Carlton, who has been in love with her from the moment he set eyes on her. With Mac at her side, Tally is living the Hollywood dream—until Susie arranges for her character to make a comeback, then schemes to oust her popular costar from the limelight. Upon learning of Tally and Mac’s engagement, Susie sharpens her claws to snag Mac. She’s out to ruin Tally’s life completely. But Tally won’t go down without a fight. She’s determined to bring down her on- and off-screen nemesis and claim the sparkling happy ending she deserves.

Take the Paradise Heights Women’s League board. Lyssa Harper should have warned golden-haired DILF du jour Harry Wilder what he was getting into when she invited him to meet the mommies who run their suburban, gated community. At least he brought cupcakes. Since meeting the former Master-of-the-Universe turned stay-at-home single dad, Lyssa has been his domestic Sherpa, teaching him the ins and outs of suburban life. She just didn’t realize her friends would show up at his house unannounced with casseroles, leopard-print bikini briefs, and plans to rearrange his kitchen cabinets.

The truth is, if Harry and his wife, the neighborhood’s "perfect couple," can call it quits, what does that mean for everyone else? Lyssa’s husband, Ted, is a great father, but he pays her Pilates-pumped momtourage more attention than he does his own wife. Her friends gossip about the neighbors while ignoring their own problems: infertility, infidelity, and eating disorders.

When movie studio publicity V.P. Alexis Manning's fiancé -- Jewish bartender/actor David a.k.a. Deke -- goes home with her for a holly jolly Christmas in Vermont with her family, there's a chill in the air and it ain't just the weather. Overwhelmed by the Christianity of it all, David confesses that he can't marry Alexis unless she converts to Judaism. Alexis might not know exactly what she wants to do with her life...but she knows she doesn't want to spend it pretending to be something she's not. Alexis believes in only one religion -- movies. So with her well-scripted romance on the cutting-room floor, she begins replaying favorite film scenes in her head and breaking down her own life into dramatic clips, searching for the right ending. If only she were Julia, or Demi, or Meryl, things would be different.

Get me rewrite!

Despite promises to distinguish between "the Hollywood you know" and the Hollywood her leading lady knows, Brown's debut novel confirms just what you suspect about celebrity and unfolds with all the inevitability of a romantic comedy. Hannah Fairchild is the levelheaded daughter of Hollywood glitterati, more interested, we're told, in astronomy than any other kind of stargazing. But her hobby mostly serves as an abundant source of puns, as she's reduced to working as a personal assistant to British heartthrob Louis Trollope when her famous father dies and her stepmother freezes her trust fund. The wildly egotistical star keeps Hannah on her toes ordering Zone-kosher foods and arranging his trysts. Brown captures the humor of working for a megalomaniac: an offhand remark from Hannah, "Don't go believing your own press clippings," sends her boss into a panic. "Why? What have you read? What have you heard?" A love triangle between Hannah, her boss and his best friend Mick Bradshaw gives the book the tension that drives this well-paced, entertaining story forward. Unfortunately, Hannah is inconsistent as a character and a narrator, wavering between savvy and na�vet�, between embracing the spotlight and hiding behind the scenes.

Life with Todd and Hannah is a revelation, an invitation to a world of privilege and desire. But looming over these heady evenings is the disturbing mystery of Hannah's fragmented past, one that Ethan longs desperately to understand.

As secrets are revealed, Ethan is pulled deep into the undertow of Hannah's history and Todd's longings. Soon, he learns that every deceit has a price, every lie is an ugly truth, and that those he has come to trust are people he doesn't know at all.

"In the tradition of Curtis Sittenfeld's Prep, with just the right hint of Tom Brown's Schooldays, Dolby gives us a glimpse into the rarefied world of elite New England boarding schools and manages at the same time to say something new about adolescence, sexuality, and the way art can give us what we need to survive. --Ayelet Waldman, author of Love and Other Impossible Pursuits

"Dolby puts his own prep school experience to fine use in his second novel. . .beautifully observed." --Publishers Weekly

"A tender and funny novel." --David Ebershoff