"A child star grows up to face her attacker from 20 years ago."
Reviewed by Lynn Cunningham
Posted April 6, 2015
Mystery Amateur Sleuth
Child actress Jana Lane is all grown up now and married
with
children of her own. Her husband Brian is handsome and
successful with a landscaping business. Her two children
are
normal kids, happy and healthy. Jana's father Scott Lane
co-starred with his daughter in every one of her movies
and
still considers himself quite the actor. He dotes on Jana
as
does her sister Tamara. Her best friend, Jackson Mitchell,
is an openly gay, African American attorney.
On the surface, it all sounds pretty perfect until you
start
to dig a little deeper. Brian hates his business because
it
was a necessary second choice for financial reasons. Scott
is a clingy and annoying sort of person who still wants to
ride on Jana's celebrity coattails. Tamara is grossly
overweight and clearly in love with Brian. Jackson is in
love with a married man with a family who is still firmly
in
the closet.
And Jana, well, Jana was attacked on the set of her final
movie twenty years ago. The trauma of it caused her to
have a
nervous collapse which necessitated her stay in a mental
hospital for nearly a year. She never could remember who
attacked her, but she is now having dreams of that attack.
Her memory is coming back and there is someone who will do
anything to stop her from remembering.
PAPER DOLL is the first book in the Jana Lane
Mystery series
and does a very good job of introducing readers to some
highly interesting characters. There were some very nerve
jangling moments that might just possibly make the hair on
the back of your neck stand on end. Jana's dreams of the
incident that changed her life were suitably creepy and
frustrating in that she only gets small pieces of the
puzzle
at a time.
Jana is somewhat of a weak character but that may be due
to
her attack and mental collapse. I hope that she will be
shown as a stronger person in the next book. Her husband
Brian is also rather weak and these two have some definite
communication issues in their relationship. Tamara should
be
told that Brian is married to her sister and Scott Lane is
someone that I would not want to know at all.
My favorite character in PAPER DOLL is Jackson. He is
beautifully and perfectly written and brings so much humor
and emotion to the story. Now, him, I would like to hang
out
with.
PAPER DOLL is a superbly crafted mystery with an eclectic
cast of characters that will engage you and elicit some
very
emotional responses as you are completely caught up in the
events that unfold in these pages. Everyone has secrets
and
the people in PAPER DOLL has them in spades! They are
secrets that you will definitely want to uncover.
SUMMARY
Jana Lane was America’s most famous child star until she
was
attacked on the studio lot at eighteen years old. Now a
thirty-eight-year-old beauty and mother of two living in a
mansion in picturesque Hudson Valley, New York, Jana’s
flashbacks from her past turn into murder attempts in her
present. Forced to summon up the lost courage she had as a
child, Jana visits the California movie studio she once
called home. This sends her on a whirlwind of visits with former and
current movie studio personnel. It also leads to a romance
with the son of her old producer—Rocco Cavoto—the
devilishly
handsome filmmaker who is planning Jana’s comeback both
professionally and personally. With Rocco’s help, Jana
uncovers a web of secrets about everyone she loves,
including the person who destroyed her past and threatens
to
snuff out her future.
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