Booky Ramblings of a Neurotic Mom: A Night In With Marilyn Blog Tour

Synopsis - A Night in With Marilyn Monroe

The hilarious follow-up to A Night in With Audrey Hepburn from your favourite new author. Perfect for fans of Lucy Diamond and Sophie Kinsella.

The last few months have been a whirlwind for Libby Lomax, not only is she dating the hottest man on the planet, but there now seems to be a decent career alternative on offer to the failed actress one that she seemed unable to escape. She can hardly believe that life is finally turning around.

But her optimism seems short-lived when she realises that Dillon O’Hara is about as far away from steady boyfriend material that it possible to get. Then, when another uninvited guest, in the form of Marilyn Monroe, turns up on her ancient sofa, Libby finds she would willingly bite her own arm off for a return to normality. Thank goodness her best friend Ollie is still there to keep her feet on the ground.

Libby doubts that Marilyn is really the right person to offer her relationship advice, but perhaps she should listen up, before it’s too late...

Lisas Review - 5 out of 5 stars

Wow! What a refreshing read! Something jam packed with laughter, fun, wittiness and enough drama to keep the reader flicking through the pages quicker than Marilyn got through red lipstick!

Starting with a catch up on poor Libby Lomax's' disastrous relationship with the handsome Dillon O'Hara, it doesn't take the reader long to learn that Libby is unlucky in love. Throw in her awful family, you can't help but feel for Libby! So when she opens her front door one day and finds Marilyn Monroe sitting on her couch, who are we to question the sanity of Libby? Lets face it, most of us are kinda jealous, who wouldn't want the blonde bombshell as a roomie, magical or not?!

As she bounces from one terrible relationship to another, can Libby ever see what is right in front of her?

I loved this book! And after taking a break from reading for a while, this was the perfect read to get me in to the swing of things again. I wasn't able to put it down, and when I did I only found myself wondering if Marilyn was back again! There were so many times I genuinely laughed out loud at this book, which is a hard thing for an author to make a reader do, but Lucy Holliday nails it with her flawless, witty writing. Not only is she good at writing those characters we all love to hate, but in a pleasantly sarcastic way that makes each one of those characters remind you of someone you know! And the way she writes the ones that we do fall in love with is even better!

I also loved the fact that Holliday didn't write the book to be stereotypical, chick lit happy ever after. With books like these it can be so easy to predict the way they will end so that when that ending comes, the reader is left feeling deflated by the 'I saw-it-coming' last page, but with this, I couldn't have been more wrong in my prediction, and I loved being wrong!

It wasn't until I had already started reading this that I realised this was the second book in the series, but not once did it make me feel like I needed to stop and find the first book because this one was confusing in any way. It works well as a stand alone, too. I enjoyed it so much though that I am going to go and buy myself a copy of A Night In With Audrey Hepburn, too, and I can't wait for the release of A Night In With Grace Kelly! I look forward to more from Lucy Holliday and the magical Chesterton sofa!!

5 things you (possibly) never knew about Marilyn

Everyone knows about her famous and ill-fated marriages to Joe DiMaggio and Arthur Miller, but Marilyn was married a previous time… in June 1942, just after she turned sixteen, she married James Dougherty, the twenty-one-year-old son of her neighbours. The marriage ended in 1946, with Marilyn subsequently claiming, “We had nothing to say. I was dying of boredom.”

Move over, Kylie Jenner: Marilyn used up to five shades of lipstick to achieve her trademark pillowy pout, layering them from darkest to lightest red from the outside in, to get a 3D effect. Then she would add a dab of white lipstick in the centre and follow with approximately half a million layers (author’s estimate) of Vaseline and beeswax for incredible shine. Have a go yourself by following the procedure here: http://www.marieclaire.com/beauty/news/a14105/marilyn-monroe-lipstick-tutorial/

Although not the most obvious of feminist icons, Marilyn Monroe took on the powerful Hollywood studios… and won. In the midst of a long-running contractual dispute with Twentieth Century Fox, Marilyn formed her own production company with photographer Milton Greene in late 1954. Marilyn Monroe Productions, as it was called, went on to produce Bus Stop and The Prince and the Showgirl.

Upon hearing that one of her favourite singers, Ella Fitzgerald, was prohibited from performing at the famous Los Angeles nightclub where the likes of Frank Sinatra had made their names, Marilyn personally called the nightclub’s owner and informed him that if he booked Ella to sing, she, Marilyn would come to the club every night for a week and sit in the front row. The owner agreed, the press went wild, and Ella Fitzgerald never had to play a small jazz club again. Later, Fitzgerald said of Marilyn, “She was an unusual woman – a little ahead of her times. And she didn’t know it.”

For twenty years after she died, Joe DiMaggio had flowers sent to her grave three times a week.

Author - Lucy Holliday