Cirrus@Austlit

'Right before talking pictures slug Tinsel Town in the jaw, a luminous silent screen star converts her private estate into the Garden of Allah Hotel. The lush grounds soon become a haven for Hollywood hopefuls to meet, drink, and revel through the night. George Cukor is in the pool, Tallulah Bankhead is at the bar, and Scott Fitzgerald is sneaking off to a bungalow with Sheilah Graham while Madame Alla Nazimova keeps watch behind her lace curtains.

'But the real story of the Garden of Allah begins with its first few residents, three kids on the brink of something big.

'Marcus Adler has a lot to prove after his father catches him and the police chief's son with their pants down. He flees Pennsylvania for Hollywood with his mouth shut and his eyes open, and begins to write the lines all those starlets will say out loud. Can a smart, sensitive guy find his own voice in a town that's just learning to talk?

'Kathryn Massey's childhood was a grinding routine of auditions, but she couldn't care less about being a movie star. When she takes off with her typewriter, determined to become a newspaper reporter, she finds that breaking into the boys' club is tougher than breaking free of her bossy mother. To make it in this town, she'll need some serious moxie.

'Gwendolyn Brick is a sweet Southern beauty who's come a long way to try her luck on the big screen. She's hoping the same succulent lips the guys want to kiss will land her more than a bit part on a casting couch. She's going to need some help keeping everyone in line.

Nobody gets a free pass in Hollywood, but a room at the Garden on Sunset can get your foot in the door.

'The Garden on Sunset is the first installment in the Hollywood's Garden of Allah saga, a series of historical novels set in Hollywood's heyday. If you like authentic and richly-detailed history, compelling and memorable characters, and seeing fiction and history seamlessly woven together, then you'll love Martin Turnbull's authentic portrayal of the City of Angels.

'Flip through the pages to see Hollywood's history come to life before your eyes.' (Publication summary)

'Summer, 1936: Gone with the Wind, Margaret Mitchell's first novel, takes the world by storm. Everyone in Hollywood knows Civil War pictures don't make a dime, but renegade producer David O. Selznick snaps up the movie rights and suddenly America has just one question: Who will play Scarlett O'Hara?

When Gwendolyn Brick gets her hands on the book, the clouds part and the angels sing the Hallelujah Chorus. Only a real Southern belle can play Scarlett–and didn't her mama raise her on stories of Sherman's march and those damned Yankees? After years of slinging cigarettes at the Cocoanut Grove, Gwendolyn finds a new calling: to play Scarlett. But she's not the only gal in town with a deep-fried accent. She's going to have to stand out bigger than a hoop skirt at a Twelve Oaks barbeque to win that role.

Marcus Adler is the golden boy of Cosmopolitan Pictures, the studio William Randolph Hearst started for his mistress, Marion Davies. When Marcus' screenplay becomes Davies' first hit, he's invited to Hearst Castle for the weekend. The kid who was kicked out of Pennsylvania gets to rub shoulders with Myrna Loy, Winston Churchill, and Katharine Hepburn–but when the trip turns fiasco, he starts sinking fast. He needs a new story, real big and real soon. So when F. Scott Fitzgerald moves into the Garden of Allah with a $1000-a-week MGM contract but no idea how to write a screenplay, Marcus says, "Pleased to meetcha. We need to talk."

'When Selznick asks George Cukor to direct Gone with the Wind, it's the scoop of the year for Kathryn Massey, the Hollywood Reporter's newest columnist. But dare she publish it? Scoops are the exclusive domain of the Hearst papers' all-powerful, all-knowing, all-bitchy Louella Parsons. Nobody in Hollywood has ever dared to outscoop Louella–until now. When Louella comes back low and dirty, Kathryn's boss lets her dangle like a scarecrow in a summer storm. Then the telephone rings. It's Ida Koverman, Louis B. Mayer's personal secretary, and she has a proposition she'd like to make.

'The Trouble with Scarlett is the second installment in the Hollywood's Garden of Allah saga, a series of historical novels set in Hollywood's heyday. If you like authentic and richly-detailed history, compelling and memorable characters, and seeing fiction and history seamlessly woven together, then you'll love Martin Turnbull's authentic portrayal of the City of Angels.' (Publication summary)

'Hollywood, 1939: When Tinseltown begins to woo wunderkind Orson Welles, he stashes himself at the Chateau Marmont until he's ready to make his splashy entrance. But gossip columnist Kathryn Massey knows he's there.

'Kathryn has been on the outs with Hollywood since her ill-fated move to Life magazine, but now that she's back at the Hollywood Reporter, she's desperate to find the Next Big Thing. Scooping Welles' secret retreat would put her back on the map, but by the time she hears rumors about his dangerous new movie, she's fallen prey to his charms. She needs to repair her reputation, find out if Welles will take on the tycoon, and extricate herself from an affair with a man whose kisses make her melt like milk chocolate.

'Hollywood writers are only as good as their last screen credit, but Marcus Adler is still scrambling for his first. His Strange Cargo will star Clark Gable after Gone with the Wind wraps, but Machiavellian studio politics mean Marcus' name might not make it to the screen. It's time to play No More Mr. Nice Guy. Opportunity knocks when his boss challenges the writing department to outdo The Adventures of Robin Hood, and Marcus is confident–until the love of his life bursts back onto the scene. How can he write another word until he knows for once and for all whether he and Ramon Navarro will be together? And to make matters worse, it seems like someone in town is trying to sabotage him.

'Everyone knows if you haven't made it in Hollywood by the time you're thirty, it's curtains . . . and Gwendolyn Brick is starting to panic. She's considering moving to a naval base in the Philippines with her baby brother, but she wants to give Hollywood one last go before she gives up. When she saves Twentieth Century Fox honcho Daryl F. Zanuck from an appalling fate at a poker game that goes awry, he rewards her with a chance at a role in a major movie. Gwendolyn needs to win before her ship sets sail.

'When William Randolph Hearst realizes Citizen Kane is based on him, he won't be happy–and when Hearst isn't happy, nobody's safe. Marcus, Kathryn, and Gwendolyn need to go for broke, and the clock is ticking.

'Citizen Hollywood is the third installment in the Hollywood's Garden of Allah saga, a series of historical novels set in Hollywood's heyday. If you like authentic and richly-detailed history, compelling and memorable characters, and seeing fiction and history seamlessly woven together, then you'll love Martin Turnbull's authentic portrayal of the City of Angels. ' (Publication summary)

'At the dawn of 1942, the dark days of Pearl Harbor still loom over Los Angeles. America is now at war, and posters warn home-front Hollywoodites that loose lips sink ships. Wartime propaganda is the name of the game, and the studios are expected to conjure stories that galvanize the public for the war effort.

'Marcus Adler is an MGM screenwriter whose latest movie was stolen out from under his whiskey glass, and he's determined it won't happen again. He comes up with a sure-fire hit, but his chance to triumph is threatened by a vicious rumor: "Marcus Adler is a goddamned Commie."

'Gwendolyn Brick is the handiest gal with a needle this side of Edith Head. After losing her job at the Cocoanut Grove, she dreams of opening her own dress store. But banks don't make loans to single girls. However, wartime in L.A. opens the door to an opportunity that will rake in the bucks. But will it be worth the trouble if it drags her back into the orbit of Bugsy Siegel?

'At the outbreak of war, the Hollywood Reporter's circulation starts to shrink like a food rations coupon book. Its lead columnist, Kathryn Massey, realizes she can no longer ignore the obvious: her boss, Billy Wilkerson, is gambling away his fortune–and her future. Could their very survival depend on a place nobody's heard of called Las Vegas?

'In the city of searchlights, suspicions can lurk behind every shadow.

'Searchlights and Shadows is the fourth in installment in the Hollywood's Garden of Allah saga, a series of historical novels set in Hollywood's heyday. If you like authentic and richly-detailed history, compelling and memorable characters, and seeing fiction and history seamlessly woven together, then you'll love Martin Turnbull's authentic portrayal of the City of Angels.

'Flip through the pages to see Hollywood's history come to life before your eyes.' (Publication summary)