In 1969 twenty-three-year-old starlet Lori Lovely, the apple of Hollywood’s eye, shocks the world by ditching a promising film career to take vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience as a Benedictine nun. Gossip columnists and scandal sheets can’t get enough of the story. Why would a successful starlet take the veil? Was she hiding from someone? Did it have anything to do with the tragic death of her costar, heartthrob singer Lucas Wesley?

In 1990 Lu Tibbott is under the gun to complete her senior thesis in modern American history. Instead of spending weeks in dusty archives, Lu decides to dig into a true twentieth-century mystery and write about her aunt Lori, now the Mother Abbess at a cloistered convent in rural New England. Biographers, bloggers, and media types have long speculated about her aunt’s sudden departure from Hollywood. Mother Lori, however, has refused all requests for interviews—until Lu arrives at the abbey with a tape recorder in hand. To her delight, Mother Lori announces she’s finally ready to talk…but only if Lu is truly ready to listen.

Based on a composite of real Hollywood actresses like Ava Gardner, Olivia Hussey, and Dolores Hart, the latter being the most important as an actress who later takes the veil of God.

Starting with the frame story, this novel follows in the footsteps of The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, and Did You Hear About Kitty Carr, although McCoy makes the interviewer a little more personal by having Lou be Lori’s niece trying to write her thesis. She still bumps up against the ethical wall of how much of Lori’s personal life to reveal, and how history is mutable, written by the selective memory of the people involved.

Unfortunately this frame story, like almost all the other frame is less interesting than Lori’s past and reading through Lou’s musings on her own restlessness does not provide much insight or foil to Lori’s life. As for the twist in the end related to Lori and Lou, I saw it from the second page, so the reveal wasn’t emotional as expected.

Lori’s story was interesting especially as McCoy does a great job in describing the Italian setting, the swinging London scene, and Lori’s transformation from small town girl yearning for something more, her period of being gaslighted, and the spiritual healing she finds with the nuns. The spirituality infused throughout the novel, showing how it was present for Lori since the beginning helped set this book apart, and made it a more thoughtful, slow-paced read.

However, the narrative is hampered by the distance in Lori’s retelling. You never get the full depth of Lori’s emotions which Lou attributes to her hiding or skipping over parts of her story which makes sense character-wise, but isn’t fulfilling while one reads. Due to that distance, the characters didn’t grip me as much. Even narrative points like Lori’s stalker-manager, her friendship with Ginny, and her time with nuns have so much potential, but their impact is dulled because it’s told than shown.

The only thing that kept me reading was wanting to see if my guess on the twist was right.

Unfortunate as it has such an interesting premise, and Lori’s thoughts on religion, and spirituality are strong, but they’re not touched in detail, leaving what could have been a powerful book about how to achieve true balance, and peace after a life of excess feel like it’s just skimming the surface.

3 stars.