A few years ago Camille Di Maio and I met on instagram. We started corresponding and during one of her trips to Los Angeles we met for brunch with her daughter. It was lovely getting to know her in real life.
In a couple of weeks we are meeting for a research trip in Virginia. She has a friend who works at Colonial Williamsburg and we are going to explore and see what we can learn for my current WIP and perhaps even one of hers.
This last year I spent a lot of time reading and rereading my own work and had not read anything of hers yet. On my recent trip to Colorado I remedied that!
I chose The Beautiful Strangers for several reasons. It is set in California, on the set of Some Like It Hot and I loved the real life ghost story that inspired it.
If you have followed me for any time you know that my main reading is either one of Dad’s (Still trying to catch up) and MG fiction which I am currently writing. This was a departure.
What you don’t know and I don’t think Camille does either, is that I have a distant connection to Some Like It Hot. It was one of the first movies my godfather worked on. I wish I had known Camille when she was writing it for I would have loved to have encouraged her to add a tall handsome man working on the production side named, John Veitch. Ah well.
Johnny was my godfather and I loved him very much. He had a long and productive career in the film business and this was one of his early jobs, but most of all his family and my family are family. Chosen family.
Camille surprised me. There were several times in this novel when I exclaimed out loud about some revelation. I LOVE IT when authors keep me guessing enough to be surprised. I had no idea what to expect and it was a joy to keep running into surprises around corners at the famous Hotel Del. She is excellent at creating stories that compel a reader to keep going. The island of Coronado is a very particular spot and it was wonderful to visit it in the late 50s. Now I have to choose another one of her books to read!
Any suggestions?
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