The Hollywood’s Garden of Allah trilogy #1 is available in one ebook.
The Garden of Allah Hotel on Sunset Boulevard — Hollywood’s most infamous hotel during Hollywood’s most famous era.
Right before talking pictures slug Tinsel Town in the jaw, a luminous silent screen star converts her private estate into the Garden of Allah Hotel. The lush grounds soon become a haven for Hollywood hopefuls to meet, drink, and revel through the night. George Cukor is in the pool, Tallulah Bankhead is at the bar, and Scott Fitzgerald is sneaking off to a bungalow with Sheilah Graham while Madame Alla Nazimova keeps watch behind her lace curtains.
Book One: “The Garden on Sunset” — The real story of the Garden of Allah begins with its first residents, three kids on the brink of something big. Marcus Adler jumps on the midnight train out of Pennsylvania and heads for the only address he knows: 8152 Sunset Boulevard. Kathryn Massey has bigger plans than fulfilling her mother’s thwarted dreams: she has her eye on the Hollywood Reporter. Gwendolyn Brick is from the wrong Hollywood: Hollywood, Florida, but six days, three trains, a bus and two streets cars will fix that. Together, they learn that nobody gets a free pass in Hollywood, but a room at the Garden on Sunset can get your foot in the door.
Book Two: “The Trouble with Scarlett” — “Gone with the Wind” is released by first-time author Margaret Mitchell and becomes an international sensation. Everyone in Hollywood knows that Civil War pictures don’t make a dime but renegade movie producer David O. Selznick snaps up the movie rights and suddenly the whole country is obsessed with answering just one question: Who will win the role of Scarlett O’Hara?
Book Three: “Citizen Hollywood” — Orson Welles, the enfant terrible of New York, is coming to Hollywood to make his first movie. Tinsel City is agog! Can he even direct a movie? What will it be about? Will he scandalize the West Coast the way he’s shocked the East Coast? And, more importantly, who will he bed first and does he kiss-and-tell? When William Randolph Hearst realizes “Citizen Kane” is based on him, he won’t be happy—and when Hearst isn’t happy, nobody’s safe. Marcus, Kathryn, and Gwendolyn need to go for broke, and the clock is ticking.
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Sample review from Amazon.com
5 STARS
Whew! At 3:00 AM it’s difficult extracting my bleary eyes from my Kindle, where I’ve spent the last three days continually immersed in some of the most entertaining writing it has been my pleasure to come across in years. I’m glad I discovered these when I did — I don’t think I could have waited between books. Martin Turnbull has resurrected a world that we see through the eyes of three beautifully drawn fictional characters, interacting deftly with finely sketched real figures of classic Hollywood, beginning with the end of the silent era and carrying us through the beginning of WWII. Through the eyes of the fictional Marcus, Kathryn and Gwendolyn, characters we quickly come to know and love, we meet Tallulah Bankhead, Greta Garbo, Vivien Leigh, Clark Gable, Orson Welles, and a host of other stars not as well known to us today such as Alla Nazimova, the sultry silent screen vamp whose beautiful house became Garden of Allah Hotel, and the dashing Ramon Novarro, the original Ben-Hur of the silent screen. Also depicted in the forefront are William Randolph Hearst, Louella Parsons, George Cukor and Louis B. Mayer. Love affairs, deception, intrigue and mystery are all part of these stories that thrust us directly into the factory of dreams that was Hollywood from the late 1920’s to the early 40’s. The constant heartbreak and disappointment of the movie business is explored, along with the excitement of success. It’s no surprise that in addition to writing, Turnbull is a tour guide — he leads us through a wild, funny, tender and heartbreaking journey with the skill of a master storyteller. It’s also no surprise that these stories have already been optioned by a major producer to be filmed! A pleasure from beginning to end and I’ll enjoy rereading these novels for years to come.
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Available in ebook format on:
Trilogy #1 on Amazon Australia
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