This Year's Model (2008)

Melody Ann Croft is your average hometown girl - very practical, with her whole life planned out ahead of her. That all changes one day when a customer at the restaurant where she is working tells her she could be a model and gives her his card along with the numbers of all the top agencies in New York. Melody is a little curious, despite thinking this man is crazy, so she calls one agency and just with the mention of this man (who happens to be a famous photographer), she gets an appointment immediately. That begins her career as MAC, the model, for Delicious Models. Her booker, Francesca, has her going on go-sees at lightning speed and she books her first job in no time. Melody plans to save her money for college so she won't need a scholarship, but making so much money so quickly with modelling is addictive and Melody starts thinking that maybe she can defer college and model for a few years instead. With the obvious perks of modelling also come the many pitfalls: lecherous men, drugs and other things Melody is not used to. After a fling with a male model named Duncan and being stabbed in the back by her so-called best friend Jade, Melody starts to wonder who she can trust, if anyone. But after booking her first cover, only a few months into her career, Melody is hooked on modelling and travelling to exotic locations. The only question is, how much of herself does she have to give up in order to succeed in the modelling business? (AS)

Model, Incorporated (2009)

MAC is back and ready for her close up. After nine months full of turmoil, MAC, formerly known as Melody Ann Croft, is ready to be the top model in the industry. She's done fashion week in New York and abroad and has even appeared on the cover of Sports Illustrated. What's next for the most wanted face in the modelling world? Of course, that would be the coveted partnership with Cover Girl. MAC has already been starving herself to keep her bookers happy and she's starting to feel the results with dizzy spells and hunger pains. But the model life is so great. Especially meeting all of her admirers. A chance meeting with older Hollywood heart-throb Patrick Carroll leads to a short-lived relationship, but it's not until MAC meets Jim, an insanely rich real estate mogul, that MAC thinks she has found the guy for her. But what does he really want from her? She's tired of being his arm candy and tired of his controlling ways. All MAC really wants is to be the next face of Cover Girl and she is willing to do anything to get the lucrative contract. MAC's rise in the modelling world is too fast paced and her affairs with older men are too numerous for just one book, but overall MAC is likeable and you can see traces of her in all of the models out there today, trying so hard to please everyone and succeed that they forget to care for themselves in the process. (AS)

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