Mercedes King

It's the summer of 1962 and psychiatrist Dr. Charles Campbell is preparing to meet a new patient; Marilyn Monroe. He has been hired by the studio to handle and subdue the star. What he didn't expect was how Marilyn would change his world. He can't help not be smitten by the star, but her secrets and her affair with a powerful man makes him realize that her life could be in danger,

Marilyn Monroe's death never seizes to intrigue the world. Was it an accidental overdose, suicide or was she murdered? Mercedes Kings fictional take on Marilyn's death was an interesting version. Of course Dr. Charles Campbell is just a fictional character just like the rest of the story, but I enjoyed this fiction version of the last weeks of Marilyn's life.

It's a short book, it never really gets deep, but I found that Mercedes King has managed to write a really good story, despite the shortness of the book and the ending was a bit surprising must I say. I like that I couldn't predict everything that happened.

Marilyn Monroe has left her mark on the world and after reading this book am I a bit tempted to read some more books about her or perhaps watch a film with her. I just love Some Like it Hot!



I received this copy from the publisher through NetGalley in return for an honest review!

Review also posted on A Bookaholic Swede and It's a Mad Mad World… (mehr)

More like rubbernecking than reading, I had a feeling the second instalment in Mercedes King's series of books about JBKO was going to be a fictional disaster, but I had to know how the author viewed Jackie's marriage to JFK. And now I wish I hadn't bothered. From the first description of Jack's 'cerulean-blue eyes' - he had green eyes, hon - every page was packed with badly researched clichés and National Enquirer headlines made subplots.

King admits that 'most of this tale is a fabrication and for entertainment purposes only', which should be taken as more of a warning than a disclaimer. Nobody really knows what the Kennedys' marriage was like, but Stephanie Marie Thornton has proved that being both fair and frank while representing historical figures - real life human beings - like Jack and Jackie is more realistic and makes for a better story. Mercedes King turns Jackie into a poor little victim, all suppressed gasps and tear-stained cheeks, and Jack into villain straight out of a comic book. JFK is pushed through his political career by his father and brother, resents the attention Jackie received as First Lady, and his time in the White House is reduced to clipped paragraphs which focus more on Jackie's gowns. All tosh. Bobby is a 'good man' who loves his family - like Jack didn't - and yet is simultaneously not so secretly in love with his sister-in-law, like every other man she meets. Aristotle Onassis is foreshadowed as Jackie's next great love, even though she was the ultimate trophy wife - the widow of JFK - and she only married him because he was mega rich and had his own Greek island where she could keep herself and her children safe after Bobby's death. And don't even get me started on how poor Marilyn Monroe is treated, in a farce straight out of an 80s soap opera.

Intended for viewers of dramas like The Crown, which also did the Kennedys a disservice, and The Kennedys, which had the same axe to grind over the Camelot legend, Mercedes King alternates between paraphrasing Wikipedia articles and refusing to recognise that shades of grey are more convincing than writing characters as black and white, good and bad. I would recommend Stephanie Marie Thornton's novel And They Called It Camelot over this serialised tripe.… (mehr)

What did I just read? The author's notes might stress seven ways to Sunday that 'there is a generous mix of creative liberties and truth. This book is for entertainment purposes only and is a fictional tale' but I was expecting the story to be at least on nodding terms with reality. Jackie Bouvier did study in Paris for a year from 1949-1950 and stay with the de Runty family on Avenue Mozart, that much is fact. I rather enjoyed Jackie's relationship with her charming rogue of a father, her loveable grandfather and her mother's second family, the Auchinclosses, in Newport. A little like Jackie's Wikipedia entry come to life, perhaps, but believable and readable.

But then somehow Jackie's determination to improve her education and soak up the culture of Paris, avoiding the inevitable marriage market to strike out on her own and be an independent woman, turned into a ridiculous love quadrangle with three men fighting for Jackie's attention! I think the author must have been possessed by the frothy pink spirit of Barbara Cartland while writing and the start of a trilogy about the future First Lady turned into some dreadful historical romance, more 1850s than 1950s. What happened to the shrewd and witty daughter of Black Jack Bouvier, mooning and moping over men at twenty years old? I wouldn't mind if her suitors were based on real figures from Jackie's life, but apart from Paul de Ganay, who Jackie knew through her stepfather and whose family chateau she visited on weekends while in Paris, her choices are wholly fictional and completely cliched. Philip tries to buy Jackie with his family's money and Marceau - oh dear lord, Marceau. A dark and mysterious stranger keeps popping up like a jack-in-the-box, catching Jackie's eye on her first day in France, modelling nude for her art class, randomly playing the violin with an orchestra while she tours Notre Dame - so of course he's the one she wants. When she finally gets to talk to him, he keeps telling her that he has a secret life he can't talk about and disappears after every date, leaving her bereft ('There’s always a chance I may walk away and never see you again'). All I could do was roll my eyes and think, 'Jackie, hon - HE'S MARRIED!' And then the showdown Marceau engineers at a grand party towards the end of the book had me in stitches - swordfights! Amnesia! Unstable wives! Rochester would be proud, I'm sure, but by that point, I'm convinced the author was smoking medicinal herbs. And to add insult to injury, Marceau's parting line really is 'We'll always have Paris'.

Caricatures and creaking romances aside, the writing was also heavy on foreshadowing, from Jackie controlling her emotions in public to 'Pearls are always appropriate'. Which is fine, this is the first book in a trilogy about Jackie's life and not everyone will have read her biographies, but some of the references felt a little forced, like wishing the Mona Lisa could be displayed in America. Also the Kindle version badly needed a decent copy editor - 'Viola!'

There are some nice moments, with Black Jack ('All men are rats. Isn't that what you've been telling me for ages now?' 'No argument there') and stepbrother Yusha, but the rest of the book is pure soap opera. A quick read, granted, but Jackie's memory deserves better.… (mehr)