The #1 bestselling author of Cooking for Picasso and The Godmothers returns with The Girl from the Grand Hotel, a dazzling historical novel that brings readers into the glamorous world of the first (and doomed) Cannes Film Festival and the deadly atmosphere of Europe on the brink of war.
Summer 1939. The glittering Cÿte d'Azur is having a particularly brilliant season, as the world's wealthiest vacationers collide with Hollywood's illustrious movie stars for the first-ever film festival on the French Riviera.
Into this hothouse playground comes an American named Annabel Faucon. Having left a dead-end job and a broken heart back in New York, she's escaped to a summer stint at the fabulous Grand Hotel, where her uncle is the manager. But when a major movie studio brings its flock of stars to stay at the hotel, Annabel is handpicked to 'keep an eye on' two of the mysterious arrivals: a screenwriter who's been 'in his cups' and a renegade actor who keeps luring the studio's female star into his independent productions.
The arrival of Nazi guests only intensifies the situation. Suddenly everyone is watching everybody else during this feverish last summer before the outbreak of World War II. Faced with international spies who will stop at nothing to get what they want, Annabel finds herself embroiled in murder, intrigue, and a race against the clock to disrupt a secret Nazi communications system.
Inspired by true events and the histories of three great hotels on the Cÿte d'Azur-with appearances by such real-life luminaries as Marlene Dietrich, F. Scott Fitzgerald, James Cagney, and Mae West-The Girl from the Grand Hotel is a brilliant page-turner that is not to be missed.
Book discussion questions are available here: https://s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/www.blackstoneaudio.com/docs/BookClubKit_TheGirlFromTheGrandHotel.pdf
Camille Aubray is an Edward F. Albee Foundation Fellowship winner. A writer-in-residence at the Karolyi Foundation in the South of France, she was a finalist for the Pushcart Press Editors' Book Award and the Eugene O'Neill National Playwrights Conference. She studied writing at the University of London with David Hare, Tom Stoppard, and Fay Weldon; and with her mentor Margaret Atwood at the Humber College School of Creative Writing Workshop in Toronto. Aubray has been a staff writer for the daytime dramas One Life to Live and Capitol, has taught writing at New York University, and has written and produced for ABC News, PBS, and A&E. The author divides her time between Connecticut and the South of France.
Summer 1939. The glittering Cÿte d'Azur is having a particularly brilliant season, as the world's wealthiest vacationers collide with Hollywood's illustrious movie stars for the first-ever film festival on the French Riviera.
Into this hothouse playground comes an American named Annabel Faucon. Having left a dead-end job and a broken heart back in New York, she's escaped to a summer stint at the fabulous Grand Hotel, where her uncle is the manager. But when a major movie studio brings its flock of stars to stay at the hotel, Annabel is handpicked to 'keep an eye on' two of the mysterious arrivals: a screenwriter who's been 'in his cups' and a renegade actor who keeps luring the studio's female star into his independent productions.
The arrival of Nazi guests only intensifies the situation. Suddenly everyone is watching everybody else during this feverish last summer before the outbreak of World War II. Faced with international spies who will stop at nothing to get what they want, Annabel finds herself embroiled in murder, intrigue, and a race against the clock to disrupt a secret Nazi communications system.
Inspired by true events and the histories of three great hotels on the Cÿte d'Azur-with appearances by such real-life luminaries as Marlene Dietrich, F. Scott Fitzgerald, James Cagney, and Mae West-The Girl from the Grand Hotel is a brilliant page-turner that is not to be missed.
Book discussion questions are available here: https://s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/www.blackstoneaudio.com/docs/BookClubKit_TheGirlFromTheGrandHotel.pdf
Camille Aubray is an Edward F. Albee Foundation Fellowship winner. A writer-in-residence at the Karolyi Foundation in the South of France, she was a finalist for the Pushcart Press Editors' Book Award and the Eugene O'Neill National Playwrights Conference. She studied writing at the University of London with David Hare, Tom Stoppard, and Fay Weldon; and with her mentor Margaret Atwood at the Humber College School of Creative Writing Workshop in Toronto. Aubray has been a staff writer for the daytime dramas One Life to Live and Capitol, has taught writing at New York University, and has written and produced for ABC News, PBS, and A&E. The author divides her time between Connecticut and the South of France.