2005, 373pp.

from B&N: Synopsis

Passion, power, sex, betrayal, and seduction–it’s all in a day’s work.

Having escaped to Hollywood after catching her boyfriend in bed with her best friend, London stage actress Kate McPhee is offered a gig on the popular daytime television series Live for Tomorrow. As Devon Merrick–police detective, car crash victim, and love interest for at least two men–she knows all the secrets and sins pulsating in fictional Hope Canyon. But the real drama is off the set, where the soap is indeed slippery.

Enter Meredith Contini, the show’s power-wielding diva. Meredith has two rules: Know your place and Stay in it. Kate broke both on day one, which is why she suddenly found her character switching sexual orientation. That brilliant solution came from Daphne del Valle, the show’s barking-mad obsessive/compulsive producer, who drives herself and her actors to enthrall the audience. (“Sell the hurt. Sell the rage. Sell the hunger. Sell the looooooove.”)

As gay detective Devon Merrick, Kate is a smash. The show is a hit. Kate’s private life seems to be becoming something of a drama itself. Especially since everybody thinks she really is gay, which is a problem since she thinks the best cure for her real-life broken heart is to get a man into her bed. But who? Kirk, her sexy, tan, and talented leading man, is boffing Meredith. There’s Matt, the magician who makes her tea, but will her fourteen-hour days keep them from the promise of tangled sheets? And there’s Wyatt, her handsome new co-star, who Kate believes is the great love of her life. Except that he’s married, and his
wife, Christine, isKate’s new makeup artist and the one sane friend she has made in Los Angeles.

As the line between television and reality blurs with increasing speed, tension tightens and passions surge. Does Wyatt want Kate as much as she wants him? Will Christine find out? Will Kate lose her new friend? Will Meredith finally have Kate fired? Will Kate ever get to “come out” as heterosexual on the set? Are her steamy kiss scenes fated to be only with beautiful women?

Emmy Award—winning actress Finola Hughes whips up a frothy, scathingly funny novel worthy of any afternoon time slot in this delicious romp that takes readers through the twists, turns, and dish that drive the madness that is daytime television.

Kirkus Reviews
A hapless actress joins the snake pit cast of a popular American soap, in this sometimes amusing debut. Having appeared on General Hospital and All My Children, Hughes has made a world she knows firsthand into the subject of a mild satire-not too daunting a task, considering that soaps satirize themselves five days a week. Hughes has British actress Kate McPhee going to work in Los Angeles on Live for Tomorrow just after discovering that her boyfriend has been sleeping with her best friend. Kate can't ever quite get it together-she drives for six months with the donut on one of her car's wheels. So she's titmouse bait for the adders on the show, particularly Meredith Contini, the grand dame who has starred on Live longer than she'll let any publicist admit. All Kate has to do is flirt mildly with one of the actors Meredith is sizing up and the newcomer finds her character morphing into a lesbian, who, down the line, will be pursued by vampires (don't ask-Kate is Alice down the rabbit hole, as frequent and unnecessary quotes from the Carroll classic make clear). When she's not skirmishing with Meredith, Kate tries without luck to jump-start her love life. A magician she meets at Starbucks pulls his own vanishing act. Shopping for a Christmas tree, she meets an aspiring screenwriter, but after a mellow holiday interlude, he leaves her. Love also seems to appear in the form of fellow actor Wyatt Sinclair, but Wyatt has the misfortune of being married to one of Kate's best friends, also on the show. With her life (and the narrative) resembling the script of a soap (sans cliffhangers), Kate nobly turns away from Wyatt to face-yes, another day. Soap fans may savor the catfights and crass humor;others will probably find the narrative slack and pointless.

Author Biographies:

FINOLA HUGHES was born and educated in London. She originated the role of Victoria in the West End production of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Cats, and made her American film debut in Staying Alive. Perhaps best known for her role as Anna Devane on General Hospital–a role she played for seven years, winning an Emmy in 1991–Hughes resurrected the character on All My Children. Now the host of How Do I Look? for the Style Network, she lives in Los Angeles with her husband, artist Russell Young, and their sons, Dylan and Cash.

DIGBY DIEHL is the bestselling co-author of The Million Dollar Mermaid and Angel on My Shoulder. A noted book critic, he is working with Coretta Scott King on her memoirs. He lives with his wife, Kay, in Los Angeles.

Have dog, book will travel.