The Golden Age of Hollywood

My soon-to-be-released novel, The Golden Age of Magic, is set in Hollywood, 1927. It is about the movie business but mostly focuses on a seamstress who works in the costume department of a fictional Hollywood studio. I was fortunate enough to travel out to California to do some research for the story. Mostly studio tours and museums, although I did maybe spend a night or two at The Beverly Hills Hotel, since my character—a fairy godmother in training—sets herself up in one of their bungalows for her stay. Research!

I’d been to Los Angeles and the surrounding area a few times before, but this was the first chance I got to indulge my movie buff side. I love the movies. I have since I was a young child. In fact, I was that weird girl who stayed in on Saturday mornings in the summer to watch old black and white movies featuring Jean Harlow, Mae West, William Powell, Myrna Loy, Abbot & Costello, and my favorite: Errol Flynn as Robin Hood. Really, I’d watch whatever came on our local Channel 2 in Denver (this was way before anyone had cable television and abundant choices), and I would sit there transfixed until it was over. I had it bad. I remember one night when I was about ten-years old my family tried to get me to go outside to watch an incredibly rare eclipse of the moon. I said, “Nah, I’m good. I’m watching my cliffhangers right now.”

I think my obsession with movie watching at such a young age was just an early phase of my growing addiction to stories. Movies were a quick fix for someone who hadn’t yet learned to read books on her own. And these movies had drama, acting, and costumes! It was all very alluring to a developing mind that craved the language of story, something I believe is innate to most humans. It’s just that some of us get a bigger high off of storytelling than others.

Below are a few photos I took on my trip last year. So much of The Golden Age of Magic was inspired by the things I saw and read about while I was in L.A.. And while the tours and museums were fascinating and indispensable to the writing of the novel, what I really loved was that everywhere I went I was surrounded by fellow movie buffs who couldn’t get enough. My people!

The Hollywood Museum on Highland Ave.

THE director’s chair.

Who doesn’t love Claudette Colbert?

The Bronson Gate — Sunset Boulevard, anyone?

Costume props at Paramount Studios.

An Edith Head drawing. She was part inspiration for the character Rose.

Warner Bros studio head’s phone book. Look at all the famous names on one page!

Had to do it.

Not Your Mother's Fairy Godmothers

My upcoming novel, The Golden Age of Magic, plays with the trope of fairy godmothers. In The Annotated Brothers Grimm by Maria Tatar, the Sleeping Beauty tale mentions thirteen Wise Women who were invited to the christening of Princess Aurora, the king’s daughter. It’s that line that kicked off the idea for the story. In that tale, they are called Wise Women, a term that conjures images of healers, midwives, and herb workers tucked away in a cottage deep in the woods. A sisterhood of women who were bestowers of the magical gifts of health and good fortune.

We also know that one of the thirteen has a less than stellar reputation in the kingdom after cursing the child and leaving her for dead. If not for the intervention of the final Wise Woman who had one last gift to give, the king’s child would have been doomed. Instead, the Wise Woman chose to temper the curse with the prospect of sleep.

At some point in time, the Wise Women in the tale were reimagined as fairy godmothers, but I always liked the more rustic idea of a group of women who lived in the woods brewing their elixirs and studying their magic somewhere on the outskirts of the kingdom. Minding their own business until called upon for a favor. But kingdoms fall. Wars break out. Time marches on. So what happened to the women in the woods, who’d come to be known as fairy godmothers, once the world they’d been created in no longer existed?

Imagining that the sisterhood of thirteen continued through to the twentieth century posed a fun question for me. What would they do in the age of airplanes and automobiles, movie theaters and skyscrapers? What would happen if one was sent to Hollywood in 1927? Well, in the novel they’re not stuck in the woods anymore. Just like any other modern woman, they’re exploring their freedom in the roaring twenties. Maybe a little more so since, you know, magic.

Art by Louis Icart

ARCs For The Golden Age of Magic Are Here!

If you’re a reviewer or blogger who would like an advance reader’s copy of The Golden Age of Magic, let me know through my contact form, and I’d be happy to get one sent out!

The book is officially out on July 1, 2025 and is available at Target, Barnes & Noble, Amazon, and various independent bookstores. Just my opinion, but I think it will make a fabulous summer read.

Synopsis below:

Against the backdrop of 1920s Hollywood, a young fairy godmother on a mission is embroiled in malicious magic, mystery, and murder in a thrilling historical fantasy by the bestselling author of The Vine Witch.

Celeste is about to become one of the thirteen Fées Gardiennes, a centuries-old sisterhood of fairy godmothers. To be granted full status, she must usher her first protégé onto their path of destiny. Where better to find a starry-eyed ward than in the land of magic and illusion called Hollywood?

It’s 1927. The moviemaking business is booming when Celeste befriends a young studio seamstress whose dreams outshine everyone else’s. Rose is talented and underappreciated and could use some enchanted intervention in her life. Plans proceed swimmingly, and Celeste even catches the eye of a handsome producer. But after a series of unexplained accidents on the studio lot stir up rumors of a curse, Celeste fears the trouble is more personal—the spiteful meddling of a fellow Gardienne out to thwart Celeste’s success.

But the sabotage turns sinister when a starlet is murdered and it’s Rose who stands accused. As vengeance, dark magic, and betrayal wreak havoc, Celeste must come into her full power to save her innocent protégé and secure her own future in a cherished, ancient, and now threatened sisterhood.

Scam Alert: I'm Still Not on Facebook

**Reposting this from September because Facebook is the worst company for policing fake profiles. Unfortunately, they keep popping up and fooling people. Please don’t be taken in by fake accounts on social media claiming to be authors or agents selling marketing ideas:

Just a heads up that someone on Facebook is posing as me at the moment and contacting other authors, and likely not in a flattering way. I’m not on Facebook. Never have been. Never will be. Apologies to anyone who followed or interacted with this account believing it was me.

*Update: I’ve learned this person is trying to sell marketing “advice” to authors on Facebook. Please don’t engage with any account on Facebook using my name. They are all imposters. If you are contacted by them, please report the account as fraudulent. Thank you!

**While we’re here, I also did not employ ghost writers to pen any of my novels despite various websites claiming just that. They, too, are only after your money and will do nothing for your writing career or help you get published.

— Luanne

Every Fairy tale Needs a Villain

That is the tagline on the back cover of my next novel, The Golden Age of Magic. And I love it! When I got the idea for this novel, I knew I would be playing with established fairy tale norms. The main character is on the brink of becoming a fairy godmother, part of an ancient and revered sisterhood that has served the royal houses of Europe for centuries, which meant borrowing a well-known trope from all that rich oral tradition collected by the Brothers Grimm and Charles Perrault. And, yes, even a little inspiration from the Disney interpretations too.

Fairy tales are what many of us avid readers cut our teeth on. I’m a reader and writer today in part because I had a mother and grandmother who both read to me when I was young. Hearing those fairy tales and nursery rhymes over and over again planted the seeds of imagination early on. They made me later want to explore more stories and imaginary worlds on my own, which I suppose is how I ended up writing the types of stories I do.

I believe all my novels have a fairy tale quality to them, and that’s because I love a fantasy world that’s full of magic yet based in a real world setting. In my latest, there are heroes and wise old mentors, good intentions and evil schemes. Journeys, quests, rewards, and sacrifices. And, yes, a necessary villain or two. All set in the world of Hollywood, 1927.