YORKSHIRE-born writer Wendy Holden built a career out of writing about the rich and famous for magazines and newspapers. Now she is enjoying her own celebrity as a best-selling author of page-turning satires about this high-octane world.

Fame Fatale is Holden's fourth novel. Anyone familiar with her writing can expect more of her trademark frothy fiction, packed with OTT caricatures and witty dialogue.

For first timers, Fame Fatale offers a fun read; pacy and punchy with lots of laughs out loud.

The humour is at the expense of the two leading ladies. Grace works for a small, yet worthy, publishing house and has as bad a track record promoting its obscure authors as she does with men; Belinda is a scheming, nymphomaniac, gold-digging, celebrity journalist who is more interested in scooping a man with bags of cash than an exclusive front-page splash.

The pleasure of reading Fame Fatale is akin to drinking a mug of creamy hot chocolate in a hot, bubble bath. No wonder it's already topping the bestsellers lists in the Sunday papers. Go on, indulge yourself.

Updated: 09:06 Wednesday, February 13, 2002