Beyond the Blonde
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- £8.99
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- £8.99
Publisher Description
Kathleen Flynn-Hui - hairdresser to the stars - takes readers behind the frosted glass panels of the top salons and into the glamorous and bitchy world of women (and men) who'd kill for a handful of honeyed highlights. Beyond the Blonde follows the fortunes of Georgia, a small-town girl with big-city ambitions as she makes her ascent to the position of colourist at one of the most exclusive salons in New York. But if Georgia is to achieve the heady heights of urban salon success first she must battle bullies, find romance, endure heartbreak and betrayal. Can she make the cut? Or will it all unravel like a perm in a rainstorm?
Anyone who loved The Nanny Diaries for its peek into an unknown world of slavery and hardship will adore Beyonde the Blonde for similar reasons. And as for those who couldn't miss an episode of Cutting It, here is the ideal book to plug the gap between series.
In this superb roman-a-clef, Kathleen Flynn-Hui tells it like it is and gives readers more than one opportunity to spot the stars behind the stories ...
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Readers hoping for more hauteur la Bergdorf Blondes can reach for this debut by a celebrity colorist at a Manhattan salon. Flynn-Hui's alter ego, sweet but street-smart Georgia, works miracles for a bevy of glamour girls at Jean-Luc, the "epicenter of beautification." Georgia's own humble roots are worlds away from those of her clients, whom she categorizes by neighborhood (there's the Greenwich, the Beverly Hills and the Short Hills "the Greenwich with a serious inferiority complex"). Georgia's mother, Doreen, runs the classiest salon in their neck of New Hampshire, but struggles to stay afloat, which is why she prodded her daughter toward the big city, where Georgia worked her way up from sweeping Jean-Luc's floors to wowing his clients. But like the best dye jobs, the salon's artifice of amity conceals the darkness beneath. Ups and downs ensue from workplace romance to blithe betrayal all barely noticed by the coddled clientele. Knifed in the back, Georgia and her friends resolve to decamp for grittier downtown digs, hoping to take their clients with them but Jean-Luc himself is a force to reckon with, and Georgia struggles with her own crisis of confidence. Snarky but not overly stinging, this read is as kicky and flirty as a head of highlights.