Today is my stop for the blog tour of Chasing Starlight. This book was already on my radar so as soon as I saw the announcement for this tour I knew I wanted to participate. While the cover is not my thing at all, the synopsis sounded very interesting. I was one of the lucky participants in this tour and today I will tell you all about the book. So let’s jump in!

Chasing Starlight by Teri Bailey Black
Genre: Young Adult Mystery/Historical Fiction
Publishing Date: August 11, 2020

Movies, mansions, and murder in the Golden Age of Hollywood! Teri Bailey Black’s Chasing Starlight is a historical mystery from the award-winning author of the Thriller Award for Best Young Adult Novel.

1. The Golden Age of Hollywood. Palm trees and movie stars. Film studios pumping out musicals, westerns, and gangster films at a furious pace. Everyone wants to be a star―except society girl and aspiring astronomer Kate Hildebrand, who’d rather study them in the night sky. She’s already famous after a childhood tragedy turned her into a newspaper headline. What she craves is stability.

But when Kate has to move to Hollywood to live with her washed-up silent film star grandfather, she walks into a murder scene and finds herself on the front page again. She suspects one of the young men boarding in her grandfather’s run-down mansion is the killer―maybe even her grandfather. She searches for clues.

Now, Kate must discover the killer while working on the set of a musical―and falling in love. Will her stars align so she can catch the murderer and live the dream in Old Hollywood? Or will she find that she’s just chasing starlight?

Book links

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Review

This book has such an unfortunate cover! I just have to get that out of the way haha. This is not a book I would pick up in a bookstore if I didn’t know anything about it. Luckily I did read the synopsis though. Because as soon as I read that, I knew I wanted to read the book. I used to read quite a lot of historical fiction and lately I’m getting back into it. Murder mysteries are also a favorite genre and a combination of the two is even better!

In my opinion a historical fiction needs to give you a feeling for the time. Since we didn’t live in this era, I like to be reminded what time were in. Otherwise you start to put things in a contemporary perspective, or at least I do. I thought Chasing Starlight did a pretty good job on the historical setting. We are in the 1930’s Hollywood and I really believed this story was set there.

The plot of Chasing Starlight mostly involves the murder mystery. I read the synopsis months ago so I somewhat forgot what was supposed to happen and the book managed to surprise me a bit in the first couple of chapters. That’s always a good start of your reading experience. I really liked the mystery and Teri managed to keep me guessing until right before the reveal. One of the last clues was the one that helped me figure it out and I was not disappointed by the reveal at all!

The last couple chapters of the book were the weakest in my opinion unfortunately. While I really liked the reveal of the killer and the motivation I did think it was a bit rushed. With all the build-up I would’ve liked the ending to be drawn out a bit. And basically right after the reveal the book ended. We did get an epilogue but I think that could’ve been written a bit differently.

Kate is the MC in this book and I’m still not completely sure how I feel about her haha. At times I really liked her character, she wants to study to become an astronomer, she is very organised and I appreciated that she showed clear signs of PTSD. Other moments she really annoyed me haha, and that might’ve been just because of the time she is put in. She cares a lot about certain social rules although she does let go of them more and more during this story. While writing this I think I’m leaning more towards liking her ;).

Some of the other important characters are Ollie (love love love him), Hugo, and Bonnie. There are a couple more interesting characters, like the other boarders and some of the people Kate starts to work with. I really liked how everyone fit the times, even though that made some of them pretty unlikeable (I’m looking at you Tad). Most of the characters had an interesting story themselves and were pretty well developed.

I really enjoyed this murder mystery set in 1930’s Hollywood. Teri writes interesting characters and really makes you feel like you are put in the era. I will definitely pick up her previous work and I’m already looking forward to whatever she writes next!

Tour Schedule

Of course we’re not the only blog participating in this tour. If you want to check out the other amazing blogs, click here for the full schedule!

Author Bio

Teri Bailey Black grew up near the beach in southern California in a large, quirky family with no television or junk food, but an abundance of books and art supplies. She’s happiest when she’s creating things, whether it’s with words, fabric, or digging in the garden. She makes an amazing chocolate cherry cake—frequently. She and her husband have four children and live in Orange County, California.

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Favorite Quotes

Cannot stay here house full of unsavory boarders STOP must return to San Francisco at once STOP situation dire please send money order for one month hotel STOP

 

He tried to give the key to Bonnie, but she said, “I don’t want to carry it all day, silly. Put it in the glovebox.”

 

“Plus, I like living here with Ollie.. and everyone”. “well.” Hugo’s lips curved in a slow smile. “Everyone is happy about that.”

 

She bit her lower lip, aware that taking advantage of Glenn’s romantic interest to see an observatory wasn’t a very nice thing to do. Also aware that she would probably do it anyway.