Richly-drawn story of the secrets harbored in rustic California cabins.
Great for fans of Elizabeth Bromke’s House on the Harbor, Kimberly Thomas’s The Willberry Inn.
FICTION The Starlet in Cabin Number Seven: The Guestbook Trilogy, Book 3 Chrysteen Braun | Bublish, Inc. 260p, e-book, $2.99, ISBN 978-1-647-04719-1
Braun concludes her Guest Book trilogy (after The Girls in Cabin Number Three) with a picturesque look at Lake Arrowhead, California, as a woman makes some unusual discoveries about the cabins she owns. In 1980, Annie Parker purchases cabins in the California mountains as a fresh start following her divorce from David. While there, Annie meets Noah and eventually moves in with him. Though Annie’s older sister Loni died recently, Annie feels somewhat guilty that she isn’t particularly sad about the loss, blaming her lack of emotion on their broken relationship. But Annie is pleasantly surprised when her childhood friend Sarah Jones comes for a visit and ends up staying on, becoming romantically involved with Noah’s friend Josh.
Annie discovers the fascinating history behind the cabins, a key component of the series, when Hudson Fisher and his wife Constance visit Annie’s recently acquired flooring store, and Hudson reveals that his mother, Celeste Williams, a now-deceased movie star, once stayed in the nearby cabins. Braun alternates between these characters’ richly
drawn perspectives, revealing, in fast-paced and surprising passages, how Annie reinvented herself following her divorce and how Sarah survived a traumatic childhood amid her mother’s episodic religious fervor and volatile relationship with Sarah’s alcoholic father.
Braun also journeys back in time to Depression-era Chicago, which Celeste leaves to go to Los Angeles, later meeting and marrying Joseph Keller, a film producer with whom she has Hudson, and later divorces when he is arrested as an alleged pro-Nazi sympathizer. The glamor of Celeste’s life as a popular Hollywood actress is imbued with realism through Braun’s inclusion of real-life actors and directors, including the famed Cecil B. DeMille. As the 1920s and 1980s collide, Noah makes a startling discovery while remodeling one of the cabins, leading Annie eager to learn more—and readers turning the pages.
Cover: A | Design & typography: A | Illustrations: – Editing: A | Marketing copy: A