Title: Hollywood Dirt Author: Alessandra Torre
Series: Standalone
Release date: September 7th 2015
(Sub)genres: Movie
Pages: 414
Buy: Amazon US
Rating:
Cole Masten. Abandoned by his superstar wife, Hollywood’s Perfect Husband is now Hollywood’s Sexiest Bachelor: partying hard and screwing even harder. Watch out Los Angeles, there's a new bad boy in town.
Summer Jenkins. That’s me, a small town girl stuck in Quincy, Georgia. I cook some mean chicken and dumplins, can bluff a grown man out of his savings in poker, and was voted Most Friendly my senior year.
We were from different worlds. Our lives shouldn’t have collided. But then Cole Masten read a book about my small town. And six months later, his jet landed on our dusty airstrip, and he brought Hollywood with him.
From the start, I knew he was trouble. For our town. And for me.
Sometimes, opposites just aren’t meant to attract.
Stand-alone Contemporary Romance.
Summer Jenkins is a Southern woman, living most of her live in the small town of Quincy. Southern woman are special, they are gracious, smile but also have secrets they guard with their lives. Three years ago, Summer was ‘blacklisted’ by the town due to a spectacle surrounding her ex-fiancé and bridal party. She spends her days working as a caretaker for one of the rich families, garden together with her mother she looks after the big mansion and the. The first time she meets Cole Masten, she’s not impressed. Yes, he is a handsome man, but she thinks he’s an asshole—pure and simple.
“You are not a man, I thought. A man doesn’t drink sparkling water; he chugs tap water from a hose after changing his oil.”
Cole is a movie star, a very famous movie star—A list and all—but not very satisfied with his life anymore. He wants to be more than just an actor; reading a book about the Southern town of Quincy sparks an idea about a movie. Cole is married to an equally famous actress, who he discovered is cheating on him with the director of her current movie. He doesn’t mourn his failing marriage to long; he immediately moves on with other woman until his divorce attorney tells him otherwise. Meeting Summer is a breath of fresh air, doesn’t fall swooning at his feet, and even threats to shoot him.
“He couldn’t go after her. Even if it was the right thing to do. Even if it would make their relationship smoother, the movie better. Because he knew himself. And right now, if he chased her down that dirt row and pulled her around, apologizing would be the last thing on his mind.”
Summer and Cole are funny together, there is an immense attraction and they are full of banter. I truly enjoyed watching their relationship grow from enemies to lovers and more. Cole tries to keep his emotions under control; he feels he’s not in a place worthy of a relationship and his attorney ordered him not to get involved with any woman, especially not a co-star since it could ruin an acceptable divorce. Summer tries to fight her attraction to Cole for a long time. Since she broke up with her fiancé, she hasn’t been on a single date. She wants to work for Cole and earn the money to leave Quincy and her past behind. After dancing around each other, and a little drama, the couple decides to on a real relationship.
I have enjoyed the setting of the story in the South, the conversations between Summer and Cole, the pet Summer gave to Cole, and the whole ‘look behind the scene’ movie shooting. I’ve loved to see Cole’s attorney, the infamous Brad DeLuca again (from the Innocence series, also by Alessandra Torre). It was good to see he didn’t lose his dirty mouth, and the relationship with his wife Julia was as good as ever.
“This was not a rebound, this was not infatuation, this was the end of his life as he knew it, and the realization hit that even if she didn’t want him, he would never find another woman like her, he would never get over her.”
I really like the story of Hollywood Dirt, although it’s not your typical Alessandra Torre work—full of twists and turn. I give this 4 stars.
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