The Scottish journalist describes her life in pursuit of glamour and luxury, including clothes, vacations, homes, and friendships with the rich and famous

Set in the dream factory of the 1940s, this glittering debut novel follows a young Hollywood hopeful into a star-studded web of scandal, celebrity, and murder . . . The chipped pink nail polish is a dead giveaway—no pun intended. When a human thumb is discovered near a Hollywood nightclub, it doesn’t take long for the police to identify its owner. Miss Penny Harp would recognize that pink anywhere: it belongs to her best friend, Rosemary. And so does the rest of the body buried beneath it. Rosemary, with the beauty and talent, who stood out from all other extras on the Paramount lot. She was the one whose name was destined for a movie marquee—not for the obituaries. And for an extra twist, now an LAPD detective thinks Penny is the one who killed her . . . Penny is determined to prove her innocence—with a little help from an unlikely ally, the world-famous queen of film noir, Barbara Stanwyck. Penny met “Stany” on the set of Paramount’s classic comedy The Lady Eve, where the star took an instant liking to her. With Stany’s powerful connections and no-nonsense style, she has no trouble following clues out of the studio backlot, from the Los Angeles morgue to the Zanzibar Room to the dark, winding streets of Beverly Hills. But there’s something Penny isn’t telling her famous partner in crimesolving: a not-so-glamorous secret that could lead them to Rosemary’s killer—or send Penny to the electric chair . . . “Suzanne Gates hits the sweet spot at the corner of literary and genre with her exquisite writing. . . . A captivating story of star-struck dreams and redemption.” --Lissa Price, Internationally Bestselling Author of the Starters series

With the verve and bite of Ottessa Moshfegh and the barbed charm of Nancy Mitford, Marlowe Granados’s stunning debut brilliantly captures a summer of striving in New York City. Isa Epley, all of twenty-one years old, is already wise enough to understand that the purpose of life is the pursuit of pleasure. She arrives in New York with her newly blond best friend looking for adventure. They have little money, but that’s hardly going to stop them. By day, the girls sell clothes on a market stall, pinching pennies for their Bed-Stuy sublet and bodega lunches. By night, they weave between Brooklyn, the Upper East Side, and the Hamptons among a rotating cast of celebrities, artists, Internet entrepreneurs, stuffy intellectuals, and bad-mannered grifters. Resources run ever tighter and the strain tests their friendship as they try to convert social capital into something more lasting than precarious gigs as au pairs, nightclub hostesses, paid audience members, and aspiring foot fetish models. Through it all, Isa’s bold, beguiling voice captures the precise thrill of cultivating a life of glamour and intrigue as she juggles paying her dues with skipping out on the bill. Happy Hour is a novel about getting by and having fun in a system that wants you to do neither.

Digte. Addresses race, class, sexuality, faith, social justice, mortality, and the challenges of living HIV positive at the intersection of black and queer identity

A former stripper turned suburban housewife is exposed as a brutal killer in this shocking true crime tale of a loving husband beheaded in Phoenix. Phoenix, Arizona, 2004. Marjorie Orbin filed a missing person’s report on her husband, Jay. She claimed that the successful art dealer had left town on business after celebrating their son’s birthday more than a month before. But no one believed that Jay would abandon the family he loved. Authorities suspected foul play . . . As the search for Jay made local headlines, Marjorie’s story starting coming apart. Why did she wait so long before going to police? If Jay was away on business, why were there charges made to his credit card in Phoenix? Then, the unthinkable happened. Jay’s headless, limbless torso was discovered on the outskirts of the Phoenix desert—and all evidence pointed to Marjorie as the killer. The investigation revealed surprising details about her life—six previous marriages, an ongoing affair with a man from her gym, and alleged ties to the New York mafia.

Kirkus Reviews Best Book of the Year This “witty, engaging analysis” of female monsters in pop culture offers “provocative and incisive” commentary on society’s fear of female rage and power (Soraya Chemaly, author of Rage Becomes Her) Women have always been seen as monsters. Men from Aristotle to Freud have insisted that women are freakish creatures, capable of immense destruction. Maybe they are. And maybe that’s a good thing. Sady Doyle, hailed as “smart, funny and fearless” by the Boston Globe, takes readers on a tour of the female dark side, from the biblical Lilith to Dracula’s Lucy Westenra, from the T-Rex in Jurassic Park to the teen witches of The Craft. She illuminates the women who have shaped our nightmares: Serial killer Ed Gein’s “domineering” mother Augusta; exorcism casualty Anneliese Michel, who starved herself to death to quell her demons; author Mary Shelley, who dreamed her dead child back to life. These monsters embody patriarchal fear of women, and illustrate the violence with which men enforce traditionally feminine roles. They also speak to the primal threat of a woman who takes back her power. In a dark and dangerous world, Dead Blondes and Bad Mothers asks women to look to monsters for the ferocity we all need to survive. “Some people take a scalpel to the heart of media culture; Sady Doyle brings a bone saw, a melon baller, and a machete.” —Andi Zeisler, author of We Were Feminists Once

"Don't believe anything they say." Those were the last words Alice's older sister, Annie, said to her before she turned her back on their parents and left home forever. Alice spent four years waiting and wondering when the impossibly glamorous sister she idolized would return to her--and what her Hollywood-insider parents had done to drive her away. Now it's 1948 and Alice isn't a kid anymore. When she gets the phone call from the hospital, she knows it's up to her to help Annie, in a coma after being beaten and left for dead in MacArthur Park. The search for Annie's attacker leads Alice into a dark and dangerous world of tough-talking private eyes, psychopathic movie stars, and troubled starlets--and onto the trail of a young runaway who is the sole witness to an unspeakable crime. What this girl knows could shut down a criminal syndicate and put Annie's attacker behind bars--if Alice can find her first. And she isn't the only one looking. Debut novelist Mary McCoy evokes the dangerous glamour of Hollywood's Golden Age, a corrupt world where the people who live in the nicest houses have the dirtiest secrets and no drive into the sunset can erase the crimes of past.