📚 A Bookish Chat with 'City of Toys' Lindy S. Hudis #AuthorInterview

Today we welcome Lindy S. Hudis to The Writer's Life e-Magazine! Lindy is the author of the thriller suspense, City of Toys, and this interview is part of her Blog Tour by Pump Up Your Book. Enjoy!

Lindy Sternberger Hudis is an award-winning filmmaker, author and actress. Lindy is a graduate of New York University, where she studied drama at Tisch School of the Arts. She also performed in a number of Off-Off Broadway theater productions while living in New York City.

She is the author of several titles, including her romance suspense novel, Weekends, her “Hollywood” story City of Toys, and her crime novel, Crashers. Her latest release, “Hollywood Underworld – A Hollywood Series” is the first installment of a crime mystery series.

She is also the author of several erotic short stories, including “The S&M Club”, “The Backstage Pass”, “Guitar God”, “The Guitarist”, and “The Mile High Club”.

Her short film “The Lesson”, which she wrote, produced and directed, has won numerous awards, including ‘Best Short Film’ at the Paris International Film Festival, The Beverly Hills Arthouse Film Festival and the San Francisco International Film Festival.

She is also a former actress, having appeared in the television daytime drama “Sunset Beach”, also “Married with Children”, “Beverly Hills 90210” and the feature film, “Indecent Proposal”. She and her husband, Hollywood stuntman Stephen Hudis, have formed their own production company called Impact Motion Pictures and have several projects and screenplays in development. She lives in California with her husband and two children.

Visit her website at https://lindyinparadise.wordpress.com.

Connect with her on social media at:

X: https://x.com/Lindyscribe

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/LindyScribe/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lindys.hudis/

BookBub: https://www.bookbub.com/authors/lindy-s-hudis

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6470478.Lindy_S_Hudis

In your book, City of Toys, four beautiful women seek fame and fortune in Hollywood where actresses are like dolls, playing pretend on the big screen. How did you ever come up with such an intriguing storyline?

CITY OF TOYS, is based on my own personal struggling actress days back in the 90’s. The characters are all aspiring actresses, and some upsetting things happen to them, as they did to me. All my books are pretty edgy, but that is what I like to do.

A little bit of background: I moved to Los Angeles in the spring of 1992 to become an actress. I had no money, contacts, or connections, just a heart full of dreams and a spirit filled with ambition. There are some pretty nasty people in that industry, however. They are the gatekeepers to make dreams come true, and they know this. There are also plenty of people with sick fetishes, and money can buy practically anything. As time goes on, and more young women come to Hollywood with dreams of stardom, the people with power, money and fetishes just get sicker, as they are drunk with power. As time goes by, the sadistic acts they need to get their kicks only escalate.

How long did it take you to write it?

It took about a year for me to finish. It was a long and arduous journey, but I wanted to be as gritty and real as possible. I wanted to really take the reader to the dark underbelly of the world's most glamorous businesses to see the scars that most people don’t normally see. So many people are enthralled with Hollywood, and it is a wonderful and creative business, but there is a very scary and dark side.

Can you tell us about the main characters?

Each of the four girls, Rhonda, Marlo, Kim and Guyla, are completely different and each brings examples of the many different paths an aspiring Hollywood actress can take. Their current story is intertwined with flashbacks of their past. I would like to think that this information really helps the reader to understand why each of the girls are as they are today. All four girls have their own distinct demons and desires. Rhonda is the small-town beauty queen, Marlo is the former

child actress from New York, Guyla is the Yale School of Drama graduate who has to work as a stripper to pay the bills and Kim is the sweet, girl-next-door type who falls in with the wrong crowd. They are all in Hollywood for the same reason, and that is what bonds them together.

Did your past life as an actress help in shaping these characters?

Absolutely! I studied drama at N.Y.U. and one of the skills that an actor is taught is character development and character arc. The characters have to accept their given circumstances and adapt. They also grow, change, and discover things about themselves and the world surrounding them. My acting background is extremely helpful when writing and developing characters.

What do you think sets City of Toys apart from other books of the same genre?

I don’t sugar-coat anything like in other books. However dark each of the character’s unique four stories may be, there is a brighter, underlying theme which comes to the surface and is what ultimately sticks at the end: stay true to yourself. know that not everything in City of Toys is doom and gloom. I do tend to keep things real and gritty, though. Not all of the characters have a happy ending.

Surprise me. What is something that happens in the book that would make my mouth drop without giving too much away?

I encountered some very horrible characters. One man was so sick that he got off on scaring people. I was humiliated and degraded one too many times, as one jerk explained to me about this “scat” fetish, and he wanted me to relieve myself on him. It was sick! This “producer” wanted me to take a crap on him! So, I wrote about it in my book. In real life, I told this guy to shove it and ran out of his office. My character Rhonda, the sweet and naive small-town beauty queen, takes him up on his offer. Its gross but I am sure too many young women fell for this trick! It was just too much. My husband, a former actor and stuntman, agrees.

What’s next for you?

I just finished writing the sequel to my other ‘Hollywood novel’, Hollywood Shadows. I’m working on that right now. Also, my husband and I have several screenplays that we have written. We have several different genres such as action, thriller, horror, drama, and even comedy. We were very lucky as we entered our screenplay, Crashers (also my book) into the Sherman Oaks Screenplay Competition. The screenplay was an official selection, and, although it didn’t win, we got great literary representation out of the contacts we made. Crashers is currently in development with Face 2 Face Productions, as our manager is also a producer. I am still very ambitious and have never given up on my Hollywood Dream.

Four beautiful women seek fame and fortune in Hollywood, the City of Toys, where actresses are like dolls, playing pretend on the big screen.

Marlo: a former child actress from New York City.

Rhonda: a small-town beauty queen.

Kim: a “nice Jewish girl” with a painful childhood.

Guyla: a “serious actress” with a debilitating, stress-induced illness.

Marlo, Rhonda, Kim, and Guyla, become friends living in the same apartment complex, in the city where dreams and disasters go together. They come to rely on each other as they deal with sexual come-ons, crazed stalkers, jealous starlets and the constant pressure of trying to make it in showbiz. But when the pressure gets too much, will their friendship save them, or will the City of Toys break them?

City of Toys is available at Amazon.

╰┈➤Book Details

- Genre: Thriller
- Sub-genre: Suspense
- Language:English
- Pages: 333
- Paperback ISBN: 978-1897562703

╰┈➤Here’s What Readers Have To Say!

“Through the magic of fiction, this novel gives a well written, in-depth look at what Hollywood can really be like for the unsuspecting would be actor or actress shooting for stardom. In fact, I think this book would be a REALLY great warning (and required reading) for ANYONE who thinks that making it in Hollywood is easy-which City of Toys shows is most certainly NOT. Not looking to be the next big star? Read it anyway for a MOST entertaining, page-turner of a story! City of Toys is a great read with a gripping storyline and realistic characters, that doesn’t gloss over the often unseen gritty underside of the Hollywood ShowBiz Machine. I enjoyed this book!” – Meredith, Amazon

“This book was graphic and, in many ways, disturbing – yet beautifully written. The raw honesty of the situations the characters found themselves in painted an ugly picture but one that is all too real for many who go out to Hollywood with big dreams only to find themselves sucked into its seedy underbelly. I do highly recommend this as a warning to any who think that big dreams won’t come with big prices to pay at the end. And it comes from someone who has the scars and the lived experiences to back it up.” – Brandy M. Miller, Amazon