Silvia Moreno-Garcia can do no wrong in my eyes. And this book was another win for me! I love that she writes in so many different genres and every book is different from the next. This historical fiction with dual timelines and multiple POVs meshed so well in this story about a movie being made in 1950s Hollywood. The commentary on the environment in the film industry at this time, treatment of women and people of color, and the expectations of actors and actresses during the time period was so interesting to read about. Following the three main women and their motivations behind all the decisions they made kept me wanting to never put the book down. While it is a slower paced book, I was intrigued page by page and left wanting to know what was going to happen next and how things were going to pan out. I can't wait for the next SMG because I know it'll be a smash!

Moreno-Garcia strikes again! I was so worried after I didn't enjoy Silver Nitrate from this amazing author, but Salome brought me right back into the fold as a Moreno-Garcia super fan. This is wonderful. Two stories told in tandem from 3 perspectives with incredible insertions of interviews from "witnesses" documentary style - absolutely brilliant! The pacing was brilliant right until the end which felt like a 2 chapter sprint and drop - no cliffhanger, just a steep drop and *fin*. I didn't mind much though because every beat of that ending was earned and perfect. I love finding an author who doesn't just tell the same story over and over, and Moreno-Garcia delivers with every story she puts out. Not every one will be for me, but I will 10% give everyone a try!

**Thank you NetGalley and Del Rey for the eARC**

It took me a while to complete this one and I think that it was because the past and present storylines didn't mesh as well as you would think they would. I liked the present storyline a lot. The characters were well done and dealing with the racism and society was good. The past kind of dragged and eventually the reason why we got it seemed to click but I think that it wasn't enough to justify half of the book being that story. If we didn't keep jumping back to Salome I would have loved this.

Silvia Moreno-Garcia is one of those beloved authors who I will willingly step outside of my comfort zone for, and this novel is a perfect example of why. Set against the Sword and Sandal era of old Hollywood, I was absolutely transported into this story. I cannot recommend the audiobook format enough. Flawless.

Historical Fiction can often be a drag for me, but I do love Old Hollywood and Silvia Moreno-Garcia's name on a cover. There was never any doubt I was going to read this. I am glad that I waited the 7-months for my library hold to come through on a copy of the audiobook though. I'll be honest, I'm not sure I would have loved it quite as much if I had read it physically. The full cast narration of this truly brought this story to life. I love the mixed media aspects that Moreno-Garcia included, making it feel like I was taking in a documentary or podcast. That aspect really shone in the audio-version.

This story follows three main perspectives. Two of these perspectives, Vera and Nancy, are set in 1950s Hollywood. The last perspective is set in biblical times and is that of the Jewish Princess, Salome. Vera and Nancy are actresses. Vera, an unknown Mexican ingenue, gets cast to play the lead role of Salome in a big-budget movie sure to be a hit. Nancy is a bit player who was eyeing that lead for herself. Her career has stalled, but she's got a lot of ideas of how great she could be. If only this stupid girl hadn't stolen the part from her...

I'll be honest, I knew nothing of the historical figure of Salome, so it was interesting to learn about her a bit here. I like how Morena-Garcia presented her story, and then showed how over a thousand years later, her story was still being...manipulated, I guess for lack of a better word. As in life, so in death, her story took on mythical proportions. I don't know if this is making sense. I understand it in my brain, but it's hard to express without giving anything away, or going to far into the details.

The real star of the show for me though was the back-and-forth between Vera and Nancy's perspectives. You know they are on a collision course with one another, but how?

I just thought everything set in Hollywood, the descriptions of the production, all the people involved, the how and why of everything going on, was so good. There's also quite a bit of the social scene, which I found equally enticing. I was surprised how truly invested I became in this. I honestly was expecting to like it, but not love it the way I did. I'm still gobsmacked thinking of it even hours after finishing. It was incredibly-crafted.

I would highly recommend this to Historical Fiction fans, or people who have a great love of the Golden Age of cinema. Also, I cannot stress enough how fabulous the audiobook is; 10/10 recommend that format. Thank you to Del Rey for providing me with a copy to read and review. Silvia Morena-Garcia is such a talent!!!

We all know Silvia Moreno-Garcia can do no wrong and I will eat up whatever she reads! This book was different from her precious ones and I loved it! I loved how she intertwined a story from the past and the future and the liberties she took with a biblical tale. The juxtaposition of the two leading female characters was wonderful and enhanced the story. It’s a story of powerful women, culture, and mystique!

Thank you to Netgalley and the Publishing Company for this Advanced Readers Copy of The Seventh Veil of Salome by Silvia Moreno-Garcia!

Silvia Moreno-Garcia is an absolute genius author. The fact that she is able to write amazing books in multiple genres is really impressive. I have rad several of her books, and this one definitely ranks up there as one of my favorites. Her words just suck you right into the story and you never want it to end. Can't recommend this enough!

Thank you to the author and publisher for the opportunity to review this book.

The Seventh Veil of Salome is a historical fiction novel set in 1950s Hollywood written by master author Silvia Moreno-Garcia. This is not a science fiction or fantasy novel but instead follows a bunch of characters working on or adjacent to a fictional 1950s movie in the "Sword and Sandals" genre (think Ben-Hur) which is based upon the New Testament story of Salome, the niece of Herod who asked for the head of John the Baptist*. While the story jumps between character viewpoints, it largely focuses upon Vera, a girl from Mexico who was randomly discovered to become the film's star actress despite no prior acting credits, and her struggles among Hollywood, among her family, and in her own confusion about what she wants and parallels these struggles with those of Salome in the movie.

*As a Jewish reader not really familiar with the New Testament, I was not honestly familiar with this story, fwiw, and the book works fine without any foreknowledge.*

The result is a really interesting novel dealing with a number of themes - including oppression, parental pressure and emotional abuse, confusion about destiny and what one wants, class, love, and passion. The story's most prominent characters - Vera and a white girl named Nancy who has struggled and failed to reach a big role in Hollywood and, in cavorting with bad actors, finally reaches a breaking point - are done really well, and the story carries impressively towards the climax where you know something is going to go badly wrong. It's not a book that I loved or think is a must read, but it's another solid entry from Moreno-Garcia, who seems to write nothing other than such novels and is always worth picking up.

Plot Summary:
The Seventh Veil of Salome was to be genius director Max Niemann's magnum opus, the Sword and Sandals film that was going to stun the world. For years, Niemann has searched about the perfect actress to portray Salome, with no girl seemingly fitting his vision....until one of his agents spied Vera, a Mexican girl with no Hollywood experience, who was working in her uncle's dentistry office down in Mexico. Vera WAS Salome and so she was brought up to Hollywood....and this casting would set the stage for a tragedy.

For Vera was an innocent girl who was always looked down by her mother as the second favorite daughter and who was never expected to be a star. She knew nothing of Hollywood and its cruel ways, and of the ways men tried to prey on and exploit beautiful actresses...to say nothing of "exotic" Mexican girls who are even further looked down upon. And Vera herself isn't even sure that acting is what she wants - it was her sister's passion - or even what he wants other than the music she dreams about. Just like Salome herself, she finds herself adrift

And other girls would do almost ANYTHING to get the part Vera has landed.....

The Seventh Veil of Salome is told in large parts like it was a series of transcripts from people in a documentary recounting what happened around the titular movie. From this you can get a hint of what's to come from how people at some point in the future talk about things going wrong, even before what they mean is revealed. I say in part however because the book's three most frequent viewpoints - Vera's, Nancy's, and Salome's - don't work that way...each is written as if the story is taking place in the present day, with Vera and Nancy's viewpoints being about their own experiences around Hollywood as the movie gets slowly made. And then there's Salome's viewpoint, which pops in here and there and is seemingly meant to show the scenes being shot in the movie from Salome's perspective (as played by Vera) and makes Salome come off as alive, a real person, and allows Moreno-Garcia to contrast her with Vera's real struggles.

This works often very very well. Moreno-Garcia clearly has done the research in how to portray the inequities and wrongness of the 1950s Hollywood scene and how that greatly affected those who weren't White, Male, and Straight (there's a side character and minor star actor who gets temporarily exiled because of the gossip mags getting hint at him being gay), and how it forces those to be subservient to those in power....only to be spit up at a moment's notice when they're not of use - as Vera finds out when she realizes her one star role here isn't going to get her more than a standing shot in future films due to her ethnicity. You see how Vera has to deal with a prideful sexist entitled prig of a male actor and how he is able to make her life incredibly difficult through the gossip rags when she denies him, you see how Vera is verbally abused by the director of the film who thinks she looks perfect, even as the director knows the male star is a bigger problem, you see how people like Nancy, those with training and ideas and possibilities as actresses (although Nancy's skill is highly questionable) are basically given the slimmest of chances to make it and then thrown out the moment they don't. It's a gross system of the Hollywood past portrayed really well here.

And then there's our three main characters. Vera works really well as a relatable innocent although not wholly naïve (she is a bit) girl torn in all directions: She wants to prove herself on the set, but also isn't sure this is what she wants and thinks this was her sister's destiny, she struggles with the verbal abuse from her mother, who also thought this should be her sister's destiny, and to take control of her own life, and she struggles with love and passion and expressing herself even as she falls for a White Jazz Pianist from a wealthy family. And that confusion is mimicked in Salome, who finds herself torn between her infatuation with the preacher Jokanann and the ambitions of powerful men and her powerful greedy mother and finds a way to assert herself in the end - just as Vera does here. And then there's Nancy, the girl who thought she should be entitled to that part, who is racist as hell towards Vera, and who genuinely has issues with following through and not turning to dark grimy men and drugs whose presence would prevent her from getting much of a prestigious job anyway....and yet also is someone wronged by both the system and the father who discarded her when she didn't make it right away and is naturally jealous (if motivated by racism) of Vera.

All three characters are done really well, and it comes together in the tragedy you know must be coming.....except Moreno-Garcia alters the story just a little bit such that Vera, in the end (and Salome) gets a little bit of hopeful triumph, despite the best efforts of the others. A book worth your time in the end.

You follow two different characters who are following dreams in different ways.
One is doing everything and anything, including being horrible and sleeping around, to try to become a star,
The other is plucked from her fathers office on chance to be the star of a film.

As we follow both we are dropped into the world of 1950's Hollywood, where scarlets, hopefuls and predators all intermingle.

The novel is beautifully detailed in the the 1950 world and politics of racism, homophobia and the communism scare.

This deserves the Daisy Jones and the six treatment. would love to see it as a mini series.

SMG!

The ability of SMG to completely enrapture me in her worlds is so amazing. The golden age of Hollywood and rivaling actresses and mystery and tension! This was absolutely so much fun to read!

4.5 Stars

Unless you’re new here, you should already know just how much I love Silvia Moreno-Garcia. I’ve definitely said this before and I’ll happily say it again, but no one else is doing it quite like she is. The range of genres and writing styles she has not only written within but mastered is simply unmatched. If you’re looking for SMG criticism, you will not find it here.

This book, once again, is a major pivot from her last release. And, in fact, it stands out from pretty much every one of her other books because it is purely historical fiction—with no other genre elements—from start to finish. So even though she’s done historical fiction, she’s never done it quite like this. And I knew she’d be able to pull it off purely because I know she understands drama and she understands social dynamics in a way that’s so precise.

What really blew me away about this story was its incredible use of plot structure, which is somehow both fairly straightforward at first glance but also completely unexpected in some ways. What I mean by that is that the story is structured in such a way where we’re following Vera through this linear timeline leading up to shooting the most pivotal scene in the film. But it’s broken up by these interludes depicting Salome’s story written from Salome’s point of view.

The Salome sections of the story are written in narrative prose. It’s not just a script of what Vera and the other actors are shooting in the film adaptation of Salome’s story, which would have been the obvious choice, the easy choice. But what makes it an even more nuanced structural choice is that those interludes aren’t just dropped into the story wholesale. The next interlude doesn’t pick up exactly where the last one left off, because it isn’t just a simple juxtaposition of character versus actress, but the two pieces are woven together in such a way that they actually inform each other. What Vera is experiencing herself allows you to fill in the missing gaps of Salome’s story without having to be told the entire thing from start to finish.

The only thing I wish was different about the story is that I wish we got to read from even more industry points of view in Vera’s sections. We kind of start out from the point of view of a scriptwriter, which I thought was really strong, but we rarely get to have that outside look on Vera’s journey in quite the same way. We do occasionally get to hear from some other voices, but it mostly boils down to one antagonistic character, who I kind of felt took up too much space. Especially because Vera’s role was so coveted by so many ambitious actresses, I wish we got more of a sense of these jaded industry professionals set against her. But because it’s mostly just the one actress, it’s borderline mustache-twirly at times, which is not my preference.

But that’s a very minor note. It did not lessen my reading experience in any significant way. This was absolutely brilliant and it did not disappoint!

Set in the golden age of Hollywood, a young woman from Mexico is plucked to star in the next blockbuster film. Vera, is picked to play the leading role of Salome, while Nancy, who counted on getting the role, boils with envy. As the story unfolds, we also learn about the life of Salome from her point of view. Will it be a happy ending for all three women or will it all end in tragedy?

An entertaining novel. I enjoyed reading Salome's story from her point of view and how Vera interpreted the character for the film she was a part of. I would class this as a mystery, with Nancy playing the villain and setting up her "boyfriend" to kill Vera for taking what she believed was her role. We can only imagine what life during the height of Hollywood films was like in the 1950s. It was a nice touch, depicting Vera never being married having lost the love her life and becoming a songstress instead.

Silvia Moreno-García delivers another masterpiece, where we learn the story of Vera Larios, a young Mexican woman who is chosen to star in The Seventh Veil of Salome, a "sword and sandal" style film, and who suffers harassment and envy from some of her co-stars and other people in the USA, for not being "white."
A very attractive story, impossible to stop reading until reaching the end, ideal for reading on the weekend. Highly recommended!
I thank the author and NetGalley for the opportunity to read this book.
The opinion I have expressed above is based solely on what I think and feel about this book.

I wanted to love this book so so much, but it's my least favorite of Silvia Moreno-Garcia's books to date. I kept waiting for something exciting to happen, but it never really materialized the way I hoped it would. The premise was intriguing and after Silver Nitrate I couldn't wait to read this behind the scenes tale of old Hollywood. The strengths of this book included the way that Moreno-Garcia gave us a story of a complicated Hollywood movie set and how racism and jealousy worked against the protagonist from the start. The characters themselves were less developed than what we've read from Moreno-Garcia previously, and overall the story just felt flat.

I loved this book and its blending of Hollywood and a biblical epic. Moreno-Garcia might change genres with every book but this one suits her well. It's a thoroughly enjoyable read that touches on interesting topics.

Didn't love this as much as I did The Beautiful Ones and Gods of Jade and Shadow, but the thing about Silvia Moreno-Garcia is just how ambitious she is with her books. Not someone you can pigeonhole into one genre, SMG will tackle anything and everything, and will do it with style. So even if this wasn't one of my favorites by her, I'm always happy to recommend this to other staff whom I know love anything she writes.

I'm always very intrigued by the premises of Silvia Moreno-Garcia's books, but I find that it usually takes a lot of grit and perseverance for me to get through them. This one is told through multiple POVs concerning three women: two actresses trying to make it in 1950s Hollywood and the biblical Salome. Even though these should be very different characters, the voices can sometimes be hard to distinguish without context. The conflicts in the story also felt a little shallow and could have been handled with greater depth. As a whole, I found this to be a somewhat underwhelming read, but I love that Silvia Moreno-Garcia continues to find ways to push the envelope on telling new stories.

3.5, rounded up. Silvia Moreno-Garcia takes advantage of the intrigue and allure of HUAC-era Hollywood here, and it certainly benefits the pacing of the narrative--I felt like I had to keep reading until the next POV change. (Speaking of, while jarring at times, I appreciated the anecdotes from those looking decades into the past; it provides some helpful context for the story.) The ending falls flat for me but may not for others. The best part of the book, though, is the magic with which Moreno-Garcia imbues Salome and her story.

Thank you to Netgalley and publishers for this e-ARC! The Seventh Veil of Salome follows Vera, a young Mexican actress in Hollywood after she is cast in the highly coveted role of Salome in an upcoming film. The novel switches POV between multiple people, including Vera, the movie producers, tabloid writers, jealous actors, and even Salmone herself as we observe the glitz and glamour of 1950s Hollywood, including the not glamourous racism and misogyny that Vera must constantly navigate on set and in her relationships. I've read some of SMG's work before and consistently have either a hit or miss, and SVS was right in the middle for me. I really enjoy SMG's vivid writing, not just in the great landscape of old Hollywood but also in the character work where we could so easily see and understand many of the characters (even the bad ones). That said, the primary areas that I needed a little more from this book was in the pacing and the characters. While the characters were well written, I often felt a bit disconnected from them and/or just needed something a little different from them. Similarly, I at times felt like the plot lagged a little, and I would have liked to see a little bit more of the layered action among the exposition throughout the story. Overall, this was a well crafted story that maybe wasn't for me specifically, but I think readers who enjoy cinematic drama and old school glitz and glamour will enjoy this book!

I think that this book was just not for me personally. It was well-written and the premise is something I would usually enjoy, but I didn't get the same experience from it that other readers did. I will still hand sell it based on the positive reviews by others and my love for the author at large.