The premise of this new work of fiction is that the diaries that Marilyn Monroe were rumored to have kept in the last years of her life have been found and are being published for the first time - so we are reading her life story as if told in her own words. It is a fascinating tale of triumph and pain, beauty and tragedy, told against a backdrop of a golden age in Hollywood history, the 50s and 60s. It has a cast of characters that includes John and Jackie Kennedy, Frank Sinatra, Elizabeth Taylor, Peter and Pat Lawford, Robert Kennedy, Natalie Wood, Warren Beatty and many others. The difference between this book and other recent works of fiction about the blonde actress is that in this novel Marilyn Monroe comes across as a living, breathing human being - not a cardboard caricature based on characters from her films. This is, however, a book for adults. It is not a Disney cartoon version of a blonde Snow White with cartoon birds chirping over her head. It is the exploration of a complex woman of complicated, unresolved contrasts - a doomed siren that, even beyond the grave, never lost her power to seduce.