Elizabeth Kerri Mahon

“It’s a good thing I’m not a woman. I would always be pregnant. I can’t say no,” President Warren G. Harding speaking to a group of reporters at a private party at the National Press Club in Washington, DC. I’m a little obsessed with the TV show Scandal on ABC, a captivating saga of illicit relationships, unchecked power, and shocking political intrigue in the administration of President Fitzgerald Grant. Grant had been having an illicit affair with Olivia Pope who not only worked on his campaign but also in the White House as his press secretary. Now she’s a crisis management consultant whose job frequently involves the White House. Grant is married to Mellie, the ice-queen who would stop at nothing, even faking a miscarriage to get her husband elected. And then there is Cyrus, the Machiavellian chief of Staff who also happens to be gay, and Hollis Doyle, the Texas oilman who has a stake in the Grant Presidency. Oh, and did I mention that Fitzgerald Grant is a Republican...

Happy Valentine's Day!  I wrote this blog post way back in 2007, when the documentary Crazy/Love came out. It was one of the most outrageous stories of love gone wrong, that if I read it in a novel, I wouldn't have believed it.  Linda Pugach recently passed away this January at the age of 75. If you get the chance, I urge you to seek out Crazy/Love on Netflix. Everyone knows about Amy Fisher and Joey Buttafuco. They had an affair while she was underage, he broke up with her, she shot his wife. Now allegedly they're back together. Well, meet the 1950's equivalent. Instead of Amy Fisher, we have Burt Pugach, the man from whom 1-800-Shyster could have been invented. Burt, not very good-looking, but apparently smart and charismatic works as an ambulance chaser in the Bronx. He's also a film producer, and owns a night club. He spies Lnda Riss, a sheltered dark haired beauty said to look like Elizabeth Taylor, on a park bench and decides than and there that he ...

Title:   The Real Jane Austen: A Life in Small Things Author:   Paula Byrne Publisher:    Harper Collins Publication Date:   1/29/2013 How Acquired:   Through the Publisher What it’s about:   I came to Jane Austen relatively late in life it feels.   I didn’t read Pride and Prejudice until my senior year of high school.   As a moody teenager, I reveled in the gothic novels of Emily and Charlotte Bronte.   It was actually the film version of Pride and Prejudice starring Laurence Olivier and Greer Garson that got me interested in reading the book.   I found the movie so delicious and fun that I had to read the book.   Since then I’ve read Northanger Abbey, Emma and Persuasion and I’ve seen almost every single adaptation of all the books.   I’ve even read several biographies but I’ve never really felt as if I knew who Jane was.   She certainly wasn’t the character played by Anne Hathaway in BECOMING ...