Have you ever wanted to climb into a time machine and visit Hollywood during its heyday?
The Garden of Allah Hotel on Sunset Boulevard — Hollywood’s most infamous hotel during Hollywood’s most famous era.
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.
Book One: The Garden on Sunset — The real story of the Garden of Allah begins with its first residents, three kids on the brink of something big. Marcus Adler jumps on the midnight train out of Pennsylvania and heads for the only address he knows: 8152 Sunset Boulevard. Kathryn Massey has bigger plans than fulfilling her mother’s thwarted dreams: she has her eye on the Hollywood Reporter. Gwendolyn Brick is from the wrong Hollywood: Hollywood, Florida, but six days, three trains, a bus and two streets cars will fix that. Together, they learn that nobody gets a free pass in Hollywood, but a room at the Garden on Sunset can get your foot in the door.
Book Two: The Trouble with Scarlett — Gone with the Wind is released by first-time author Margaret Mitchell and becomes an international sensation. Everyone in Hollywood knows that Civil War pictures don’t make a dime but renegade movie producer David O. Selznick snaps up the movie rights and suddenly the whole country is obsessed with answering just one question: Who will win the role of Scarlett O’Hara?
Book Three: Citizen Hollywood — Orson Welles, the enfant terrible of New York, is coming to Hollywood to make his first movie. Tinsel City is agog! Can he even direct a movie? What will it be about? Will he scandalize the West Coast the way he’s shocked the East Coast? And, more importantly, who will he bed first and does he kiss-and-tell? 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.
Book One: The Garden on Sunset
Book Two: The Trouble with Scarlett
Book Three: Citizen Hollywood
Book Four: Searchlights and Shadows
Book Five: Reds in the Beds
UPDATE: Martin Turnbull's Garden of Allah novels have been optioned for the screen by film & television producer, Tabrez Noorani.
