"Move over Judith Krantz and Jackie Collins... JUICY!" - Booklist

Cupid's arrow has struck the Pink Smoke on St. Valentine's Day, and they've decided to give some love to that most disrespected of genre fictions: the romance novel. Recruiting beach-read paperback enthusiast Melanie Daniels from the Cinema Parlor Podcast, hosts John Cribbs & Christopher Funderburg access the world of glamorous women and their lusty affairs with truculent suitors via Fame & Fortune by Kate Coscarelli. Known to cinephiles as author of the Phantasm novelization (and mother of Phantasm writer-director Don Coscarelli), Kate produced six salacious books dealing with the steamy lives of rich widows, lonely housewives, ambitious businesswomen and rising starlets struggling to stay on top in the cutthroat upper class society of Los Angeles.

Fame & Fortune deals with the circle of friends of one Peach Malone, super-wealthy widow of Drake "Midas" Malone trying to regain control of her estate following the death of her Prince Charming. Her friends include Grace Gable, a hairdressing entrepreneur harboring a dark secret; Maggie Hammond, blossoming interior designer with two smoky beacons for eyes like a Keane painting; Laura Austin, frail wife of an in-demand doctor whose own eyes have shifted to Hollywood's hottest sex symbol Ghilly Jordan; and Belinda Cornwall, the absolute doyenne of Los Angeles society - the lady with the whim of iron! Coscarelli juggles this large cast of characters as they struggle to wrest back dominance of their own lives by outsmarting, upstaging and maybe even murdering the gorgeous brutes who stand in their way.

The Pink Smoke site:

www.thepinksmoke.com

Melanie Daniels on Twitter:

twitter.com/plasticwerewolf

The Pink Smoke on Twitter:

twitter.com/thepinksmoke

John Cribbs on Twitter:

twitter.com/TheLastMachine

Christopher Funderburg on Twitter:

twitter.com/cfunderburg

Intro music: Unleash the Bastards / “Tea for Two”

Outro music: Marcus Pinn / “Vegas"