In 1943 Hollywood, where stars shine bright and dreams come true, you’ll follow the journey of Annie Laurence, a murder mystery playwright searching for her break in the industry. But when a despised film critic meets an untimely end at the glamorous Hollywood Canteen, Annie is thrust into a real-life mystery that’s more challenging than any script she’s written.

Get ready to meet the captivating and dramatic Ambassador’s Club, a group of celebrity friends with secrets and unique relationships. You’ll fall in love with their intriguing lives and the glitz and glamour of old Hollywood.

Inspired by the real Hollywood Canteen, where enlisted men and women found solace and entertainment during World War II, this book offers a glimpse into a bygone era filled with love affairs, laughter, and a riveting murder mystery that will keep you on the edge of your seat.

Prepare for a rollercoaster of emotions, humor, and a captivating story that’ll transport you to the heart of 1940s Hollywood. “Last Night at the Hollywood Canteen” is a must-read for all book lovers and history enthusiasts.

Thanks to NetGalley and Sourcebooks Landmark for the ARC.

This was an enjoyable read and for everyone that loves Old Hollywood this one is for you. I will definitely be on alert for what Sarah James writes next!

The year is 1943. After a tough breakup, New York City murder-mystery playwright Annie Laurence moves to Hollywood to write for Pacific Pictures, one of the less successful studios. As part of the war effort, the movie community was entertaining servicemen before they headed overseas at the Hollywood Canteen. Top actors, comedians and musicians performed, and studio employees worked there as volunteers. When it was Pacific night, Annie decided to help out and mingle. She managed to connect herself to an interesting group which dubbed itself the Ambassador's Club, as they would frequently meet, drink, gossip and exchange witticisms and barbs at one another at the Ambassador Hotel. The group was made up of a comedian/radio host with a drinking problem, a musician, a Chinese actress who yearned to be taken seriously but was relegated to being a sex symbol, a female producer and Fiona Farris, top film critic who seemed to hate everything she reviewed. When she is found dead one night at the Canteen, it was first deemed a suicide. But Annie suspects she was murdered. She is determined to uncover what happened. Soon everyone becomes a suspect, including Annie.

*Special thanks to NetGalley and Sourcebooks Landmark for this e-arc.*

4 stars / This review will be posted on goodreads.com today.

The Hollywood Canteen was a real place. Hollywood’s supposed contribution to the war effort. It was a place of glamour, started by Bette Davis and John Garfield, to give servicemen a night of frivolity before sending them off to fight. The studios each hosted a night. For that night, actors and actresses under contract would attend to entertain.\\

It is in this setting that Annie Laurence, fresh off an unexpected and tragic breakup in New York City, finds herself rubbing elbows with the famous faces. She’s been hired by Pacific Pictures to write movies. Annie ends up befriending a sharp-witted group of stars, critics, and musicians, The Ambassador’s Club.

Her idyllic life with them, swapping one-liners and drinking to excess, takes a turn when one of them is found dead. Apparent suicide. Only as a mystery writer, Annie believes something terrible has happened. So she enlists her new squad of friends to try to help solve it.

The truth about the Hollywood Canteen is rather dark in many ways, so it’s not surprising that a murder mystery would fit right in. The characters are dark in many ways, and Annie finds herself enmeshed in this crazy world where nothing, almost nothing, is really what it seems. I loved it. It was fun, but also sad. I truly enjoyed every page.

An edge of your seat thriller tense chilling,couldn’t put down .Sarah James drew me right in kept my heart racing will be recommending.#netgalley #sourcebooks

A very interesting and suspenseful read. The plot is filled with twists and turns that compels us to keep turning the pages. Both the plot and characters are well-developed. Looking forward to more books by this author.

This historical fiction read blends together fact and mystery to create an engaging story.

Annie is a playwright new to LA after an awful breakup when she is invited to check out the Hollywood Canteen. Studios send actors, writers, and other stars to entertain the servicemen in town during WWII, and Annie is shocked to see Fiona there, the critic who caused her breakup. She makes friends with Fiona’s group, and when Fiona is found dead, the snarky group is forced to investigate further afte the police instantly call it a suicide.

The tone is delightfully snarky at times, with the main friend group full of cynical and mean characters. They constantly rag on one another for their failures without ever celebrating their achievements, making for an odd definition of the word friend. Annie quickly falls into their way of thinking and speaking, and of course suspicion falls on her as the new insider when Fiona dies.

The characters are mostly unlikable, but in the fun gossipy way where you still want to read about them and find out what happens next. The central mystery is solved by the end in a fun and juicy way, and I’m really finding myself loving a historical fic/mystery mashup lately!

The concept of this one was a ton of fun, and I was interested to read the authors note about the true Hollywood Canteen during the war. I had never heard of it before, and it is a fascinating thing to think about. On one hand, it makes the stars seem kind hearted for entertaining the troops, but it really just depends on their actual motivation- are they merely trying to look good, or do they actually care about the service members? The superficiality of Hollywood makes it hard to ever truly know, and makes this story so intriguing!

Thank you to NetGalley and Sourcebooks Landmark for the ARC in exchange for my honest opinion.

I read this book in a day and I never looked back! The twist and the plot were pretty easy to identify but the different POV's kept me intrigued to see how everything was going to unfold. A couple of the characters were so unlikable that it made it hard to feel bad or connect with them in any way. I do wish that the ending would've given a little more, I wanted to know how the characters dealt with the aftermath.

Overall I give this 5 out 5 because it really was a great book and I will definitely read more from this Author. I enjoyed the thrill of the plot and its twists.

*I received a copy of this eARC via NetGalley*

Last Night at the Hollywood Canteen is a character-driven historical mystery that keeps you on your toes.
It's 1943 and playwright Annie Laurence has a hit murder mystery on Broadway, but after her life falls apart she decides to start fresh in Hollywood, accepting a writing job at Pacific Pictures. Every studio has a volunteer night at the Hollywood Canteen, where servicemen are entertained by Tinseltown's biggest stars before they ship out, and where Annie runs into film critic Fiona Farris. Annie starts to hang out with the Dorothea Parker-like Fiona and her group of friends, the "Ambassador Club", who entertain themselves with booze and witty put-downs. After the Fiona is found dead in the kitchen of the Hollywood Canteen, Annie is the only one who doesn't believe the acerbic critic killed herself and finds herself enlisting the Ambassador Club members to help her discover the motive, method and means. The story is told from Annie's POV and showcases the glamorous and seedy sides of 1940's Hollywood. Chapter one dives you right in and the ride to the end is entertaining, twisty and suspenseful.

Historical fiction with a mystery thrown in. Set at the beginning of WWII at the Hollywood Canteen. A place for servicemen to go and dance and mingle with Hollywood greats.
I loved the idea of this book. Old Hollywood and film sets, but it was just way too long. It could have been 100 pages shorter and still been the same story. I appreciate the writing and all the research that went into this, but I became bored for about the last 70%.
Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for the advanced copy in exchange for an honest opinion. 3⭐️

Tense, suspenseful, and fun!

Last Night at the Hollywood Canteen is a scheming, twisty whodunit that sweeps you away to the glitz and glamour of Hollywood’s Golden Age and into the life of Annie Laurence, a New York playwright who, after a devastating breakup and the end of her show, heads to LA to start a new life writing for the movies only to find herself quickly in a world of trouble when one of her new friends, a famous critic who seems to have had a little bit of dirt on everyone is found murdered and everybody seems to have had at least one reason to want her dead.

The writing is witty and tight. The characters are ambitious, self-obsessed, and vulnerable. And the plot is an enticing mix of lies, secrets, drama, duplicity, manipulation, mayhem, substance abuse, movie-making, amateur sleuthing, and murder.

Overall, Last Night at the Hollywood Canteen is a menacing, nostalgic, highly entertaining tale by James that is the perfect choice for fans of 1940s Tinseltown mysteries that have an abundance of quirky characters, Hollywood legends, and straight-up detective work.

Witty repartee with an amusing cast of characters, all definitely left of center in their lifestyle
and relationship choices, Sarah James’, “Last Night at the Hollywood Canteen,” is a 1940s WWII comedic historical fiction set around the murder of a LA gossip columnist at an actual former locale where GIs were treated to free food and entertainment by studio celebrities before shipping off to foreign battle destinations.

FYI—There are no explicit scenes depicting any type of carnal relationships; however, the novel is filled with ongoing innuendo and straightforward references to what may be considered atypical romances that may be offensive to some readers.

JoyReaderGirl1 graciously thanks NetGalley, Author Sarah James, and Publisher Sourcebooks Landmark, and imprint of Sourcebooks for this advanced reader’s copy (ARC) for review,

Despised film critic Fiona Farris is found dead at the Hollywood Canteen in 1943, and murder mystery playwright Annie Laurence is determined to figure out what happened. As Annie cozies up to Fiona's friends, dubbed the Ambassador's Club, she learns how unhappy each of them are, mirroring her frustrations with her own career. The glamour of the Hollywood Canteen starts to dull as Annie realizes solving a real life murder is significantly more difficult than writing one.

This book is a glitzy, captivating mystery thriller that encapsulates the Hollywood culture of the 1940s. I grew to love Annie, and was pulling for her to figure everything out. Readers who happen to love mystery/thrillers AND Evelyn Hugo will go crazy for this one!

I love witty banter as much as the next person but this twist and turn murder mystery was stretched out about 75 pages too far. I loved the character development but never truly cared about any of them, aside from Victor, which made it difficult to want to engage in their relationships. Well written and a beautiful premise but I found myself skipping ahead past dialogue to continue on with the underlying story.

Last Night at the Hollywood Canteen by Sarah James is a fresh "who done it" with lots of twists and turns that leave you guessing. I found myself immersed in WW2 wartime Hollywood. Her characters were so rich and well rounded I thought they were real people! The author did a lot of historical research about the Hollywood Canteen (A real place) it made me feel as though I was there. The book is also ready made for book clubs as it includes questions, as well as an author interview in the back.

This was an enjoyable mix of historical fiction and mystery that I really enjoyed.

What I liked:
*Glitz & glamour of 1943 Hollywood
*Learning more about the Hollywood Canteen
*Great characters full of drama

Final thoughts: This was a fun & entertaining read. I really enjoyed this different take on Hollywood characters and life in the 1940s. There were a lot of characters so it was hard to keep track of sometimes and they were full of drama which added to the murder mystery.

DNF at 10%. I wasn't connecting with the main character. The synopsis sounded interesting so I it's sad I wasn't connecting with the character and story.

Thank you to Sourcebooks and Netgalley for a copy in exchange for review consideration.

This book will take you back in time and bring you to a whole new era. I hung on every word. Last Night at the Hollywood Canteen is a novel filled with drama. Perhaps the best place in 1943 Hollywood to see the stars is the Hollywood Canteen, a club for servicemen staffed exclusively by those in show business. Murder mystery playwright Annie Laurence, new in town, definitely hopes to rub elbows with the right stars. But Hollywood proves to be more than tinsel and glamour. When despised film critic Fiona Farris is found dead in the Canteen kitchen, Annie realizes any one of the Canteen's luminous volunteers could be guilty of the crime. So who dunnit? My thanks to NetGalley for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

The year is 1943. After a tough breakup, New York City murder-mystery playwright Annie Laurence moves to Hollywood to write for Pacific Pictures, one of the less successful studios. As part of the war effort, the movie community was entertaining servicemen before they headed overseas at the Hollywood Canteen. Top actors, comedians and musicians performed, and studio employees worked there as volunteers. When it was Pacific night, Annie decided to help out and mingle. She managed to connect herself to an interesting group which dubbed itself the Ambassador's Club, as they would frequently meet, drink, gossip and exchange witticisms and barbs at one another at the Ambassador Hotel. The group was made up of a comedian/radio host with a drinking problem, a musician, a Chinese actress who yearned to be taken seriously but was relegated to being a sex symbol, a female producer and Fiona Farris, top film critic who seemed to hate everything she reviewed. When she is found dead one night at the Canteen, it was first deemed a suicide. But Annie suspects she was murdered. She is determined to uncover what happened. Soon everyone becomes a suspect, including Annie.

Author Sarah James brings back the glitz and glamour of old Hollywood in Last Night at the Hollywood Canteen. The book also depicts the dark side of the studio system during this era. Many secrets were kept and some of the most talented people lived in fear that the media would reveal them. The studios had powerful people in their pockets to keep their secrets. What I enjoyed the most about the book was the humor and banter between the members of the Ambassador's Club, who weren't a very likeable bunch. As for the murder, my early assumption as to who was guilty turned out to be right, so I wasn't surprised by the ending. But I didn't get the sense that the author was going for anything shocking. This quick-read book did a good job creating the ambiance of the Golden Age of Hollywood, which I found very appealing. If this era is of interest to you, it's worth checking out.

I was blown away by this book what a read.
It was a Historical murder mystery well written I enjoyed it from the first page to the last.