Scandalous Women: A Novel of Jackie Collins and Jacqueline Susann

This fabulous imagining of the lives of erotic novelists/literary celebrities Jacquelin Susann and Jackie Collins is an absolute hill of fun. Gill Paul has captured the drug and party-filled world of 1960s nightclubs and the publishing world in her latest book Scandalous Women.

A fact I loved about the novel was Paul’s commitment to representing Susann and Collins as three-dimensional women. Susann’s Valley of the Dolls and Collins’ The Secret Life of Married Men appeared in close proximity on the literary scene. Still, even though the women were often compared to one another, they were quite different. Susann lived in a hotel–she and her husband refused to cook and clean, so the built in staff was a necessity–while Collins struggled in a marriage to a man with mental health issues. She was a young mother who didn’t see a future that belonged to her and her dreams until she left her first husband and married her second–a man who encouraged her but kept secrets of his own.

Gill Paul created the character Nancy White as an idealistic young woman who dreams of becoming a book editor. She functions as an intermediary between Susann and Collins and is the heart of the book in many ways.

If you’re a fan of Mad Men, feminist fiction, or historical novels that immerse you into a blisteringly wild world, Scandalous Women is for you.