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The Mysterious Double Death of Honey Black – Lisa Hall

You know she has been murdered. Can you stop it happening twice?

Two very different lives…

It is 2019 and Lily Jones is living her dream in LA. Sort of. It hasn’t quite turned out as she planned and instead of working as a movie producer, she is cleaning at the prestigious Beverly Hills Hotel. At least she gets to work in the renowned Paul Williams suite, site of the brutal murder of Honey Black 70 years ago, shrouded in rumour and dark glamour.

It is 1949 and Honey Black is about to hit the big time. She may have started out a country girl from Hicksville but now she is a star. And Hollywood had better watch out – nothing can stop her now!

One Hollywood murder…

After an accidental bump to the head, Lily finds herself in Hollywood, 1949. Like a dream come true, she is rubbing shoulders with the great and good of Tinseltown. Including Honey Black… Horrified, Lily realises that the actress has only two weeks left to live before she will be murdered.

Could this be why she has found herself in 1949?

To find the killer and stop them in their tracks?

I received a review copy from the publishers via Netgalley

A time-travel adventure which will catapault Lily from Hollywood in 2019 back to to the golden era of filmmaking in 1949. It gives The Mysterious Double Death of Honey Black an utterly fabulous setting, Lily is one of the most likeable lead characters I’ve encountered this year and I constantly had the feeling I was reading a book which the author loved to write.

Where to start?

Lily is a girl displaced. English born and a lifelong fan of classic movies, she has travelled to Hollywood with the hope of finding a successful career in the industry she loves. She is working in one of the hotels in Holywood, a staff member who’s keen to help her colleagues and is a good friend to them too. She dreams of getting a break and being offered the opportunity to work on a movie but as the story begins she’s offering to help clean one of the suites in the hotel – the room where upcoming starlet Honey Black was found murdered 70 years earlier.

Lily takes a knock to the head while cleaning what had been the room occupied by Honey Black. When she recovers her senses Lily finds she has been transported back in time. It’s 1949. Lily has no money, nowhere to stay, no idea what’s happened and she’s a very modern girl in a very old fashioned world. None of these things are going to make life easy.

But it’s not all bad news for Lily. She is given an amazing opportunity to work as an assistant to an upcoming new starlet…Honey Black. Yes, Lily has arrived in 1949 in the days before Honey is due to be murdered. Has she been sent to the past to avert a murder? Should she try to intervene and change history? Or is it just coincidence and, if so, how on earth is Lily going to get home?

Watching Lily navigate her way around movie sets, Hollywood stars and handle the attitudes and behaviours from 70 years ago is a huge amount of fun. She’s a no-nonsense sort by nature so there’s no hope of Lily accepting the misogynistic culture on film sets or of adopting a demure and deferential persona so she fits in. We are going to enjoy a feisty and independent woman shaking up the world around her.

I loved reading about life in the late 1940s, there are several cameos to enjoy from huge Hollywood stars (no spoilers) and Lisa Hall makes the whole period come alive around the reader. Lily gets to contrast clubs and hotels with the LA she knows so well. She makes friends along the way but ruffles more than a few feathers as she leaps to the defence of her new employer, Honey Black.

As for Honey herself, she’s a small town girl who’s been given a huge opporunity to become the “next big thing”. But if Honey is to succeed she will need to be better than her rivals, behave impeccably, defer to the big bosses and be squeaky clean. Unfortunately it seems soneone wants Honey to fail and temptations, challenges and physical attacks will all need to be dealt with (often by Lily) if she is to finish filming the movie which should propel her to the brightest of spotlights.

There’s so much to love about The Mysterious Double Death of Honey Black and it’s all to easy to forget Honey is due to be murdered and Lily is trying to prevent that from happening. I got far too caught up in the world of films, producers and directors, bickering actresses and the social lives of a long-forgotten generation. The writing and scene setting is joyous, the characters are glamourous, whimsical and deeply posessive of their own celebrity. I don’t know if it would be possible to revisit that world given how events pan out (again no spoilers) but I am sure Lisa Hall would find a way to make it happen if we were all to cross our fingers, wish really, really hard and all buy a copy of The Mysterious Double Death of Honey Black…there’s a handy wee link just below this paragraph to help you get your copy.

The Mysterious Double Death of Honey Black is published by Hera Books and is available in paperback and digital format. You can order a copy here: https://www.waterstones.com/book/the-mysterious-double-death-of-honey-black/lisa-hall/9781804365946

Category: 5* Reviews, From The Bookshelf | Comments Off

January 24

How Much For A Happy Ending – S E Winters

It was only a few photos. We needed the money. No one would have to know…

Growing up on a council estate in Thatcher’s Britain is no simple task. Bullied at school, with a rocky home life and a desire to escape the trappings of working-class life, Sinead discovers boys, recreational drugs and the nineties club scene.

After a string of abusive partners, she struggles as a skint single mum. A chance meeting offers her a new life of glitz and glamour, but it’s not all it seems. Plunged into a world of adult entertainment, Sinead finds herself in the heart of the UK glamour modelling industry, later becoming a dominatrix to make ends meet.

After paying the price of her own self-exploitation, she has the determination to forge a new career as a therapist, with bad decisions galore along the way.

In this autobiographical novel, a now forty-something Winters pulls no punches as she recounts the tales in graphic detail, with down-to-earth wit, refreshing honesty and an unapologetic potty mouth! Hilarious and sometimes heartrendingly uncomfortable, Sinead will make the reader squirm in their seat as she dishes the dirt on the tease and the sleaze of the adult industry.

Love or hate her, she says the things we’ve all probably thought at one time or another.

I received a review copy from the publishers through Netgalley.

Last year I discovered biographies are not just a stream of dry facts or a film by film summary of a starlet’s life. A life is colourful and fascinaing and if that story is well told then an engaging read can follow. I hopped onto Netgalley and for the first time I headed to the biography section. There were several books which just looked to be as dry as the desert sun. Some “celeb” stories for people I had never heard of and in the mix was a title which stood out: How Much For A Happy Ending? It caught the eye and I liked the use of an ironic pun for a title so I had a scan of the blurb and it didn’t sound like it would be boring. I was right, it’s many things but boring isn’t one of them!

From a young age our narrator, Sinead, takes the reader through her early awakening sexuality. Her upbringing in a council estate and her relationship with her seemingly unconventional parents and then her story moves into her relationships with troubling partners. Through the story Sinead’s developing sexual confidence grows and she finds herself turning to various ways to use her body and knowledge to earn a wage. It should be made clear that Sinead isn’t setting out to paint a rosy story of positive life experiences but the humour is often self-deprecating and she keeps a confidence in herself (in the main) to push through challenging situations.

After a few youthful encounters Sinead realises she has the confidence in her body to turn her hand to modeling. She speaks openly about the pressure young women can find themselves put under to offer more than just pictures and also the variety of pictures which could be taken may also shock some readers. Time and time again Sinead finds herself in new and unfamiliar situations and must decide how best to contend with the dilemmas she faces. The night she tried to become a model for tv chat numbers is told with humour but the pressure of the situation for a young woman to face alone is also somewhat concerning.

From photoshoots, to TV appearances (walking naked down the high street) and then to more personal one to one liaisons – while always keeping on the right side of appropriate behaviour – there are shocks, tears and upsetting events. It can be a hard read but the tone is kept light and matter of fact so despite the seriousness of a situation you feel the author is just looking to tell a story rather than use examples of behaviours to seek to change the world. There will be things which will feel inappropriate and some of these are between Sinead and her partner rather than any clients or firms she is working with. We are all different and all have different desires did feel like an approach which is used more than once.

Very much not my normal type of read but it was interesting and even educational (though I am not sure when I may ever need to use some of the knowledge I gained). Possibly not for the more prudish reader, the scenes of a sexual nature are not presented in vivid technicolour but discussed in mature and sensible manner – the book is better for this non-glorification of our desires.

I will be looking to read more biographies over time, perhaps not one quite so eye-opening as this!

How Much For A Happy Ending? is published in paperback and digital format and can be ordered here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B09GPSTH6S/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i0

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