Rachel West and the Fallen Starlet, by Emma Mills (REVIEW) — Big Dreams, Bigger Falls... and Finding Where You Belong
“Welcome to the jungle, it gets worse here every day
You learn to live like an animal in the jungle where we play
If you got hunger for what you see, you’ll take it eventually
You can have everything you want but you better not take it from me...”
~Guns N’ Roses
Everyone who moves to L.A. comes here for something.
Hoping to make it big... or to make a fresh start where nobody knows you.
Maybe just to get far away... from whatever was left behind.
Dreams and plans rarely go the way you’ve imagined, though.
Fame can take years—or forever remain out of reach. Fresh starts without any sort of network of family or friends can be incredibly lonely.
And as for what you might’ve been running from, well... who’s to say you won’t be running straight into something equally bad?
Still, even if how you end up doesn’t look how you’d hoped, it’s bound to be interesting. Surprising.
And sometimes, you might discover that what you’ve found is actually better than what you’d thought you wanted.
Rachel West and the Fallen Starlet, from Emma Mills, is that story.
She finds work as a copyeditor for a celebrity gossip mag—not remotely glamorous or lucrative, but at least it’s a job.
Until fate intervenes one night after work when she’s out at a nightclub.
Touching up her makeup in the club’s restroom, she glances over to find willowy, unbelievably-gorgeous actress Molly Byrne next to her... and Rachel, as they engage in a little girl-chat while primping, offers to let the other woman borrow her lip gloss.
Her exorbitantly-spendy Yves Saint Laurent lip gloss (that was in no way in her budget, but which she had to buy, even if it meant eating canned soup for a month).
And just like that, an honest-to-goodness friendship that Rachel never in a million years would’ve seen coming, begins.
Molly—a former child star now known more for her wild partying—helps Rachel, giving her scoops and making introductions.
For a few months, it’s like a dream... suddenly getting to actually write juicy stories for the magazine, and living in the celebrity bubble with someone she genuinely likes.
But the dream shatters the day Molly is found dead in her lavish Malibu mansion.
The headlines scream that Molly OD’d, perhaps stressed over an upcoming movie role or devastated after a recent breakup.
Rachel refuses to believe it, though; she’d spent enough time with the actress to know she was completely clean.
Which means one thing: Molly must’ve been murdered.
As her frustration at the public—and police—acceptance of the “tragic-little-spoiled-girl-gone-wrong” story mounts, Rachel decides to do the only thing she can think of.
Investigate on her own.
She draws a motley band of eager “mystery solvers” to her side—her work buddy, a paparazzo who’d been Molly’s favorite, a few fellow residents in her apartment building, and even a good-looking detective (who happens to live in the neighborhood).
Each trusts Rachel’s instincts that something horrible had happened.
But the nearer Rachel and company edge toward the truth, something else becomes clear: whoever was behind the calculated murder of a famous celebrity... wouldn’t think twice about doing the same to a nearly-nobody like Rachel West.
Rachel West and the Fallen Starlet wasn’t at all what I thought it was going to be.
I assumed I’d enjoy it... which I did.
The blurb pointed toward a modern cozy feel, in an Only Murders in the Building (if set in L.A.) way, so I figured it would be humorous, clever, and a little snarky.
It delivers delightfully at that, too.
I also hoped there’d be a compelling story—with a multi-layered mystery (and a killer I didn’t see coming)—and that’s true, as well.
What I didn’t expect was the intense emotional pull... the surprising feeling that I really understood Rachel.
Not life endangerment. Or solving an actual murder mystery. But the feelings of loss... of need for change... of having to maintain a protective shell... and of trying to carve out a place in a completely new environment?
Those things hit hard.
So, while I fully expected to like Rachel West and the Fallen Starlet, what I didn’t see coming was how much I’d love it.
If you’re in the mood for something modern and a little glitzy, with some emotional meat on its bones—that just might stick with you for longer than “until that next favorite read comes along”?
This one deserves your attention.
~GlamKitty
[Note: The publisher is calling Rachel West and the Fallen Starlet the start of a new mystery series, which bodes well for more adventures with Rachel and her new crew. Color me happy about that! 😃]
[Thanks to Penguin Random House and Berkley Publishing Group for providing this book for review consideration via NetGalley. All opinions are, as always, entirely my own.]
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