His Girl Hollywood

Returning to the Golden Age of Hollywood (after It Happened One Fight), Lenker offers a hijinks-filled rom-com that’s more successful as a rollicking period piece than a love story. Oscar-winning screenwriter Arlene Morgan has always dreamed of directing and knows that, as a woman, she’ll only get one chance to prove herself, even with the full support of her studio head. So when she’s assigned Broadway dancer Don Lamont as her musical picture’s quick-footed costar, she resolves to keep it strictly business with the man who happens to have been her childhood best friend and longtime unrequited love. Don’s found success on Broadway but has little to show for it because he’s under the thumb of a local mobster. His first movie offers him a chance to break away, even if that means returning to California and the bad memories of familial disapproval that haunt it. It’s hard to buy into Don and Arlene as a couple because their chemistry doesn’t quite come across on the page. Still, the setting sparkles, whisking readers to glamorous Hollywood nightclubs, diner counters, movie sets, and the Santa Monica Pier, and the threat of the New York mobsters injects a bit of danger into the fun plot. Readers who come for the atmosphere won’t be disappointed. (Jan.)