When Clara Bishop, a struggling screenwriter-turned-tabloid journalist in Hollywood, is jilted by her philandering husband, she follows him to London, determined to win him back.
Armed with only a glamorous wardrobe of vintage clothing inherited from her grandmother, a former film noir actress, Clara discovers that the clothes really do make the woman. Dressed to kill, she adopts a new femme fatale persona: confident, sexy and set on revenge.
But on the road to retaliation, Clara discovers an unfinished film script that sheds light on her grandmother’s mysterious death years before. Then it happens: somehow, magically, her whole life is transported back in time, into a living, breathing film noir that reveals to Clara the potential to write her own ending
Published: 4th June 2013
Publisher: Harper Collins
Goodreads : Click here
Series: N/A
Source: Review Copy from Publisher
Review: 6 out of 10
What I loved about this book…
This book was not what I was expecting at all. I had expected this to be a typical chick lit
story about a woman finding out more about her grandmother than she expected
and then goes on a journey of discovery.
Yes the main character discovers something about her grandmother that she didn’t know
but this story was more about the setting and scene for me. The entire book has a film noir feel to it,
one of those old black and white movies about gangsters and such. I was not expecting it but loved it. The story starts at the end, where you are at
a police station and then as the story is told to a policeman, it flashes back
piece by piece throughout the story.
What I was not fond of about
this book…
About halfway through the story, the whole story takes on a completely
new twist and although I cannot say too much because that would spoil the story
but the spin in this story did throw me off track for a bit and it was just
like starting a whole new story from scratch.
It did take me a little while to get back into the story from the middle
to the end.
When reading the blurb, I got the impression that this story was about
discovering the grandmother’s secrets and taking the story on from there but
this story was more about the main character and her journey rather than the
grandmother, discovering her secrets and finding out more about the
grandmother, family history and so on. I
have to be honest and say that I was a little bit disappointed that there was
not more of that in the story.
In summary…
Despite the fact that the story was predictable but unexpected, I did
enjoy the journey of the story and the fact that this was completely different
to what I had expected and not something that I had read before. I have not really experienced any old black
and white gangster type movies or stories before so this was a first for
me. Although I would not say that this
is one of my most favourite types of stories to read, I did enjoy it.
Video review....
Best wishes
Debs J
