Guest Book Review: Kim Izzo - My Life in Black and White

Reviewed by Lisa Bentley

Clara Bishop feels life has served her up far too many slaps and not nearly enough kisses. When she is suddenly jilted by her philandering husband, she follows him to London, determined she must win him back.  

Armed only with a suitcase of vintage clothing inherited from her grandmother, a former film noir actress, Clara discovers that the clothes really do make the woman. Dressed to kill, she adopts a new femme fatale persona: confident, sexy and set on revenge.  

But on the road to retaliation, Clara discovers an unfinished film script that sheds light on her grandmother's mysterious death years before. As Clara's life is transported into a living, breathing film from the fifties, she discovers not only the secrets of her grandmother's past, but the chance to write her own ending too . . .

Meet Clara Bishop. A failed screenplay writer who now works writing celebrity puff pieces from her home in Hollywood. Married to Dean, a producer of reality TV shows and desperate to make a name for himself in movies. And now meet Amber. Dean’s mistress. The cliché of the waitress turned actress snidely cavorting with the Hollywood hot shot and destroying a marriage at the same time plays an essential part in this life imitating art imitating life story.

Clara, not one to sit by the roadside whilst her life falls apart follows Dean and Amber to London in a desperate attempt to win back her husband finds herself a little more lost than the usual tourist. In fact she finds herself lost in time…

My Life in Black and White by Kim Izzo is a great book. I’m going to start by putting that out there. IT is a fun frivolous read that will keep you entertained and will keep you turning the page; that is if you are willing to suspend your levels of disbelief. Part chick lit mixed with part fantasy, this time travel novel will only work if you are not the type to shout out in disdain “That would so never happen!”

If however, you are the type who will allow yourself to get completely and utterly lost in a book and invested in your colourful cast of characters (believe me, there are a few) then this should be on your ‘to be read’ list. 

It is also essential that any girl who considers themselves to be a feisty femme fatale wannabe reads this book. Let Kim Izzo and her protagonist, Clara Bishop, show you how it is really done.

I'd like to thank Hodder & Stoughton for sending us a copy of this book to review.  

Amazon links: Paperback or Kindle