cover image Cover Girl Confidential

Cover Girl Confidential

Beverly Bartlett, . . 5 Spot, $13.99 (259pp) ISBN 978-0-446-69558-9

From the author of Princess Izzy and the E Street Shuffle comes the rise and fall and rise of Addison McGhee, a Turkish-born immigrant turned American media darling. After a smalltown Nebraska upbringing, Addison ditches the heartland for L.A. and lucks into a small role on ER , but her fame is brief and she's soon a Hollywood square—as in the television show. Luckily, she is spotted by a hotshot producer who decides she is the "coolest thing on earth" and hires her to co-host a morning show alongside the "dapper and dashing" Hughes Sinclair. The show becomes a hit and the two get hitched in Vegas. But what bumps her from famous to infamous is a photo snapped at a White House barbecue that captures drunken President Samson Briarwood kissing her. (She, for the record, thinks the pres is a pig.) A national scandal erupts, and when Addison's marriage is mistakenly annulled, an enraged and devious first lady creates citizenship trouble for Addison. Bartlett is witty and irreverent, with a keen sense of what makes American pop culture simultaneously attractive and ridiculous. (Mar.)