My thanks to NetGalley and Perseus Book Group/Running Press for an eARC copy of this book to read and review.

Ok. This book....sigh. I wanted to love what was between the covers as much as I loved that cover and loved Audrey Hepburn.

However.

Folks, take a lesson from me. DON'T read about those you have put on a pedestal/believe the hype about someone because they are just humans with feet of clay who will most likely spit on what you consider moral and decent. Because life is messy and with hindsight, my life wouldn't bear much scrutiny either. So #not judging, just #disappointedinAudrey.

This book had NO citations, footnotes, endnotes, etc., but when I got to the end with the acknowledgments, the author makes clear that he got all of this info from himself being an insider and actually talking to a lot of the people involved. Though he HAD to have done some fact checking. If he did, he should show those sources and if not, he should have fact checked. One star docked., the English major in me wants citations/notes.

I also didn't enjoy how he would put thoughts and feelings onto real people, for example writing, "She must have felt..." "He must have been thinking...". No. If what they were feeling and thinking wasn't directly from them, whether oral or written down, you shouldn't be telling the reader what you THINK the person being discussed was thinking or feeling. You don't know and it's rude and wrong to assume. One star docked, sloppy writing (to me).

I was also assuming from the cover, title and alleged thesis of this book that Audrey and Bill had this huge, earth-shaking, life affecting love affair. I went on Wiki and looked up both of their pages. They are barely to not-at-all mentioned on each other's page. Some love affair!

Though, to be fair, Audrey had her sights set on a married man with children and the only reason she didn't wreck that home was because he had a non-reversible vasectomy and she wanted babies. And she dropped him SO COLDLY after finding out about it. One minute, she was madly in love. The next? New phone, who dis?

So I can see why her family wouldn't want that up on Wiki for all the world to see. She has an image, even after passing away, that needs to be maintained.

He doesn't come up smelling any sweeter, because he couldn't keep it in his pants and he would have left his wife and kids for her if she would have kept him. Would he have been true to her? Would she have been true to him? Who could tell? The world they lived in, Hollywoodland, didn't seem to have many of the morals the studios were pretending to promote. One star docked. (Yes, I did just dock a star for my illusions being shattered.)

So this book was a HUGE disappointment to me. However, I Buddy Read it with a friend who likes that time and place and they enjoyed the book a lot more than I did, so take what I say with a grain of salt. If you like that time period and know people are fallible, then this book will probably work for you. It just didn't for me.

2, I was hoping for better then what I got, stars.

I wanted to read this book because I'm a huge Audrey Hepburn fan and I was looking forward to learning more about her love affair with William Holden, but I was honestly a bit disappointed as only about 25% of the book was dedicated to their relationship. The rest of the book covered their separate careers and separate love lives, with more of an emphasis on Hepburn's life than Holden's. I enjoyed what I read, but I felt like the book's description was a touch deceptive.

As the book was well written and I enjoyed the photographs that were included, I'm giving it 3/5 stars.

3 out of 5 stars.

*** I would like to thank Perseus Books Group and Edward Z. Epstein for the opportunity to read and review this book.

This book was requested when I was young and requested more books than I could possibly read. Sadly, I no longer have access to this book and my tastes have changed. Thus I will not be able to give feedback on this title.

Just when you think you've learned all there is to know about a famous figure like Audrey Hepburn, a skilled biographer like Epstein peels back the facade and offers a brand-new angle. I was fascinated to learn about the relationship between these two titans of Classic Hollywood. Epstein's book was both intriguing and downright fun to read.

This book is very light read with the focus on the romances of Audrey Hepburn and William Holden including a brief fling they had around the making of the movie Sabrina. The author spends a great deal more time on Hepburn than he does Holden, so a reader needs to keep that in mind. An early mistake in the book causes me to wonder about the rest of the  research done on the book. The book states that Holden spent his teenage years in Pasadena. It was actually South Pasadena and it wasn't hard for me to find it.

I can only recommend this book for anyone who wants an overview of life of the two actors with the emphasis on Audrey Hepburn.

I received a free Kindle copy of Audrey and Bill by Ernest Epstein courtesy of Net Galley  and Perseus Books, the publisher. It was with the understanding that I would post a review on Net Galley, Goodreads, Amazon and my fiction book review blog. I also posted it to my Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Google Plus pages.

I requested this book as I have seen many of the movies made by the two actors. This is the first book by the author that I have read.

Audrey and Bill offers nothing new. The gimmick is pairing the two in this book. Any movie fan worth her salt knows all about the on set affair duirng SABRINA. The book is perfectly enjoyable--just not anything great.