BOOK NEWS
Not Without You - Harriet Evans (2013)
Actress Sophie Leigh has always had a fascination for 1950s movie legend Eve Noel. Indeed the rom-com queen would love to bring her life to the big screen and find out what ever happened to her after she disappeared from public life. A worthwhile project like that would make a nice change from her Hollywood agent pushing ditzy roles on her. So when Sophie returns home to England for a movie about Anne Hathaway, Shakespeare's wife, she takes the opportunity to track down Eve. The story of what happened to Eve in the 1950s runs in tangent with Sophie's story. Eve always had a piece missing from her heart since the day her mischievous sister, Rose, was swept away in a swollen stream. While she falls into marriage with mean-spirited Gilbert, she falls in love with alcoholic screenwriter Don. But what causes Eve to throw in her star-studded lifestyle and vanish into thin air? Meanwhile, it seems, someone has it in for Sophie, leaving her eerie messages, seemingly connected to Eve Noel. Although its mystery elements and dual narrative leave you wondering what will happen next, somehow this book didn't fire for me. It just didn't feel like a Harriet Evans novel.
Harriet Evans' latest novel Not Without You is about two film stars from different eras and the secret that connects them. The summary says: "Sophie knows she should count herself lucky. She grew up in modest surroundings but suddenly finds herself catapulted into the A-list after the surprise hit of a budget movie. But surrounded by botoxed assistants, lecherous old directors and a star-struck mother, Sophie just wishes she could be a proper actress, in proper, serious films. And at the tender age of 30, she already worries she's past her 'prime'. As Sophie's career begins to decline - slowly and painfully at first, and then all at once - her fate seems to be entwined with that of her favourite actress, Eve Noel. The epitome of 50s Hollywood glamour, Eve suddenly disappeared from the spotlight. No one knows why. As Sophie receives threatening letters, it seems that the dark secrets in Eve's past are beginning to haunt Sophie, too . . . With a new film about Shakespeare burying Sophie deep in the English countryside, suddenly Eve herself is close at hand."