In Norah Lofts novel about Sir Walter Raleigh, it’s not easy being friends with Queen Elizabeth I **** Four stars
By Gabrielle Pantera
Here Was a Man by Norah Lofts
Being a favorite of the queen has its pitfalls. She likes to keep you close. You need her permission to go anywhere and especially to marry. Raleigh falls in love with one of Elizabeth’s ladies in waiting who he secretly marries. That’s going to be trouble.
Here was a Man is one of Norah Lofts’ early novels. Lofts story is romantic, yet you can feel Raleigh’s frustration with Elizabeth I. Raleigh is a member of Elizabeth’s court who dreams of exploring the New World. Raleigh is called back in the middle of his mission and doesn’t know why. Has something happened to his wife Bess?
Sir Walter Raleigh lived from 1552 to 1618. Not just an explorer and soldier, he was a politician and considered a top Elizabethan poet. He was a contemporary of Shakespeare, Marlowe, Sydney, who are part of Raleigh’s story as told by Lofts. Rising rapidly in Queen Elizabeth’s favor, Raleigh was knighted in 1585. His 1584 plan to colonize Roanoke Island would end in disaster, as Elizabeth held all English ships to fight the Spanish Armada, preventing the colony’s relief. When a ship finally came four years later, there was Read the rest of this Hollywood Today story »
‘I Bring What I Love’ documentary explores the music and life of Grammy-winner Youssou N’Dour *** 3 stars
By Jennifer Huber
Youssou N
HOLLYWOOD, CA (Hollywood Today) 6/28/2009 - ”I could have never predicted the controversy surrounding ‘Egypt’,” says ‘I Bring What I Love’ director Chai Vasarhelyi. “Maybe best known as the man who sang with Peter Gabriel on In Your Eyes, N’Dour is a man on a mission and that mission is to bring about change and hope through music.”
Youssou N’Dour is the highest-selling African pop musician of all time and has released more than 30 albums. Time magazine named him one of the “100 Most Influential People in the World” in 2007. The film, while exploring bits of N’Dour’s history and family life, mostly centers around the release of his 2005 Grammy-winning album Egypt. Released with great resistance from his people in his homeland of Senegal due to his music’s religious content, it garnered praise and success in Europe and the United States.
Novel set in 1936 England, Rhys Bowen mystery an enjoyable romp **** 4 Stars
By Gabrielle Pantera
Rhys Bowen mystery, haggis and a monster in the loch
HOLLYWOOD, CA (Hollywood Today) 2009/06/28 - “I thought what fun it would be if Georgie doesn’t understand the connotation behind the words Escort Service and High Class Girls,” says Royal Flush author Rhys Bowen. “I thought it would be time she went home to the castle in Scotland complete with ghosts, haggis and a monster in the loch. I’ve always been intrigued with the mystery surrounded the Duke of Clarence.”
Royal Flush is the third book in Rhys Bowen’s Royal Spyness Mystery series. Set in 1932, Lady Georgiana is a great-granddaughter of Queen Victoria and 34th in line to the English throne. Georgie is sent home to Scotland in disgrace after putting an advertisement in the paper to be a female escort. Georgie meant dinner and dancing, the gentlemen have something else in mind. At Rannoch Castle, Georgie finds accidents happening to members of the royal family and her brother. Georgie searches for answers. Can she solve this before a relative gets killed?
“I was writing it last summer when I was in England with my two little granddaughters so we had lots of fun exploring old castles,” says Bowen. “Just listening to family members speak as my characters speak is a great source of amusement. They don’t realize Read the rest of this Hollywood Today story »
Director Michael Bay’s summer blockbuster: maximum explosions and Megan Fox running in a tank top *** three stars
By Gabrielle Pantera
Biker-chick superhero Megan Fox
HOLLYWOOD, CA (Hollywood Today) 6/23/2009 - “I didn’t know I was the lead female in the movie until we were almost done wrapping,” says Transformers 2 star Megan Fox. “I thought, ‘I’ve worked twice as many days as I was supposed to’. I got a lot more screen time than I was prepared for. I didn’t expect the attention I’ve received. It’s a blessing and I appreciate it, but at the same time it scares the crap out of me.”
Megan Fox is as sexy as ever and not afraid to jump in and fight when there’s trouble. In Transformers 2, Megan Fox realizes a larger role and reaches the warrior-level confidence of Tomb Raider or Xena. Fox does a lot of running in slow motion as everything around her is consumed by big beautiful explosions. A biker-chick superhero, Fox has the presence of mind to Read the rest of this Hollywood Today story »
Film IFC acquired at Sundance treats Iraq war with humor, like Mash did with the Korean war *** 3 stars
By Jennifer Huber
In the Loop star Chris Addison
HOLLYWOOD, CA (Hollywood Today) 6/19/2009 - “The stakes are very high because it’s about a war,” says In the Loop star Chris Addison. “The horrifying things is that you think this couldn’t possibly happen. And then the longer you go on, the more you realize that this is probably exactly what happened. People teetering on the edge of sanity. People using false information in the lead up to the war for their own purposes.”
In the Loop is a movie with a war subject that feels more like an episode of The Office than any of the war themed movies we have seen of late. There is more laughter than drama and more bumbling politicians than heroic soldiers. Done in a pseudo-documentary style, the film centers on the decision to invade Iraq from the perspective of both the British and American governments.
‘For many of my generation in the US, the Saturday Night Live generation, the truth was always to be found in improvisation,” says In the Loop star Mimi Kennedy. “Then we got swept into Read the rest of this Hollywood Today story »
Rachel Johnson sequel to novel Notting Hell follows timid Mimi and philandering Ralph to Dorset *** 3 Stars
By Gabrielle Pantera
In a Good Place by Rachel Johnson
HOLLYWOOD, CA (Hollywood Today) 6/17/2009 - Author Rachel Johnson temporarily lost the ability to speak in a freak accident when she tried horseback riding researching her latest book. “I bought some new riding boots, just for the day,” says In a Good Place author Rachel Johnson. “I thought I better get up on a horse and just see what all the fuss was about.”
“As we walked slowly to the moor, the horse saw a gate and started cantering,” says Johnson. “I lost the stirrups. Then I lost the reins. Very slowly, I fell off into a soft cushion of heather. Although nothing hurt at the time, it was really bizarre. I lost the power of speech. After that, I decided to stick to writing.”
In her sequel to Notting Hell Rachel Johnson follows Mimi and her husband, Ralph, to Dorset, to escape the mess Ralph made by fathering a child with Mimi’s former friend Clare. But, Dorset has its own pitfalls to avoid. Their rural haven has the UK’s version of Martha Stewart, Rose, who Mimi at first dislikes. In the hamlet of Honeyborne, it’s do you ride and what kind of organic items you buy or grow. It isn’t too far away for Clare to pursue Ralph. Clare wants another Read the rest of this Hollywood Today story »
Henning Mankell’s best-selling crime drama series started as a Swedish favorite **** 4 stars
By Gabrielle Pantera
Mankell wrote bestseller Sidetracked novel to combat racism
HOLLYWOOD, CA (Hollywood Today) 6/16/2009 - Inspector Kurt Wallander, brought to life in the PBS-TV series starring Kenneth Branagh, is the hero of a series of detective novels by bestselling Swedish crime writer Henning Mankell. Wallander was created when Mankell became concerned by what he saw when he returned to Sweden in 1989.
“I’d been away from Sweden for some time,” says Wallander author Henning Mankell. “When I returned I became aware that racism was exploding. To me racism is a crime, so I thought I’d use a crime story. It was after that I realised I needed a police officer. That’s how Kurt Wallander was born.” It took six months for Mankell to write the first Wallander novel, Mördare utan ansikte, Faceless Killers.
Sidetracked, Mankell’s third Kurt Wallander mystery, is told from the perspectives of both the cop Wallander and the criminal. A teenage girl commits a violent suicide, a former justice minister is killed by a hatchet blow, with the peculiar twist that he’s scalped. Three more murders hachet murders with scalpings occur. Unable to find a link between the three murder victims, Wallander tries the American Read the rest of this Hollywood Today story »
In Santa Montefiore’s novel, a city woman moved to the country restores her family and the gardens help restore her and her family. **** 4 Stars
By Gabrielle Pantera
The French Gardener by Santa Montefiore
HOLLYWOOD, CA (Hollywood Today) 6/16/2009 - “I particularly love Prince Charles’ gardens at Highgrove,” says The French Gardener author Santa Montefiore. “I used two of them as bases for the gardens in my novel. I’ve always loved gardens. My parents live on a beautiful estate in Hampshire, west of London. I grew up in the countryside.”
In The French Gardener, Miranda and David moved to the country to give their troubled son Gus a better life. David works in the city and is only home on weekends. Their daughter Storm adjusts better than her brother to country life. They’re both bored. Miranda feels the dilapidated gardens are like her marriage, falling apart. Jean-Paul, the French gardener, returns. As they rebuild the gardens together, Miranda faces the challenges in her marriage.
“My father spent a lot of time on the farm or playing tennis, golf, rackets,” says Montefiore. “I noticed them go their separate ways. A man came to rent one of the cottages. It turned out he was a gardener. My parents began to develop the garden with him, together. They brought the vegetable garden back to life and all the things my mother had dreamed of doing but never had the manpower to do. I noticed the Read the rest of this Hollywood Today story »
In this Lifetime Network four-hour mini-series premiering Saturday, May 30th, bossy socialite Sarah Chalke finds getting married more difficult than she thought *** 3 Stars
By Gabrielle Pantera
Maneater star Sarah Chalke
HOLLYWOOD, CA (Hollywood Today) 5/29/2009 - “I’m up there in these fishnets and these ridiculously tiny tap shorts in front of 300 people,” says Lifetime Network’s Maneater star Sarah Chalke. “And, I’m supposed to be nine months pregnant. So, I’m feeling a little bit vulnerable singing and tapping anyway. Then I lift my arms up and the way that the pregnancy belly was holding onto the shorts, my pants fell down. So, now I’m standing there with my pants around my ankles, just tapping and singing with no pants on. It was one of those moments where you go, wow, is this really happening, or am I in a dream?”
Clarissa Alpertp, is a shallow Hollywood socialite who’s says she’s 28 but is actually turning 32. When she realizes she might end up old and alone because she’s played around too much, she makes a snap decision. She’s getting married! And, Clarissa always gets what she wants. The groom is Read the rest of this Hollywood Today story »
Jill Mansell novel traces hairdresser’s big dating mistakes **** 4 Stars
By Gabrielle Pantera
Miranda
HOLLYWOOD, CA (Hollywood Today) 5/28/2009 - “Miranda is a hairdresser,” says Miranda’s Big Mistake author Jill Mansell. “I think hairdressing salons are fascinating places. You can hear so much gossip and so much goes on there.”
“I saw a documentary on TV where a journalist went undercover, pretending to be a down-and-out and was secretly filming the public’s reaction to him in the street,” says Mansell. “That was my starting point. It also meant I’ve been giving money to down-and-outs ever since, just in case they happen to have a camera hidden under their coat.”
Miranda’s Big Mistake is about Miranda’s mistakes with men. Will she ever get it right? Miranda thinks everyone is good and nice. She’s been sharing her sandwiches for weeks with Danny, a homeless man. However, he’s not really homeless. Greg isn’t as he seems, either. He hasn’t told Miranda that he left his pregnant wife Chloe, that he doesn’t want the baby they made. A twist of fate puts Miranda and Chloe together.
Anne Elliott novel of Trystan and Isolde explores legends of King Arthur *** 3 Stars
By Gabrielle Pantera
Twilight of Avalon by Anna Elliott
HOLLYWOOD, CA (Hollywood Today) 5/28/2009 - “I had a very vivid dream that I was telling my mom that I was going to write a novel about the daughter of Modred,” says Twilight of Avalon author Anne Elliott. “Modred was the great villain of the cycle of King Arthur tales. When I woke up, the idea just wouldn’t let me go. Over the next nine months or so, with a brief break for my daughter’s birth, that idea turned into the manuscript for Twilight of Avalon.”
Queen Isolde, granddaughter of Morgan LeFay, tries to ignore the powers she’s inherited from her grandmother. Her father Mordred caused strife when he was king. After her father’s death, Isolde married Constantine who becomes king. Constantine is murdered, and with no child after seven years of marriage the throne is up for grabs. Isolde is forced to wed the ruthless warrior Lord Marche, but Isolde manages to escape, and she manages to helps a Saxon escape not knowing that their paths will cross again as it’s Trystan. One of Trystan’s men captures Isolde because she’s a healer.
Daisy Dalrymple series author launches new mystery book series set in 1960s Cornwall, England *** 3 Stars
By Gabrielle Pantera
Manna from Hades by Carola Dunn
HOLLYWOOD, CA (Hollywood Today) 5/11/2009 - “When I finished Manna from Hades my daughter-in-law arranged a tea-party to celebrate the completion of my 50th book,” says Manna from Hades author Carola Dunn. “We went to a fancy resort hotel. The staff somehow got the idea that it was a birthday party and they all gathered around to sing happy birthday.”
Manna from Hades is set in Cornwall during the 1960s is a new series by Carola Dunn. Dunn writes the Daisy Dalrymple series. Eleanor Trewynn, a well traveled widow gathers donations for the local charity shop, Lon Star, in Port Mabyn where she retired after her late husband died. One morning she finds a dead body in the shops storeroom and becomes embroiled in the investigation. Det. Sgt. Megan Pencarrow, Eleanor’s niece and Detective Inspector Scumble arrive to find out more about the possible murder. Scumble’s not a fan of women on the police force, and gets exasperated with Eleanor’s idiosyncrasy. Eleanor’s pron to forgetting to lock doors and doesn’t remembering little facts until later. Megan is under pressure to prove herself to her boss.
