Once Upon a Twilight!: Blog Tour: Dead to Me by Mary McCoy

Welcome to our stop on Dead to Me tour for Mary McCoy. This tour is hosted by The Fantastic Flying Book Club.

Dead to Me
Author: Mary McCoy
Reading Level: Young Adult
Genre: Historical Fiction | Mystery
Released: March 3, 2015
Review Source: Disney-Hyperion

LA Confidential for the YA audience. This alluring noir YA mystery with a Golden Age Hollywood backdrop will keep you guessing until the last page.

"Don't believe anything they say."

Those were the last words that Annie spoke to Alice before turning her back on their family and vanishing without a trace. Alice spent four years waiting and wondering when the impossibly glamorous sister she idolized would return to her--and what their Hollywood-insider parents had done to drive her away.

When Annie does turn up, the blond, broken stranger lying in a coma has no answers for her. But Alice isn't a kid anymore, and this time she won't let anything stand between her and the truth, no matter how ugly. The search for those who beat Annie and left her for dead leads Alice into a treacherous world of tough-talking private eyes, psychopathic movie stars, and troubled starlets--and onto the trail of a young runaway who is the sole witness to an unspeakable crime. What this girl knows could shut down a criminal syndicate and put Annie's attacker behind bars--if Alice can find her first. And she isn't the only one looking.

Evoking classic film noir, debut novelist Mary McCoy brings the dangerous glamour of Hollywood's Golden Age to life, where the most decadent parties can be the deadliest, and no drive into the sunset can erase the crimes of past.

Let me paint the scene for you...Old Hollywood, scandals, private detectives, parties, missing girls...it has it all!! There are so many things that I loved about this book! It's been awhile that I've read a story where I couldn't put it down. Not in the car, or at work, or even to go to bed! And isn't the cover amazing? I love the way the girl is peaking through the title.

I love the backstory that McCoy weaves through the story. It really gives you a better understanding of the time period and setting. The girls behave exactly the way I would picture them to back in the Golden Age of Hollywood. Alice is from a some-what high society family, but has a mind of her own and isn't dazzled by her families crazy lifestyle. I'm glad that she was a strong character from the beginning and continued to be herself throughout the novel. There wasn't a time where I felt that she was weak or couldn't handle the situation. She was rebellious, and I liked that.

The plot line had me questioning everything and trying to put the pieces together. I couldn't figure out who put Annie in the hospital. You didn't know who you could trust or who was a bad guy (or girl). There were times where I just kept reading and reading because I had to finish the chapter and then I'd get sucked into the next one. The drama and pacing were right on and I liked how there were flashbacks into the girls' childhoods because it gave you reasons for why they did what they did.

Overall, I really loved this story. The setting was fun and the plot had me interested throughout the story. I promise you will love the ending, but that's all I'm going to say! No spoilers here!! I would recommend this book to middle and high schoolers because it was a great historical fiction set in a time and place that would peak their interest.

Mary McCoy is a librarian at the Los Angeles Public Library. She has also been a contributor to On Bunker Hill and the 1947project, where she wrote stories about Los Angeles's notorious past. She grew up in western Pennsylvania and studied at Rhodes College and the University of Wisconsin. Mary now lives in Los Angeles with her husband. Her debut novel, Dead To Me, is a YA mystery set in the glamorous, treacherous world of 1940s Hollywood.