
The supernaturally tinged A Starlet's Secret to a Sensational Afterlife is a riveting and suspenseful exploration of the dark, gritty side of 1930s Hollywood.
Eighteen-year-old Henrietta "Henny" Newhouse arrives in Hollywood in 1934 with intentions to be a star. What she gets instead are "handsy managers" and "slick-talking men." Just as Henny is about to give up on her dream, she lands a contract with the lauded Silver Wing Studios--and a sullen fake boyfriend. Nineteen-year-old Declan Collins is a former stunt man who can miraculously "survive stupid things," like jumping off buildings, without a scratch. Despite their differences, the reluctant couple comes together when each realizes the other has also been secretly investigating missing actresses: ghosts of the former starlets appear to Henny, and Declan is helping a P.I. who's convinced the studio is covering up crimes. Together, Henny and Declan must uncover the studio's secrets before they become victims themselves.
Through alternating chapters between Henny and Declan, Kendall Kulper (Murder for the Modern Girl) downplays the seduction of the Hollywood system while emphasizing its ugliness: a "nightmare of desperate hopefuls and the monsters who preyed on them" with scams, sexism, gaslighting, and unfair work conditions. Kulper effectively uses Henny's ability to speak to ghosts to give a voice to the many actresses who have been treated like "pawns or playthings or disposable toys." This mystical element, along with Declan's invincibility, is woven seamlessly into the genre-crossing mystery, which has elements of fantasy, romance, and historical fiction. An action-packed and beguiling Old Hollywood romp. --Lana Barnes, freelance reviewer and proofreader