The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, a review by Joanna

Evelyn Hugo, now an elderly recluse living in New York, but once the world’s most popular movie star, has finally decided to tell her life story, but only to one specific journalist. Monique Grant has no idea why she’s been offered the chance to write Evelyn’s explosive memoir, but she’s not going to turn down the opportunity of a lifetime. As Evelyn’s secrets are revealed – a forbidden love, a lifetime of manipulation, the two women come to understand each other – but why did Evelyn pick Monique?

This was a read-in-one-day compulsive romantic epic – Evelyn is like a mix of Sofia Loren, Marilyn Monroe and Elizabeth Taylor, who uses her unusual looks and overt sexuality to conquer Hollywood despite her Cuban-American heritage, but becomes a prisoner of fame and can’t be with the one person she loves. Netflix are making a movie of this, and I’m sure it will be fabulous. I swithered all the way through it as to whether it would be a 5 star read – as most of my bookish friends awarded it, or 4 stars, which seems ungenerous but reflects my few minor niggles, like the slowing of the pace in the middle section. Ultimately, when I’m stuck on 4.5, I round down for the present tense, so four stars it is.