Publication Date: March 18, 2025
1956, Malibu, California: Something is not right on Paradise Circle.
With her name on the Hollywood blacklist and her life on hold, starlet Melanie Cole has little choice in company. There is her next-door neighbor, Elwood, but the screenwriter’s agoraphobia allows for just short chats through open windows. He’s her sole confidante, though, as she and her housekeeper, Eva, an immigrant from war-torn Europe, rarely make conversation.
Then one early morning Melanie and Eva spot Elwood’s sister-in-law and caretaker, June, digging in his beloved rose garden. After that they don’t see Elwood at all anymore. Where could a man who never leaves the house possibly have gone?
As they try to find out if something has happened to him, unexpected secrets are revealed among all three women, leading to an alliance that seems the only way for any of them to hold on to what they can still call their own. But it’s a fragile pact and one little spark could send it all up in smoke…
It’s 1956 in Malibu, and secrets are about to go up in smoke in A Map to Paradise by Susan Meissner.
Melanie is living in a beautiful, rented home in Malibu, rented from a fellow actor who is now on McCarthy’s list of suspected communists. With the “Red Scare” raging its way through Hollywood, Melanie is next on the list. Her company is now limited to her housekeeper, Eva, and her reclusive neighbor, Elwood, who lives with his sister-in-law, June. When Eva and Melanie see June digging in Elwood’s prize rose garden, they start to get suspicious. That, coupled with the fact that they haven’t seen Elwood anymore, questions begin to get raised. Secrets will be revealed, and the bonds of these women will be tested.
I found the setting of 1950s Hollywood to be a wonderful vehicle for this story. While I was aware of the “Red Scare” and the blacklisting that occurred in Hollywood at the time, I liked that Meissner showed the human side of the actions done out of fear. I truly enjoyed the characters and how they all tied together. While the story was a little slow to start, I found it compelling. The writing was solid, and the story intriguing.
A Map to Paradise is a glimpse into the Golden Age of Hollywood and all the drama that went with that. This is an incredible story of women bonding together during uncertain times.
Susan Meissner is a former managing editor of a weekly newspaper and an award-winning columnist. She is the award-winning author of The Nature of Fragile Things, The Last Year of the War, As Bright as Heaven, A Bridge Across the Ocean, Secrets of a Charmed Life, A Fall of Marigolds, and Stars over Sunset Boulevard, among other novels.
