TV Shows/Movies (7/21/26)

These Hollywood-adjacent books about TV shows and movies are sure to entertain!

POOL HOUSE by Mary H.K. Choi
9781250800442 | 6/9/26

Stevie cannot escape her mother. Abandoning college plans to work a dead-end job, her days are a purgatorial bore. Many dream of moving to L.A. and into the spotlight, but Stevie can’t wait to move away from it, and her mother’s orbit, to start over.

Moon is many things: an out-of-work actress, a recovering addict, whatever a mistress becomes when she’s widowed, and a mother. Reeling in the aftermath of her lover and TV husband’s death, Moon struggles to process her grief. And the last thing she expects is for Stevie to leave her too.

Now, neither Stevie nor Moon can afford to quit each other. And their cost of living forces them into a glass-walled pool house in the backyard, while their home is rented out to pay the bills. But when Adam, Moon’s former TV son and Stevie’s forever crush, arrives for the funeral, the three are pulled into a messy orbit, moving back into the ‘Big House’ and play-acting a picture-perfect family even as tensions rise and relationships unravel.

POOL HOUSE is a course charted through the wilderness of motherhood, a story about the challenges of navigating class, fame, burgeoning sexuality, and grief as two women grapple with what it means to grow up and grow older in Hollywood.

THE FRANCHISE by Thomas Elrod
9781250406583 | 5/12/26

A land filled with magic and dragons and wizards and warriors.

Thousands of people live and work within its borders, fearful of their enemies and loyal to their king.

The classic fantasy world of The Malicarn has been brought to life on the big screen in a series of phenomenally successful blockbuster movies, almost entirely populated by characters in total belief that their sham fantasy lives are real.

A fan-favorite actor finds himself doubting the studio’s work, but this franchise has an almost unstoppable momentum, and bringing freedom to a population that already believes itself to be free won’t be as easy as he thinks.

RASPUTIN SWIMS THE POTOMAC by Ben Fountain
9781250776549 | 6/9/26

Reporter Clarence Thomas Jr. is looking for a great story, former country music teen star Faith Spack has parlayed her fame into a job at the White House, and the two-term incumbent president is campaigning for a constitutionally dubious third term.

After an outbreak at a campaign rally, a mysterious new pandemic of “weeping sickness” sweeps the nation, threatening the president’s hold on the Oval Office. Desperate to retain power, he enlists the mystical pro wrestler Rasputin to help ensure his reelection and guarantee additional seasons of his presidential reality TV show, The Real West Wing.

But as Rasputin’s appeal threatens to exceed the president’s, and the wrestler’s supposedly supernatural powers start to seem like the real thing, the campaign finds itself trapped in a spandex-clad destiny no number of executive orders can control, one in which both Clarence and Faith are compelled to play increasingly large parts.

Hilarious, compelling, and tragically relevant, RASPUTIN SWIMS THE POTOMAC is both an escape and a warning, a scathing satire that explores the twists and turns of American democracy as it hurtles toward authoritarianism.

HOUSE HAUNTERS by KC Jones
9781250440969 | 10/6/26

With her studio relying on AI to greenlight new projects, finding the next breakout series is Grace’s only shot to save her job. And her sanity.

Her solution may be Frank Pendleton: a brilliant but abrasive—and admittedly handsome—ghost hunter who claims he can’t feel fear, making him uniquely attuned to the paranormal.

Frank is either a fraud or the real deal. Skeptical, but hoping for TV gold, Grace assembles a crew to shoot a proof of concept.

But when the production descends into a nightmare, Grace is forced to face the impossible: ghosts are real, and though cold and distant, Frank may be their only chance of getting out alive.