Tag: Reading Challenges

Book Review – A Beautiful Way to Die by Eleni Kyriacou

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About the Book

PLAY THEIR GAME
Hollywood, 1953. Young actress Ginny Watkins is turning heads. Even the legendary – and married – actor Max Whitman can’t resist the allure of the hottest new starlet. He promises Ginny the world, in return for the right favour.

DO WHAT THEY SAY
London, 1954. Stella Hope, once the most famous actress in Hollywood, has been ousted to Ealing Studios after her divorce from the powerful Max. Just as she accepts her fate, she receives a letter, blackmailing her for a mistake she made many years ago.

OR THEY’LL BURY YOU
Two women on either side of stardom find themselves in the orbit of the same beguiling man. And one night, in the shadows of a glamorous Oscars afterparty, their lives are changed forever…

Format: Hardcover (416 pages) Publisher: Head of Zues
Publication date: 8th May 2025 Genre: Historical Fiction

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My Review

A Beautiful Way to Die takes the reader beneath the glamorous facade of 1950s Hollywood to reveal its darker side and the people who dwell there: the money men motivated by profit, the publicists who can spin a positive story out of any disaster, the medical men who prescribe the uppers and downers, and the fixers who make the problems – and the problem people – disappear.

It’s a precarious world whether you’re an aspiring actress, the next big thing or a studio’s most bankable star because everything could change in a moment, especially if there are things in your past best kept secret.

Ginny’s initial joy at being given a contract by the studio (even if she’s had to change her name and appearance to get it) turns to frustration when she’s given one dead end role after another. And between roles there’s barely enough money to make ends meet meaning girls have to resort to being the entertainment at wild Hollywood parties or posing for risque photographs.

‘It was a tightrope, this town, she thought. Just one huge balancing act. Keep going, one foot in front of the other, even if you’re exhausted, no matter. Take these pills, don’t look down, don’t complain, look straight ahead… And if you fall? There’s no safety net… If you made it, the rewards were so high. And if you didn’t, well it was a beautiful way to die.’

When Ginny meets the studio’s leading man, Max Whitman, she believes everything’s about to change and her future success is assured. After all, aren’t they going to be Hollywood’s next ‘golden couple’? But she’s forgotten that, in Hollywood, everyone’s playing a part. ‘One may smile, and smile, and be a villain’, to quote Shakespeare’s Hamlet.

Stella knows all about the ruthlessness of the Hollywood system. She and Max were once the ‘golden couple’, even if their marriage was mostly a sham. She’s no longer the box office draw she was once was but vainly tries to live up to the diva image. Ealing Studios is not Hollywood so she’s bouyed up by the friendship that develops with her make-up artist Maggie, newly arrived on the scene. And Stella badly needs a friend because of the blackmail letters she’s been receiving. Who could be sending them? Who could possibly know her secret, something that happened years ago?

The author throws into the mix a third character, an unnamed woman confined to a sanatorium. Just who is she, why is she there and what will happen if she finally pieces together the fragments of memory to create a clear picture? I thought I knew exactly where things were going but, boy, did the author prove me wrong.

In A Beautiful Way to Die the author has served up a delicious cocktail of intrigue and passion with a generous dash of darkness. Think dirty martini. I absolutely loved it. And for observant readers of the author’s previous book, The Unspeakable Acts of Zina Pavlou, there’s a tiny literary easter egg.

I received a review copy courtesy of Head of Zeus via NetGalley.

In three words: Dramatic, compelling, suspenseful
Try something similar: Watch A Star Is Born (1954)

About the Author

Eleni Kyriacou is an award-winning editor and journalist. Her writing has appeared in the Guardian, the Observer, Grazia, and Red, among others. She’s the daughter of Greek Cypriot immigrant parents, and her debut novel, She Came to Stay, was published in 2020. The Unspeakable Acts of Zina Pavlou was inspired by the true-crime story of the penultimate woman to be executed in Britain.

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Book Review – Behind the Scenes at the Museum by Kate Atkinson #20BooksofSummer2025

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About the Book

Ruby Lennox was conceived grudgingly by Bunty and born while her father, George, was in the Dog and Hare in Doncaster telling a woman in an emerald dress and a D-cup that he wasn’t married. Bunty had never wanted to marry George, but he was all that was left. She really wanted to be Vivian Leigh or Celia Johnson, swept off to America by a romantic hero. But here she was, stuck in a flat above the pet shop in an ancient street beneath York Minster, with sensible and sardonic Patricia aged five, greedy cross-patch Gillian who refused to be ignored, and Ruby…

Ruby tells the story of The Family, from the day at the end of the nineteenth century when a travelling French photographer catches frail beautiful Alice and her children, like flowers in amber, to the startling, witty, and memorable events of Ruby’s own life.

Format: Hardcover (336 pages) Publisher: Doubleday
Publication date: 1st January 1995 Genre: Historical Fiction

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My Review

Behind the Scenes at the Museum was Kate Atkinson’s debut novel and, having read other books of hers, I can see it contains the keen eye for observational detail, the imagination and sardonic humour of later books.

Ruby goes one better than Charles Dickens’s David Copperfield who proudly announces, ‘I am born’ by telling the story of her life from the moment of her conception. Ruby’s is a rather accident prone family and some of these verge on the farcical whilst others are tragic. Her mother Bunty is a larger-than-life figure, not especially likeable but someone you can’t ignore. The same can’t be said for her approach to motherhood which basically involves ignoring her children for most of the time in order to concentrate on her rigorous regimen of household cleaning. However, even here, something more tragic lies beneath the surface.

Ruby’s memories of her childhood, school days and family holidays are interspersed with vignettes (or ‘footnotes’ as they are called in the book) that describe events in the lives of family members stretching back several generations. These are not arranged chronologically and there are a lot of family members meaning I found it very difficult to remember who was who and how they were related. Some of the ‘footnotes’ are very funny, such as that involving a wedding that takes place on the same day as the 1966 World Cup Final. Others, for example those set in the First and Second World Wars, are very moving.

Although I found the shifting back and forth in time rather confusing, I admired the way the author created a sense of each period and the clever use of objects to create connections down the generations: a silver locket, a rabbit’s foot, a photograph. Those who know York will find themselves easily able to picture Ruby’s travels around the city. I also loved the humorous episodes, the family holiday in Scotland in the company of their neighbours, the Ropers, being a great example.

The latter years of Ruby’s life are wrapped up rather quickly given they involve some quite major events. Perhaps, in a way, that fits the book’s title. Lingering over the first objects in a museum and merely glancing at the final ones in your eagerness to get to the gift shop or tearoom.

Behind the Scenes at the Museum is the first book from my 20 Books of Summer 2025 list. And, yes, I do know it’s already July and I need to get a move on.

In three words: Engaging, witty, episodic
Try something similar: The Heart’s Invisible Furies by John Boyne

About the Author

Kate Atkinson won the Whitbread (now Costa) Book of the Year Award with her first novel, Behind the Scenes at the Museum. Her 2013 novel Life After Life, now a BBC TV series starring Thomasin McKenzie, won the South Bank Sky Arts Literature Prize and the Costa Novel of the Year Award, was shortlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction, and was also voted Book of the Year by the independent booksellers associations on both sides of the Atlantic. A God in Ruins, also a winner of the Costa Novel of the Year Award, is a companion to Life After Life, although the two can be read independently.

Her six bestselling novels featuring former detective Jackson Brodie – Case Histories, One Good Turn, When Will There Be Good News?, Started Early, Took My Dog, Big Sky and Death at the Sign of the Rook – became the BBC TV series Case Histories, starring Jason Isaacs.

Kate Atkinson was awarded an MBE in the 2011 Queen’s Birthday Honours List, and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. (Bio: Author website/Photo: Goodreads author page)

Connect with Kate
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