The Hidden Life of Aster Kelly

By: Katherine A. Sherbrooke

Narrated by: Emily Beresford

After winning a prestigious fashion-design contest in 1948, Aster Kelly flees the world of modeling in New York and arrives in Beverly Hills to claim her prize: a design apprenticeship with Fernando Tivoli. But Fernando has no such job available. He’s busily preparing for the opportunity of a lifetime—proving to Galaxy Studios that he is the perfect couturier for their A-list stars. The moment he meets Aster, though, he knows she’s the missing ingredient he needs and asks her to be his stand-in model for Lauren Bacall, promising to mentor her if he wins the contract.

Aster and Fernando quickly become entangled with Hollywood insiders—Aster with the head of Galaxy Studios, Fernando with up-and-coming star Christopher Page—and their friendship becomes essential as they navigate a glamorous and complicated existence where what’s real must often be hidden and no one is quite what they seem. As Aster’s ambitions grow and she faces a crisis and Fernando’s future is threatened by the judgmental Hollywood machine, Aster makes a decision that changes the trajectory of their lives forever.

Twenty-five years later, despite knowing little of her mother’s time in Hollywood, Aster’s daughter, Lissy, is poised to become a Broadway star. But when the musical gets off to a rocky start, Lissy makes a rash decision of her own in an attempt to save the show. And when long-buried secrets blindside them both, mother and daughter are forced to question everything they thought they knew.

©2023 Katherine A. Sherbrooke (P)2023 Dreamscape Media

The description of life in Hollywood in 1948.

I loved the story—very good. I am not a fan of the narrator. It was read not as a novel but as a story that must be told—not unlike a reporter relaying facts and events.

Entertaining and well narrated

A wonderful story about personal ambition and choices made that that shapes one’s life in unpredictable ways. The author is very successful in taking you on the journey of a mother / daughter relationship, told in two separate timelines, and how the decisions they make drive outcomes that they did not predict.