Janet Hardy in Radio City

Janet Hardy wakes before dawn, her heart pounding with the particular electricity of Hollywood mornings. She's landed a role in a western called 'Water Hole', nothing remarkable, she's told, just another horse opera for the masses. Then everything changes. A last-minute casting shuffle throws her opposite Curt Newsom, the most famous cowboy star in America, and suddenly she's not just an actress anymore. She's the girl who might make it, or the girl who might be destroyed trying. Ruthe S. Wheeler captures the raw nerve of ambition in mid-century Hollywood with sharp, knowing prose. This is a world where a single phone call can end a career, where friendship is both sustenance and currency, and where the line between the person you are and the person you're becoming blurs into something unrecognizable. Janet and her friend Helen navigate studio lots, dressing rooms, and the peculiar loneliness of chasing a dream that's finally coming true. The drama behind the cameras proves as unpredictable as anything on screen. For readers who crave vintage Hollywood fiction with actual teeth, the glamour is real, but so is the danger.