Novel by Southeast Michigan Native Gets Strong Reviews

Detroit native Diane Haithman, a freelance author and journalist living in Studio City, CA, will be in West Bloomfield to sign copies of her new novel, “Dark Lady of Hollywood,” and read selections from the book based on her experiences as an arts and entertainment writer.

The event, which takes place from 3-5 p.m. Sunday, Aug. 10, at Barnes & Noble Booksellers, 6800 Orchard Lake Road, is part f the book store’s Roeper School Book Fair, which supports a scholarship fund for the private day school.

Haithman, who grew up in downtown Detroit’s Lafayette Park, is a graduate of the Birmingham/Bloomfield Hills Roeper School and University of Michigan Honors College.

She began her career as a staff writer covering arts and entertainment for the Detroit Free Press, later becoming the newspaper’s West Coast Bureau chief covering Hollywood. Later, she was a staff writer for the Los Angeles Times.

A finalist in the William Faulkner Creative Writing Competition and published by Harvard Square Editions, “Dark Lady of Hollywood” draws from her experiences as a journalist covering the entertainment industry.

In a news release, she described it as “a merry mashup of the worlds of Shakespeare and the television industry that tells the story of a dying TV executive’s murderous search for a soul mate akin to Shakespeare’s mysterious Dark Lady of the Sonnets.”

The novel has won rave reviews.

Writes Jill Allen of ForeWord Reviews, “It takes a special kind of talent to simultaneously skewer Hollywood and Shakespeare while writing a thought provoking novel, and “Dark Lady of Hollywood proves Diane Haithman has this genius.”

More reviews:

» Jill Allen, ForeWord Reviews

» Ray Richmond, Burbank Leader

» Ellen Dostal, Broadway World Los Angeles

» Carol Gladstein, Booklist

More about the author and the book”

» DianeHaithman.com

The novel is available at Barnes & Noble, at Harvard Square Editions, as well as at Ingram, Gardner’s, Amazon, Kindle, and others.

Photo: Diane Haithman and her dog, Heidi, shared a byline in a column on Studio City Patch called “A Paw in the Door.”