Nice women never wore makeup. Even the word was taboo in polite society—until Max Factor entered the scene. Born in Poland in 1877, Factor worked as a beautician for the Russian royal family, the Romanovs. In 1904, he fled to America, where he opened a cosmetics store in Los Angeles. Creating makeup originally for silent films, then the talkies, and, ultimately, color motion pictures, Factor designed looks for Katharine Hepburn, Rita Hayworth, Bette Davis, and countless other beauties of t...

Raymond Sarlot bought the Chateau Marmont in 1975, but what was originally a business purchase became a love affair as he delved into the hotel's incredible history. From its perch overlooking the Sunset Strip, the glamorous Marmont reigned for decades as the spot for artists, writers, musicians, and actors of every stripe and remains a home-away-from-home for A-listers like Scarlett Johansson and Johnny Depp. Here, Sarlot and co-author Fred E. Basten share a wealth of scandalous and intri...

Take a peek behind the curtain of some of the biggest publishing moments in the past several decades with forty-year industry veteran John Sargent.Turning Pages: The Adventures and Misadventures of a Publisher is the well-told story of forty years in the publishing business. For twenty-four of those years, John Sargent ran one of America’s largest publishing companies. Rather than a straight chronological narrative, Sargent uses the best stories of those y...

The EGOT-winning composer of The Way We Were and A Chorus Line recounts his remarkable life from childhood to Broadway and Hollywood.The son of Jewish Viennese immigrants, six-year-old Marvin Hamlisch's early musical talent and discipline led him to Julliard, where he studied for more than a decade. From there, Hamlisch got his start as a rehearsal pianist for Funny Girl starring Barbra Streisand. He went on to co-create the classic Americ...

Beginning in 1953, when Leigh suffers a nervous breakdown, Where Madness Lies tells the moving story of the actress as she attempts to rebuild her life, salvage her career, and save her marriage.Vivien Leigh was one of the greatest film and theatrical stars of the 1930s, ‘40s, and ‘50s. Her Oscar-winning performances in Gone With the Wind and A Streetcar Named Desire have cemented her status as an icon of Hollywood.From 1940 to 19...

It’s the summer of 2017 in Wellington Beach, California, a suburban coastal town increasingly divided by politics, protests, and escalating housing prices—divisions that change the lives of five neighbors.Each character confronts death, betrayal, financial decline, and loneliness as they search for home and community in a neighborhood where no one can agree who belongs.Real estate agent Lisa Kensington juggles her job, her shopaholic husband, a mother who k...

A study of the history, objectives, and motivations of American heiresses and their families in crossing the Atlantic to find husbands in 1895.On 6 November 1895 Consuelo Vanderbilt married Charles Spencer-Churchill, 9th Duke of Marlborough. Though the preceding months had included spurned loves, unexpected deaths, scandal and illicit affairs, the wedding was the crowning moment for the unofficial marriage brokers, Lady Minnie Paget and Consuelo Yzanga, Dowager Duc...

The story of the iconic Anheuser-Busch dynasty, written—for the first time—by a Busch heir.As an heir to the Anheuser-Busch company and fortune, Billy Busch was raised on the real stories of how his family built one of America’s oldest and most iconic brands. Since the company was formed almost 150 years ago, the Busch family, their beer, the famous Clydesdales in their advertising, and even their style of business have become a symbol of the American dream—that no...

CASEY Award Finalist for Best Baseball Book of the YearThe untold story of the unique fifty-year friendship between two American icons: John Glenn, the unassailable pioneer of space exploration and Ted Williams, indisputably the greatest hitter in baseball history.It was 1953, the Korean War in full throttle, when two men—already experts in their fields—crossed the fabled 38th Parallel into Communist airspace aboard matching Panther jets. J...

“You'll get lost in the pages of this lush, entertaining story.” —Ellen Marie Wiseman, New York Times bestselling author of The Lost Girls of WillowbrookPerfect for readers of Silvia Moreno-Garcia and Kate Morton, this sophisticated, atmospheric debut spins a bewitching web of ruthless ambition, family secrets, and the consequences of forbidden love, as an ambitious American actress snags the starring role in a mysterious horror movie shoo...

“Tantalizing…had me guessing and turning pages right up to the final, shocking reveal—which I never saw coming.” —Charlie Donlea, bestselling author of Twenty Years LaterPerfect for readers of The Nurse’s Secret, this provocative and captivating new book from the New York Times bestselling author follows adiabolical murderer as he preys on women in WW2 era Seattle. Thoroughly researched, this gripping new historical thriller featu...

Death strikes England's foremost novelist, his latest tale only half told. Was he murdered because someone feared a ruinous revelation? Or was it revenge for some past misdeed? Set in the Kent countryside and London slums of 1870, Immortalised to Death embeds an ingenious solution to Charles Dickens's unfinished The Mystery of Edwin Drood within the evolving and ultimately tragic consequences of a broader mystery surrounding the author himself. Debut author Lyn Squire kic...