A fun high-society thriller.
When a wannabe socialite experiences a case of mistaken identity, she’s thrust into a world of glamour, riches, and lies.
Lata Murthy of New Canaan, Connecticut, wouldn’t describe her life as glamorous. It’s 2013, and at 33, Lata is thousands of dollars in credit card debt, living paycheck to paycheck, and barely scraping by with a gig as a "content specialist" for a trivia company. Lately, her only source of entertainment comes from her email address (latamurthy@gmail.com), where she’s been accidentally receiving messages meant for "thelatamurthy@gmail.com." The Other Lata Murthy is a Mumbai-born heiress who’s constantly peppered with invites to the latest art exhibitions, galas, and fundraisers. Not only is the Other Lata fabulously popular, she’s downright mysterious—there isn’t a single photo of her online. And if no one knows what her doppelgänger looks like, how bad would it be if Lata attended one of these events? Technically, the invitations are in her name! But after one outing impersonating the Other Lata—and realizing how easy it is to perpetuate the lie—Lata can’t help but test the boundaries of her alter ego. Before long, Lata has dubbed herself "Downtown Lata" and befriended enough models and sexy fashion designers that she starts to earn her own invitations and street cred. Sure, she has to shoplift here and there to keep up her ruse, but after a few months of living as Downtown Lata, she starts to believe she’ll never be discovered. Then, when the Other Lata returns to claim what’s rightfully hers, the persona Lata has carefully crafted threatens to come crumbling down. Ramisetti’s novel is part fairytale, part horror story, deftly weaving a tale of two Latas and their desperation for relevancy. Lata is a flawed yet determined heroine, reminiscent of Sophie Kinsella’s Rebecca Bloomwood or Alexis Rose from Schitt’s Creek, and readers will be eager to unravel the mystery of the Other Lata and discover the underbelly of her socialite circles.
A fun high-society thriller.Pub Date: today
ISBN: 9781538770993
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: March 8, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: today
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A dramatic, vividly detailed reconstruction of a little-known aspect of the Vietnam War.
A young woman’s experience as a nurse in Vietnam casts a deep shadow over her life.
When we learn that the farewell party in the opening scene is for Frances “Frankie” McGrath’s older brother—“a golden boy, a wild child who could make the hardest heart soften”—who is leaving to serve in Vietnam in 1966, we feel pretty certain that poor Finley McGrath is marked for death. Still, it’s a surprise when the fateful doorbell rings less than 20 pages later. His death inspires his sister to enlist as an Army nurse, and this turn of events is just the beginning of a roller coaster of a plot that’s impressive and engrossing if at times a bit formulaic. Hannah renders the experiences of the young women who served in Vietnam in all-encompassing detail. The first half of the book, set in gore-drenched hospital wards, mildewed dorm rooms, and boozy officers’ clubs, is an exciting read, tracking the transformation of virginal, uptight Frankie into a crack surgical nurse and woman of the world. Her tensely platonic romance with a married surgeon ends when his broken, unbreathing body is airlifted out by helicopter; she throws her pent-up passion into a wild affair with a soldier who happens to be her dead brother’s best friend. In the second part of the book, after the war, Frankie seems to experience every possible bad break. A drawback of the story is that none of the secondary characters in her life are fully three-dimensional: Her dismissive, chauvinistic father and tight-lipped, pill-popping mother, her fellow nurses, and her various love interests are more plot devices than people. You’ll wish you could have gone to Vegas and placed a bet on the ending—while it’s against all the odds, you’ll see it coming from a mile away.
A dramatic, vividly detailed reconstruction of a little-known aspect of the Vietnam War.Pub Date: Feb. 6, 2024
ISBN: 9781250178633
Page Count: 480
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Nov. 4, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2023
PERSPECTIVES
BOOK TO SCREEN
SEEN & HEARD
Uneven but fitfully amusing.
Betrayed by her husband, a severely depressed young woman gets drawn into the over-the-top festivities at a lavish wedding.
Phoebe Stone, who teaches English literature at a St. Louis college, is plotting her own demise. Her husband, Matt, has left her for another woman, and Phoebe is taking it hard. Indeed, she's determined just where and how she will end it all: at an oceanfront hotel in Newport, where she will lie on a king-sized canopy bed and take a bottle of her cat’s painkillers. At the hotel, Phoebe meets bride-to-be Lila, a headstrong rich girl presiding over her own extravagant six-day wedding celebration. Lila thought she had booked every room in the hotel, and learning of Phoebe's suicidal intentions, she forbids this stray guest from disrupting the nuptials: “No. You definitely can’t kill yourself. This is my wedding week.” After the punchy opening, a grim flashback to the meltdown of Phoebe's marriage temporarily darkens the mood, but things pick up when spoiled Lila interrupts Phoebe's preparations and sweeps her up in the wedding juggernaut. The slide from earnest drama to broad farce is somewhat jarring, but from this point on, Espach crafts an enjoyable—if overstuffed—comedy of manners. When the original maid of honor drops out, Phoebe is persuaded, against her better judgment, to take her place. There’s some fun to be had here: The wedding party—including groom-to-be Gary, a widower, and his 11-year-old daughter—takes surfing lessons; the women in the group have a session with a Sex Woman. But it all goes on too long, and the humor can seem forced, reaching a low point when someone has sex with the vintage wedding car (you don’t want to know the details). Later, when two characters have a meet-cute in a hot tub, readers will guess exactly how the marriage plot resolves.
Uneven but fitfully amusing.Pub Date: July 30, 2024
ISBN: 9781250899576
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: Sept. 13, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
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