Review: Rachel West and the Fallen Starlet by Emma Mills

Rachel West and the Fallen Starlet by Emma Mills

Blurb from Goodreads:

Celebrity gossip can cut to the quick, but when it turns deadly it’s up to an aspiring reporter and her quirky neighbors to close the case in the first of a witty and nostalgic new mystery series.

Baby doll top, gladiator sandals, and fully loaded iPod at the it’s 2008 in Los Angeles, and Rachel West is a little less starry-eyed than your average ingenue. Copyediting a celeb gossip rag isn't the glossy entertainment journalism Rachel thought she would be doing but hey, it pays the bills. Some of them, anyway.

Rachel’s life changes overnight after meeting Molly Byrne, a former child star and current tabloid fave for her drunken escapades and rotating cast of boyfriends, and what begins as a chance encounter in a nightclub bathroom quickly grows into a genuine friendship.

When Molly is found dead, Hollywood accepts her death as an overdose. But Rachel knows for a fact her friend was clean—and she’s not alone in her suspicions that Molly was murdered.

With the help of a ragtag group of residents from her apartment building, a friendly paparazzo, and a handsome detective, Rachel must solve the mystery of Molly’s death before she’s written off for good.

 

I enjoyed this a lot!  Perfect time period to set this book in and it felt genuine.  I would definitely read more from this author, and I would even love if these same characters were involved.  Give this a try if you like mysteries/cozy mysteries set in contemporary (relatively) times!

Rachel West and the Fallen Starlet comes out next week on May 19, 2026 and you can purchase HERE.  

I FIRST MET MOLLY BYRNE AT A HOT NEW CLUB CALLED LITHIUM, WHICH WAS the successor to a formerly hot new club called LA$ER, which was the rebrand of a presumably tepid club called Entity.

I wasn't into the club scene, but I was there with Anton on a mission to see a deejay who was supposed to be the next big thing in house music, or the love of Anton's life, or both. Anton, an early and enthusiastic adopter of Twitter, followed this deejay, who tweeted under the handle @BEATDRAGON and shared photos of his washboard abs along with hashtags like #beatgasm and #letmythythminsideyou.