Blonde Venus
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Madou is the most beautiful woman in the world.
Discovered in a Berlin cabaret in the roaring twenties, she is brought to the glamour of Los Angeles. She becomes a superstar of the silver screen and Hollywoodâs darling, but nothing perfect lasts forever.
The cost of beauty is always high, for those who have it and those who live in its shadow. The weight falls on her daughter to untangle the complicated truths of being ordinary beside an
extraordinary mother, a woman who has bent and broken and skewed her perception of reality, a woman adored by the world, but from whom her daughter longs to escape.
Evocative and deeply moving, Mirror, Mirror is based on Marlene Dietrichâs glittering life, a dramatic novel set in Hollywoodâs golden age, that tells the story of mothers and daughters and of timeâs war against beauty â and the unbearable pain of a woman when beauty is the only game in town.
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Paula Byrne is the author the bestselling biographies Perdita, Mad World, The Real Jane Austen, Belle, Kick and The Genius of Jane Austen. She is founder and chief executive of ReLit, the Bibliotherapy Foundation, a charity devoted to the mental health benefits of reading. She is married to Sir Jonathan Bate and lives in Oxford.
