Star Country — Jill Robinson

When the phone goes at four in the morning it means somebody's dead, drunk, or wants to get laid. . . . In the hip and knowing L.A. world where Alexandra Zachary grew up, life is all in how you play the scene. Though she's been a successful producer in kinder, gentler London for several years, this phone call is going to start her on a roller-coaster ride back to the Coast. This time, someone has died: her best friend Kate. Suddenly, senselessly. And now, returning to California after a long absence, Alex will have to face the truth: L.A. is not just her past, but her future. The granddaughter of the founder of one of the all-time great movie studios, VLI, Alex knew she had presence by the age of five. By seven she'd discovered her best angles, and by eight she'd mastered her best moves. Yet even with her pedigree—and the crazy, still-influential family that comes with it—Alex left Hollywood. Now her years of producing low-budget, high-profit movies are about to give way to her true calling, the wish closest to her heart: to run VLI, the studio her family lost long ago. There are complications. She needs a billion dollars, which she hasn't got. And as her quest to lure powerful backers heats up, two men play leading roles. Rick Stone, who has laid out his own blockbuster bid for VLI, shares a rivalry with Alex's family that goes back to the Golden Days of Hollywood. He also happens to be Alex's ex-husband and the father of her daughter, ZB. And then there is Kingston Ryder, the sexy blond actor who has become a legend, first on film, then off-screen, as personal tragedy made him a larger-than-life romantic hero. Alex has always known that Kingis her soulmate—though she's learned that even soulmates can't survive insane work schedules and living continents apart. And now, ambition to run VLI and revenge against Rick are vying for Alex's heart. Through it all, the studio beckons. Does she want it for herself—or to rewrite the ending for her entire family? And having lost and found Kingston, having lived through her marriage to someone else, and his marriage to someone else, will she throw it all away to be a mogul—the kind who gets handed her preferred drink (cranberry juice) by every Hollywood secretary as she walks through the door?Jill Robinson has a keen eye for the manic, magical world of the movie business. In Star Country she gets every detail right, giving us the tough, tender story of a woman for whom, be it ever so filled with secrets, scandals, and deals in turnaround, there's still no place like home.