This month, I’m talking with authors Lee Kelly and Jennifer Thorne, a talented, dynamic writing duo whose fabulous new women’s fiction novel, The Starlets, will be released on November 12th.
This international romp featuring two fictional, 1950s era movie stars is one of my very favorite books of the year. I have been telling everyone about it, and the amazing pair of writers who brought these delightful characters so vividly to life. Read on to find out more about this wonderful story, and how the team of Kelly and Thorne manage to write such terrific books while living on separate continents!
Marie: Your delightful new novel, The Starlets, set on a fictional Italian island in 1958, is the story of two ambitious, competitive, and utterly at-odds young movie starlets who have no choice but to join forces when the tension on the set takes a deadly turn. Tell us about the original inspiration for the book, and what attracted you to this particular place and time?
Lee: For this second collaboration, Jenn and I knew we wanted to write a story centering around the film industry, Old Hollywood in particular: it was such a unique, fascinating time where the major studios wielded incredible power over celebrities, along with the cultural zeitgeist in general.
Whenever we sit down to flesh out new concepts, we usually start by mining our shared trove of cultural reference points and favorite movies and TV shows . . . and we’re always looking for ways to explore female-focused stories, so quickly came around to the idea of a Some Like It Hot adventure featuring two feuding, and incredibly different, starlets.
Jenn: What’s fun is that we have so many similar pop culture touchpoints to draw from, and then others that we each bring to the table and can introduce each other to. Like I was more of a Hitchcock gal than Lee, and she brought way more knowledge of real life behind-the-scenes drama from that era to the table, so we could add different ingredients to the soup.
At the end of the day, though, I think we basically wrote a book set in places we want to go on vacation.
Marie: Not only do the two of you write as a team, but because Lee lives in New Jersey and Jennifer lives in the Cotswold region of England, you do so in vastly different time zones. So, how does that work exactly? Do you trade chapters and characters? Or work collaboratively throughout the whole book?
Lee: Our process keeps changing and evolving! The longer we work together, the more we’ve become fluent in a shared story language. For our first book, The Antiquity Affair, Jenn and I very much worked “alongside” one another—separate chapters, delineated tasks, only commenting on each other’s work in the margins. The Starlets broke that down significantly. Although we still captained a main character for this book, we’d fill in each other’s scenes, punch up jokes, add scenic details, you name it. For our other forthcoming (unannounced) books, we’ve actually taken to writing in tandem, sometimes even going back and forth in a scene real-time! So, it’s definitely been an evolution.
Jenn: When we started out, we were very protective of and careful around each other’s work, but having written together over the past several years now, there’s a level of trust and understanding of each other that we’ve built that allows us to just get in there in a shared document and get our hands dirty.
Marie: Do you ever run into disagreements about the direction the story is taking? If so, how do you resolve those differences?
Jenn: We frontload most of that discussion by plotting before we write. I personally have to be careful at the outset of working on a project not to let my brainstorms harden into concrete, because what we arrive at collaboratively is always better than what I came up with on my own. When we disagree on something along the way, our discussions around the “why” of it, beyond the “this would be cool” actually really wind up strengthening the book as a whole, no matter what decision we wind up with–usually something brand new neither of us walked in with.
Lee: We’ve been friends and collaborators for, what, maybe a decade by this point?! So it’s pretty obvious when we’re both on board with an idea or direction, versus when one of us has doubts or different ideas. I also think Jenn and I have built a real baseline of trust and respect, so that we both feel heard: the brainstorming process only stops when both of us are firmly on board with the story shape and feel good about moving forward.
I’d call our process very natural, very organic—for all those writers out there contemplating a collaboration, I think trust is really so key, as ideally, you’re making something together that winds up greater than the sum of its parts!
Marie: Apart from the fact that they're both movie stars, Vivienne and Lottie are as different as two people could possibly be. But as the story unfolds, they begin to understand and appreciate one another. Where did you find the inspiration for these characters? Are there any aspects of their relationship and collaboration that reflect your own?
Lee: Thank you so much Marie! We set out to very intentionally create two characters who approached Hollywood from vastly different backgrounds and mindsets.
Vivienne Rhodes, the character I captained, is the daughter of an action star, so “Hollywood royalty” in a sense, but her complicated childhood and family dynamics has left her with distorted views of love, support, and trust. I also wanted Vivienne to come from the aquatic picture world, the Esther Williams world ... I was really interested in exploring the mind of an athlete. As a former athlete myself, I think athletes look at the world in a very specific way, even after they no longer actively play a sport—certain preconceptions about winning, losing, competition, teamwork… I also think athletes tend to adopt this tenacious, “practice makes perfect” attitude quite early on in life, and I loved the idea of writing about a somewhat relentless, rigid character doggedly working her way through the ranks of what many people consider an instinctive art. There was just lots of fun stuff to play with there.
Jenn: With Lottie, I wanted to explore somebody who uses niceness and likeability as a kind of vehicle to navigate the world, and also someone who sees the Hollywood game and acting itself as a kind of con, which, given her upbringing, she’s uniquely qualified to play. I think a lot of women get to a point in our lives where we step back and examine our own desire to be liked and accepted and weigh up how much it’s worth against the value of living a more authentic life, complete with rich, honest friendships.
Marie: I do love a caper, and yours was one of the best I've read in a long time. It's a caper, an international mystery, and a buddy book all rolled up in one fast-paced, almost cinematic package. But tucked into all the action are themes about competition, the illusion of glamor, and the two-edged sword of fame that feels incredibly relevant in today's world. What do you hope readers take away from the story and your character's journeys?
Lee: Marie, this pitch of yours makes my day because this is exactly what we’d love for readers to take away! That satisfying feeling of having gone on an emotional, transformative journey with these characters, but ultimately, we hope the book is a fun ride and a true form of escapism.
Jenn: Even if you’re not in “the biz,” odds are you’ve witnessed situations in which the game is stacked against women in a way that pits them against each other, so one aspect of the story I’d hope readers might walk away with is the theme of women helping and supporting other women.
Marie: Researching this story must have been such fun! Was there anything you learned along the way that surprised or especially delighted you?
Lee: It really was a blast. What was particularly cool about this book’s research was that all these convenient little moments from history kept popping up and dovetailing so well with our story trajectory. For example, we knew early on that we wanted the women to end up on a different (and real life) film set during their escapades… without spoilers, the action sequence that was filming the day these ladies stumbled onto this actual movie set worked out so perfectly for our hit and run!
Jenn: When we found out Frank Sinatra was performing a private benefit concert for Grace Kelly the same summer our film stars were appealing to the Monaco palace for help, we knew we needed to put that Monte Carlo scene in there. There are always tiny bits of information you need for blink-and-you-miss-them beats in historical fiction, like, say, the year a particular boat was built and what its top speed was. For this book, all that research felt immersive in a “I’m on the Riviera right now” way that I for one found very enjoyable.
Marie: Are you planning any special events to celebrate the November 12th release of The Starlets? If so, how can readers take part?
Jenn: Yes! I’m flying in from England for that whole release week and would love to meet as many readers as possible. We will be posting event details on our Instagrams soon.
Lee: Brief breakdown, though: we've got a launch party in Ambler, PA on our release date, November 12th, an event on Thursday, November 14th at Astoria Books in New York, and another author talk on Saturday, November 16th at Park Books in Severna Park, MD with historical fiction authors Jenni Walsh and J’nell Ciesielski. For anyone local to these areas, we would love to see you!
Real life is turning out to be stranger than a script for the silver screen.
Summer, 1958. Vivienne Rhodes thinks she’s finally landed her break playing Helen in Apex Pictures’ big-budget Troy epic, A Thousand Ships, an anticipated blockbuster meant to resurrect the failing studio. Naturally, she’s devastated when she arrives on the remote Italian island of Tavalli and finds herself cast as Cassandra—while her nemesis, the fiancée-stealing Lottie Lawrence, America’s supposed “sweetheart,” is headlining instead.
The tension on set, though, turns deadly when the ladies discover that members of the crew are using the production as a front for something decidedly illegal—and that they are willing to kill to keep their dealings under wraps. When the two women find themselves on the run and holding key evidence, Vivienne and Lottie frantically agree to work together to deliver the proof to Interpol, hoping to protect both their lives and their careers.
Staying one step ahead of corrupt cops and looming mobsters, the archrivals flee across the seas. Their journey leads them into Monaco’s casinos, Grace Kelly’s palace, on a road trip through the Alps—even onto another film set, before a final showdown on Tavalli, where the lives of the entire cast and crew hang in the balance. Vivienne and Lottie finally have the chance to be real heroines—to save the day, the film, maybe even each other—but only if they can first figure out how to share the spotlight.
Mystery Historical | Suspense Historical [Harper Muse, On Sale: November 12, 2024, Paperback / e-Book, ISBN: 9781400240661 / eISBN: 9781400240678]
Lee Kelly has wanted to write since she was old enough to hold a pencil, but it wasn’t until she began studying for the California Bar Exam that she conveniently started putting pen to paper. An entertainment lawyer by trade, Lee has practiced law in Los Angeles and New York. She lives with her husband and son in Millburn, New Jersey, though after a decade in Manhattan, she can’t help but still call herself a New Yorker. City of Savages is her first novel.
Jennifer Thorne is an American author of books for adults and young readers who writes from a nineteenth-century Cotswold cottage in the medieval market town of Minchinhampton alongside her husband, two sons, and various other animals.
Born in a small town in Tennessee, Jenn grew up bouncing between her parents’ homes in various other states and countries, with books as her constant companions, before returning to New York as a teen to study drama at NYU. Though acting had been her lifelong dream, she found that she was more fulfilled by writing performance vehicles for her friends than acting in them herself. After a move to Los Angeles, she detoured into writing and never looked back.
Published as Jenn Marie Thorne, Jenn debuted in 2015 with The Wrong Side of Right, an acclaimed YA contemporary novel set in the world of presidential politics. Two YA novels followed, advocacy comedy The Inside of Out, and classical musician romance Night Music, as well as picture book Construction Zoo, inspired by playtimes with her two imaginative young sons.
In England, finding her footing as an expatriate among the rolling hills and roving cows of Minchinhampton while a pandemic closed borders around her, Jenn wrote Lute, her first horror novel and first work for adult readers.
When not curled up with a good book, Marie Bostwick can usually be found in her office, trying to write one.
A New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of eighteen uplifting works of historical and contemporary fiction, Marie’s books are beloved by readers across the globe.
Drawing on her lifelong love of quilting and her unshakable belief in the power of sisterhood, Marie’s popular Cobbled Court Quilt series has been embraced by quilters and non-sewers alike. Her standalone books have also found a passionate following among lovers of women’s fiction. Marie’s novel, The Second Sister” was adapted into the 2018 Hallmark Hall of Fame feature film “Christmas Everlasting”, starring Patti LaBelle. Marie’s most recent novel, Hope on the Inside, was published in March 2019 and was chosen as a Reader’s Digest “Select Editions” book.
Marie’s latest endeavor is Fiercely Marie, a lifestyle blog that encourages women to live every minute and love every moment. She is currently working on her next novel, “The Restoration of Celia Fairchild”, which will be published by William Morrow in the spring of 2021.
Marie lives in Washington state with her husband and a beautiful but moderately spoiled Cavalier King Charles Spaniel.
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