BUNGALOW 2

Happily married suburban writer goes to Hollywood to write a screenplay and finds her world transformed.

Sweet Tanya Harris is the rare stay-at-home mom who actually likes being called a housewife. Still in love with her lawyer hubby Peter after 20 years, and very involved in the lives of her twin 17-year-old daughters and college-aged son, she has a happy life in Marin County and a flourishing freelance career writing short stories and soap-opera scripts. All that changes when her agent dangles an impossibly juicy offer: go to L.A. for nine months to work on a film with award-winning producer Douglas Wayne. She initially turns it down, worrying that it will keep her away from her girls during their senior year of high school, but she is convinced to do it by her husband, who realizes this is a once-in-a-lifetime offer. Once ensconced in her luxury suite in Beverly Hills, she is homesick, but throws herself into work, finding the dysfunctional family-like existence of a feature film set fascinating, if not exactly her cup of tea. She also gets closer to her suave producer, who insists that their film together is just the beginning, and that she has already outgrown her old life. But she remains loyal to her husband, making it doubly shocking when he asks for a divorce, sending her into the dating world. With its predictably sanitized version of Tinseltown shenanigans, the latest from Steele (Sisters, 2007, etc.) features a too-nice heroine trying to balance career highs and personal lows.

Wholesome Cinderella story for the over-40 set.