Happy little bluebirds - Louise Levene

'A whip-smart comedy, chock-full with glamour, secret agents and sun-drenched Californian orange groves - seriously, what could be more heavenly?' SagaIt is September 1940 and Evelyn Murdoch, a translator from the Postal Censorship department, is uprooted from her home in wartime Woking and transferred to Hollywood. She is to assist a mysterious British agent in his attempts to outwit the Los Angeles German delegation and boost the British propaganda war effort.The unhappy young widow is supplied with a new Californian wardrobe, a Bel Air bungalow and her own desk in the writers' block of Miracle Studios.At first bewildered by the glamorous excesses of this strange new world, she is gradually seduced by the sunlight, orange groves and clever, fast-talking men. But, just as she begins to blossom, her new technicolor ending threatens to slip from her grasp.

Louise Levene is the author of A Vision of Loveliness, a BBC Book at Bedtime, which was also longlisted for the Desmond Elliott first novel prize, Ghastly Business and The Following Girls. She was the dance critic for the Sunday Telegraph for sixteen years and before that a dance writer on the Independent, but now works for the Financial Times. She has also been an advertising copywriter, a window dresser, a radio presenter, an office cleaner, a crossword editor, a university tutor, a college professor and a saleslady. She lives in London with her husband, their two children and Basher.

For the perfect piece of Bank Holiday escapism, look no further … A whip-smart comedy, chock-full with glamour, secret agents and sun-drenched Californian orange groves - seriously, what could be more heavenly?
Saga

Levene is a zesty storyteller and a master of the needle-sharp one-liner
Sunday Telegraph

She writes with such energy and panache
Barbara Trapido

Levene has a pitch-perfect ear for dialogue
Observer

Levene's sharply observed comedy mixes affectionate satire of the stylistic oddities of the time with an invigorating sparkle of real dislike for authority
Evening Standard - Jane Shilling

A seamless knack for drawing characters that fully inhabit their historical setting
The Lady

Levene is a gifted writer with a cinematic way with words
Sunday Express