Reviewed by Jamie Michele for Readers' Favorite

In the literary fiction novel, I Am Danvers by Kate Kaminski, Marie “Danny” Danvers makes a living as a live-in companion inside very wealthy homes. After a job with the Whitaker family ends in accusations, art adviser Ian St. Martin sends her to Los Angeles to work for Bebe Patten, a former child actor known for one violent horror role. Bebe, who lets Danny call her Sugar, is trying to return to film through director Paul Westerfield’s The Songbird and the Lioness. As Westerfield takes control of Bebe’s house and finances, Danny learns that Ian and the house manager Dai Vernon have their own plan for Bebe’s fortune. To keep her position, Danny must decide who is using whom before Patten House consumes them all.

Kate Kaminski’s I Am Danvers is a wildly entertaining and extremely thoughtful novel, and the author does an excellent job of balancing both heartening and heartbreaking moments. Danny is easy to like in the way she notices vulnerability even while lying to survive. I am always fully behind a character who is ready to protect an abandoned parrot from being released outdoors. This brilliant book also has a car named Cherry Baby. Bebe-slash-Sugar is a mixed bag. Kaminski has created her in the image of what we expect a former child actor to be. She's vulnerable, naive, and frequently annoying. She has her charm, but is really needy. The settings are first-rate, from a Los Angeles mansion filled with curated celebrity photographs to an abandoned family house nearby and its chained refrigerator and bougainvillea pushing through cracked walls. Well written, immersive, and full of twists, readers who enjoy literary crime fiction with Hollywood intrigue will adore this book. Very highly recommended.