Published 11th April 2024 by Aria, Head of Zeus.
From the cover of the book:
They say she owes him everything.Now she wants to burn it all to the ground.
Grace Turner was one movie away from Hollywood's A-List. So no one understood why, at the height of her career and on the eve of her first Golden Globe nomination, she disappeared.
Now, one year later, Grace is back in Los Angeles and ready to reclaim her life on her own terms.
When Grace is asked to present a lifetime achievement award to director Able Yorke - the man who controlled her every move for eight years - she knows there's only one way she'll be free of the secret that's already taken so much from her.
The Comeback is a moving and provocative story of justice - a true page-turner about a young woman finding the strength and power of her voice, from the author of Reese's Book Club pick Before We Were Innocent.
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Former child star, Grace Turner, was on the brink of establishing herself as Hollywood royalty. With a Golden Globe nomination for her latest movie, she seemed to have everything she ever wanted, so why did she mysteriously disappear?
After a year away from the limelight, facing awkward silences and simmering recriminations in the less than welcoming bosom of her family, Grace is back in Los Angeles trying to pick up the threads of her life, amidst intense media speculation about where she has been and why.
Battling her demons, Grace is doing her best to stay away from the drink and drugs she has relied on to numb her from the things she would rather forget, while trying to help her younger sister steer clear of the mistakes she has made. But when she is asked to present a lifetime achievement award to director Able Yorke, the man who secretly manipulated her career and her whole persona for eight troubled years, she is forced to decide between stardom and sharing the secrets that have torn her apart.
With delicious echoes of Eve Babitz, Ella Berman's The Comeback delves beneath the glitzy glamour of Hollywood to explore how the disturbing power games of a lauded director bring a young star to breaking point. Told from the first person perspective of Grace, who was plucked from British school-girl obscurity to take a starring role in a Hollywood franchise, the story flips between the present, a year after disappearance, and the past, as she relives her experiences working with Able Yorke.
The threads of the story unfurl as Grace struggles to find her own identity and come to terms with the trauma of her time being abused and manipulated by gas-lighting Yorke. She is stuck between grasping at the chance of a comeback, and finally admitting to the world that he is not the man everyone thinks he is, and neither path is easy. The slow-burn pace sizzles with tension and spellbinding atmosphere, brimming with character driven scenes between Grace and her husband, parents, sister, entourage, and Yorke's wife Emilia, that are laden with the weight of things unsaid. Intriguingly, Yorke is mostly absent from the timeline in the present that weaves through Grace's painful episodes of paranoia, depression, and attempts to avoid relapsing into comforting darkness of her addictions, until the cracking final sections of the novel - but his predatory personality looms large via the disturbing flashbacks.
Grace is a complex character, prone to wildly swinging moods, but she makes a perfect unreliable narrator. At times she is difficult to like, but as the threads of the story work themselves out, you find yourself very much on her side, yearning for a resolution that can help her on the way to healing... via some well deserved revenge, if possible. Berman's writing is exquisite, and she conjures breath-taking scenes that ooze with brittle emotion. She also manages to incorporate a smidgeon of pitch-black humour to make you chuckle, even while your heart is breaking.
This is a seriously classy novel that packs a formidable punch, and easily makes it on to my list of books of 2024. Berman deftly picks apart all that is wrong with the toxic environment that still pervades Hollywood, despite the #MeToo campaign, and along the way, she examines trauma, alienation, difficult family relationships, identity, and loneliness with sharp insight. I devoured it from prophetic prologue all the way to the ending that was everything I needed it to be.
The Comeback is available to buy now in paperback, ebook, and audio formats.
Thank you to Head of Zeus for sending me a copy of this book in return for an honest review.
About the author:
Ella Berman grew up in both London and Los Angeles and worked at Sony Music before starting the clothing brand London Loves LA. She lives in London with her husband, James, and their dog, Rocky.
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