Lucky by Britney Spears
This song is about a young actress experiencing the dark side of fame, but it’s got this bubbly chorus and Britney’s signature sultry-sweet vocals, so the real heart of its story-- the despair of a depressed and lonely starlet—can sometimes get buried. Add the spoken word interlude (“And the winner is….Lucky!”) and you have an iconic Y2k earworm that seems sparkly even while it’s totally depressing. It’s the perfect song for Maggie McKee, who bedazzles everything about her life as a popstar on Reality TV, from her marriage to her friendships to her diet. She might be lucky, but she is also clearly stuck.
You’ll Ask For Me by Tyler Hilton
I played this song on repeat while thinking about Cassidy and Gabe. How much of someone’s reputation matters when they are standing right in front of you being vulnerable? It’s also an ode to patience and waiting until the time is right, which has everything to do with Cassidy and Gabe’s romance.
Hits Different by Taylor Swift
It’s hard to choose a favorite Taylor song, but this one might be it for me. I think the line “the sun burns my heart and the sand hurts my feelings” is up there with her finest lyrics. This is a song about being totally unhinged after a breakup—it’s blunt and funny and just screams our narrator Cassidy.
California by Chappell Roan
Anyone who has moved across the country in pursuit of a dream can relate to this Chappell Roan song about disappointment and resilience. “Come get me out of California” could also be Cassidy’s theme song as her experience with HONEYMOON STAGE goes south. I listened to it a lot while writing about her conflicted emotions in deciding if she wants to keep pursuing a career in TV.
A Public Affair by Jessica Simpson
Jessica Simpson is one of my HONEYMOON STAGE muses—specifically for her experience as a pioneer of the celeb-reality genre on MTV in the early 2000s. At a general level, this song is a catchy synth-pop song about going out for the night, but in the context of this novel, it’s a reminder that at a certain level of celebrity, everything is public. This feels like a song that tries to celebrate and embrace having the eyes of the world (and the camera) watching 24/7—for better or worse.
Narrator: Jesse Vilinsky
A Novel
Brimming with wit and romance, this twisty trip back to the early 2000s follows as a former production assistant’s upcoming marriage descends into the confusion, chaos, and karmic consequences of reality TV.
It’s the night before her wedding, and Cassidy Baum isn’t sure she wants to get married…Or maybe she just doesn’t want to get married on set, surrounded by cameras and crew, with the crushing weight of everyone watching.
As a production assistant, Cassidy’s used to being behind the camera, not in front of it. But her fiancé is a former child star and musician, and their wedding makes the perfect spin-off for Honeymoon Stage, the groundbreaking celebreality show she once worked on.
Five years ago, the show fell apart—for dramatic reasons Cassidy is still struggling to understand. Now, Cassidy is forced to reckon with what happened on set to search out the truth once and for all before her wedding is broadcast to the world.
Rumors, lies, and suspicions come rushing back. And if Cassidy can’t figure out a way to make sense of the past, her own happily ever after may not be so happy after all.
Women's Fiction | Humor | Science Fiction [ Amazon Publishing, On Sale: November 4, 2025, Hardcover / e-Book, ISBN: 9781662533129 / eISBN: 9781662533112 ]
Margaux Eliot is excited to give early aughts pop culture its due. Writing as Julia Fine, she is also the author of speculative novels The Upstairs House, What Should Be Wild, and Maddalena and the Dark. She lives in Chicago with her family.
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