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A Novel
by Sarah McCoy
From New York Times bestselling author Sarah McCoy—a spellbinding novel based on a true story: a beautiful young movie star of Hollywood's Golden Age gives up her bright career to become a nun.
In 1969, twenty-three-year-old starlet Lori Lovely, the apple of Hollywood's eye, shocks the world by ditching a promising film career to take vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience as a Benedictine nun. Gossip columnists and scandal sheets can't get enough of the story. Why would such a beautiful girl take the veil? Was she hiding from someone? Did it have anything to do with the tragic death of her costar, heartthrob singer Lucas Wesley?
In 1990, Lu Tibbott is under the gun to complete her senior thesis in modern American history. Instead of spending weeks in dusty archives, Lu decides to dig into a true twentieth-century mystery and write about her aunt Lori, now the Mother Abbess at a cloistered convent in rural New England. Biographers, bloggers, and media types have long speculated about her aunt Lori's sudden departure from Hollywood. Mother Lori, however, has refused all requests for interviews—until Lu arrives at the abbey with a tape recorder in hand. To her delight, Mother Lori announces she's finally ready to talk...but only if Lu is truly ready to listen.
Lu is shocked to discover that the story of Lori Lovely's rise in Hollywood was far more tumultuous than she'd ever expected, a fairy tale twisting with ambition, unforeseen alliances, forbidden love, and secrets. What began as a history thesis now threatens to upend all their lives with its unexpected truths, especially as the media gets wind of Lu's project and begins to ask…
Whatever happened to Lori Lovely?
"McCoy's (Mustique Island) heartwarming dual-timeline novel, based partially on the life of Mother Dolores Hart, who acted in a film with Elvis Presley before becoming a Benedictine nun, is for readers who like their Hollywood tearjerkers sprinkled with themes of faith, family, and love." —Library Journal
"Inspired by the actual lives and careers of three Hollywood actresses, best-selling McCoy (Mustique Island, 2022) tenderly portrays the anxiety produced when what-if becomes what's next?" —Booklist
"Entertaining! McCoy ably evokes the glitter and grit of mid-century moviemaking." —Publishers Weekly
"Sarah McCoy possesses that rare gift of drawing you straight into her narrative from the very first pages with her impeccable sense of place and characters. I loved this story... Whatever happened to Lori Lovely? will warm your heart as it did mine. This is Sarah McCoy's best book." —Tatiana de Rosnay, New York Times and international bestselling author of Sarah's Key and Blonde Dust
"Sarah McCoy brings to life one of Hollywood's golden ages, the 1960s, in this delightful tale of a starlet who trades the movies for the monastery, leaving her forlorn fans wondering why. Part mystery, part history, it's always a joy." —Chris Bohjalian, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Jackal's Mistress
This information about Whatever Happened to Lori Lovely? was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Sarah McCoy is the New York Times, USA Today, and international bestselling author of The Mapmaker's Children; The Baker's Daughter, a 2012 Goodreads Choice Award Best Historical Fiction nominee; the novella "The Branch of Hazel," featured in the anthology Grand Central; and The Time It Snowed in Puerto Rico.
Sarah's work has been featured in Real Simple, The Millions, Your Health Monthly, Huffington Post and other publications. She has taught English writing at Old Dominion University and at the University of Texas at El Paso.
The daughter of an Army officer, her family was stationed in Germany during her childhood. She calls Virginia home but presently lives with her husband, an Army physician, and dog, Gilbert, in El Paso, Texas.
If you liked Whatever Happened to Lori Lovely?, try these:
by Maame Blue
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An internationally award-winning writer makes her triumphant American debut in this emotionally powerful story—a potent blend of Queenie and The Vanishing Half—about a woman's journey to uncover a foundational family secret from the childhood she does not remember.
by Lauren Groff
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Cast out of the royal court by Eleanor of Aquitaine, deemed too coarse and rough-hewn for marriage or courtly life, seventeen-year-old Marie de France is sent to England to be the new prioress of an impoverished abbey, its nuns on the brink of starvation and beset by disease.
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Every good journalist has a novel in him - which is an excellent place for it.
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