The Hollywood Daughter: A Novel - Softcover

"A vivid portrait of the turbulent times and the heartbreak of real people underneath all the glamour of 1940s Hollywood. Young Jesse Malloy is a compelling guide to the era and her connection to the beautiful Ingrid Bergman forms an integral part of Jesse's search for the truth about her own childhood. Brimming with all the sparkle of old Hollywood and all the heart and honesty of a true coming-of-age story."
--Helen Simonson, New York Times bestselling author of The Summer Before the War

"The Hollywood Daughter comes at a perfect time to remind us of what happens when conspiracy theorists and authoritarians are loosed upon the land...Jessica Malloy is a worthy heroine for our era. Kate Alcott reminds us that the real damage to home and homeland comes from fearmongering and divisive politics."
--Washington Post

"The Ingrid Bergman that Alcott creates is more human and flawed than the celebrity we know from the movies...The Hollywood Daughter is at first loaded with nostalgia...But the novel slowly unravels this idealistic image to show the danger of conformity and the overwhelming pressure to do what is expected in a culture where aberration is not tolerated...[The novel] feels particularly resonant today."
--Kansas City Star

"Kate Alcott crafts an engrossing coming of age tale that cleverly portrays both the seductive glamour and moral hypocrisy of 1940's Hollywood. Told through the eyes of an idealistic young heroine whose own loyalties are divided, the story of Ingrid Bergman's very public rise and fall from grace deftly mirrors the changing female identity of a nation and offers timely reminders on the dangers of censorship, intolerance, and institutionalized sexism."
--Kathleen Tessaro, New York Times bestselling author of The Perfume Collector

"I was swept along by this story; Kate Alcott has crafted a masterpiece with this novel, writing with grace and lyricism about the golden age of Hollywood and a young girl living on the periphery of a glittering world. Alcott manages to keep Ingrid Bergman just ethereal enough to maintain the allure the starlet was known for, while bringing Bergman's human longings to the surface. It is a breathtakingly tender exploration of faith, fame, growing up and letting go."
--Victoria Kelly, author of Mrs. Houdini

"Alcott tells another tremendously appealing story with great skill and insight, extending her reign as a top popular historical novelist."
--Booklist

"[An] affecting coming of age novel...Alcott effectively uses Bergman's 1950 fall from grace, seen through Jessica's eyes... drawing in readers from the start with smooth writing. Her storytelling skillfully taps into Jessica's black-and-white adolescent worldview and the distance she maintains from others as an adult, making both real--and surprisingly emotional."
--Publishers Weekly

From the New York Times bestselling author of The Dressmaker and A Touch of Stardust, comes a Hollywood coming-of-age novel, in which Ingrid Bergman's affair with Roberto Rossellini forces her biggest fan to reconsider everything she was raised to believe

     In 1950, Ingrid Bergman, already a major star after movies like Casablanca and Joan of Arc, has a baby out of wedlock with her Italian lover, film director Roberto Rossellini. Previously held up as an icon of purity, Bergman's fall shocks her legions of fans--and none more so than seventeen-year-old Jessica Malloy, whose father is Bergman's Hollywood publicist. After years of fleeting interactions with Bergman, Jesse has come to idolize the actress as the epitome of elegance and integrity as well as the paragon of motherhood, an area in which her own difficult mother falls short. But in a heated era of McCarthyist paranoia and extreme censorship, Ingrid's affair sets off an international scandal that robs Jesse of her childhood hero. When the stress placed on Jesse's father begins to reveal hidden truths about the Malloy family, Jesse's eyes are opened to the complex realities of life--and love.  The Hollywood Daughter is an intimate novel of self-discovery that evokes a Hollywood sparkling with glamour and vivid drama.