Product Description

Celebrity, identity and sexuality - the three poles of our fame-obsessed society, each one a magnet for secrets and lies. Despite her youth, Russian-born Yana Ivanova is already a Hollywood legend. She lives in a beautiful house in Beverly Hills with Jimmy, a sitcom star, and Penny, her British PA. Theirs is a strange and uneasy partnership, held together by sex, secrets and the fear of scandal. Then Yana starts receiving threatening letters from an anonymous but very knowledgeable source. Suspicion turns to fear, and fear leads to murder. But who exactly is conning whom? Stella Duffy has written crime novels and dark romantic comedies. Here she combines the two in a smart, sexy, suspenseful new novel. Poison pen letters, fake identities, misplaced affection, betrayal and murder ...Still think a menage a trois sounds fun?

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #340026 in Books
• Published on: 2006-04-06
• Released on: 2006-04-06
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 256 pages

Review
* 'Wealth, celebrity, sexuality and a tangled web of secrets ...Oh boy, what a mix. And it works . . . It was my first introduction to this writer and I'll be coming back for more' IRISH EXAMINER * 'Highly entertaining . . . offers a salutary corrective to the airbrushed picture presented by the Hollywood publicity machine' DAILY MAIL * 'A fine piece of writing . . . a powerful talent . . . a tough, poignant book' GUARDIAN * '[A] warm, witty and truthful love story . . .' TIME OUT * 'Welcome to a world in which the urge to make believe is even stronger off set than on, and no one is quite who they claim to be' YOU

About the Author
Stella Duffy was born in the UK and grew up in New Zealand. She has written seven novels, co-edited a crime anthology for Macmillan, acted in the West End and taught improvisational comedy to both actors and writers. She has also written several pieces for Radio 4. She lives in London.

Customer Reviews

A must!
Parallel Lies is a fast-paced concoction that shoots you straight underneath the drug-fuelled, sex-obsessed Hollywood masquerade and, after a lesson in life skills the Tinsel Town way, gradually reveals the truth behind the layers of deception which the main characters hide behind.

The story's beautifully written, the characters true to life (even if it's a more glamorous life than most of us are used to!) and the plot leads you through a series of twists so subtly that the denouement hits you with all the shock the characters feel in the book.

It's a cracking read, very funny and sad in spots - a twisted love story turned murder mystery with a series of angles that has you wondering at the end what's going to happen to the characters once the book's closed and it's back on the shelf. A study of truth and lies and the perils of ambition.

Highly recommended - I enjoyed it thoroughly. Buy it now, or you'll miss out!

Sex, lies and celebrity
I enjoyed reading this and previous novels of Stella Duffy's so much I went along to hear her at my local library.

Duffy says her publisher is selling this book as an exploration of our notion of celebrity in today's society, but she's selling it as the story of two lesbians in Hollywood.

She's (deliciously) subverting the crime genre even more than previously: there is a dead body but no obvious come-uppance. She uses the murder story-line to write about the complex personal adult interactions of relationships rather than the romantic first-thrill rush of getting together. As in previous novels, she also examines the lies people tell each other - inside relationships just as much as to the celebrity-hungry outside world.

avoid
book about lies, lies that we tell to ourselves and to the world around us. set in the world of hollywood which is fuelled by lies. found it was tedious and it didnt really hold my interest, felt the characters werent very interesting. i would not recommend this book and i dont agree with the other reviews