THE STARLETS

Real life is turning out to be stranger than a script for the silver screen.

Summer, 1958. Vivienne Rhodes thinks shes finally landed her break playing Helen in Apex Pictures big-budget Troy epic, A Thousand Ships, an anticipated blockbuster meant to resurrect the failing studio. Naturally, shes devastated when she arrives on the remote Italian island of Tavalli and finds herself cast as Cassandrawhile her nemesis, the fiancée-stealing Lottie Lawrence, Americas supposed "sweetheart," is headlining instead. The tension on set, though, turns deadly when the ladies discover that members of the crew are using the production as a front for something decidedly illegaland that they are willing to kill to keep their dealings under wraps. When the two women find themselves on the run and holding key evidence, Vivienne and Lottie frantically agree to work together to deliver the proof to Interpol, hoping to protect both their lives and their careers. Staying one step ahead of corrupt cops and looming mobsters, the archrivals flee across the seas. Their journey leads them into Monacos casinos, Grace Kellys palace, on a road trip through the Alpseven onto another film set, before a final showdown on Tavalli, where the lives of the entire cast and crew hang in the balance. Vivienne and Lottie finally have the chance to be real heroinesto save the day, the film, maybe even each otherbut only if they can first figure out how to share the spotlight. Lee Kelly is the author of The Antiquity Affair and The Starlets, co-written with Jennifer Thorne, published by Harper Muse, and With Regrets, published by Crooked Lane Books. She is also the author of two novels for young adults, City of Savages and A Criminal Magic. Before becoming a writer, she was an entertainment lawyer who practiced law in Los Angeles and New York. She lives with her husband and children in Pennsylvania. Jennifer Thorne is the author of Lute and Diavola (a USA Today bestseller), published by Tor/Nightfire. With Lee Kelly, she is co-author of The Antiquity Affair (2023) and The Starlets (2024), published by HarperMuse. As Jenn Marie Thorne, she is the author of the YA novels The Wrong Side of Right, The Inside of Out, and Night Music, and her short fiction appeared in the YA anthology Battle of the Bands (Candlewick, 2021). She is also the author of the picture book Construction Zoo. She received her BFA in Drama at NYU-Tisch, and currently lives in Gloucestershire, England with her husband and two sons.