NEW RELEASE
My Life in Black and White - Kim Izzo (2013)
Clara Bishop is a tabloid journalist from Hollywood who originally had a dream of becoming a famous screenwriter. Unexpectedly, Clara discovers her husband, Dean, is having an affair with a young, blonde waitress named Amber and their marriage is over. Clara can't let it go and follows Dean to London in order to win him back, with only an old trunk filled with her grandmother's vintage dresses. As Clara starts wearing these glamorous clothes, she slowly starts to change into a true femme fatale herself. Before she knows it, she suddenly finds herself in the city of London in the year 1952, starring in a film noir about her own life, with the opportunity to change not only her own destiny, but also her grandmother's. From the start of this novel, I was hooked by the story. Clara is a great protagonist; at first going through various difficulties (her husband cheating on her, still missing the child she never had, not being happy with her career choices, the strained relationship with her mother). Yet, Clara manages to find the strength within her to take all of this on board and deal with it. The whole atmosphere of the novel was just fabulous: from the glamorous vintage dresses and the shadowy film noir elements to the parts of film script included and the font of the chapter headings... Everything about this novel has been thought through and provides the reader with the opportunity of going back to London in the 1950s and joining Clara on her journey. My Life in Black and White is incredibly well-written, original and a novel different kinds of readers will thoroughly enjoy... A definite must-read! (JoH)
My Life in Black and White, by Kim Izzo, is a time-travel rom-com set within the world of film noir. The summary says: "See to it you can take a slap as easy as a kiss. That is if you want to get anywhere in this world and not be anybody's fool. Clara Bishop feels life has served her up far too many slaps and not nearly enough kisses. When she is suddenly jilted by her philandering husband, she follows him to London, determined she must win him back. Armed only with a suitcase of vintage clothing inherited from her grandmother, a former film noir actress, Clara discovers that the clothes really do make the woman. Dressed to kill, she adopts a new femme fatale persona: confident, sexy and set on revenge. But on the road to retaliation, Clara discovers an unfinished film script that sheds light on her grandmother's mysterious death years before. As Clara's life is transported into a living, breathing film from the fifties, she discovers not only the secrets of her grandmother's past, but the chance to write her own ending too. " My Life in Black and White is out in May 2013.