JEREMY. :) ALEX. :( HEATHCLIFF?Now that we're living in Hollywood, Eva thinks anything is possible - including casting the part of my boyfriend! As for the players: one's an actor (bad sign), one's a snobby rich kid (worse sign), and one doesn't even exist (stop sign). Guess who my sister picked?

Real life isn't reel life, right? At least that's what Jeremy Jones tried to tell me after his red carpet smoochfest with Paige.Not. Buying. It.Besides, I'm too busy drinking in all the local color (from Mayan ruins to Cheeseheads!) as part of my sister E's entourage . . . and digging deep to find out who's behind the mysterious mishaps on the Two Sisters set. Because all roads seem to be leading back to (big gulp) . . . yours truly.

Only in L.A. would a school internship involve celebrity guest stars and hitting your mark. Acting is not my thing (can you say shy spasm?) . . . but mysteries are. I’m working as an extra on my sister’s latest movie, and legend has it that the mansion we’re filming in is haunted. With disappearing paintings, a glowing ghost, and Eva acting possessed (by love?), I’m starting to believe the stories are true! Chills. Thrills. Things that go bump in the night. Is my jinx on overdrive or have I stepped into a real-life horror flick?

Fashionista. Comedian. Thief? Brand-new school, brand-new me? Try again. Having a famous sister doesn’t make me special at my posh Beverly Hills academy. But I am getting a lot of attention. Photos are disappearing faster than MTV swag bags from my classmates’ lockers–and blaming the new girl is the reaction du jour. I can't bother my almost-boyfriend Jeremy with my problems–and solving Project Photo Frame-Up is only one of them. The rest of my schedule: convincing my friends that I’m not a kleptomaniac, helping Eva nail her Serious Actress audition, and doing Jeremy a favor that makes my brain hurt. Is a Hollywood ending in sight? Not. Even. Close.

Lights. Camera. Backstabbing. My sister, Eva, just hit the big time as a TV teen–but the big time is hitting back. Someone on the set is planting lies about her in the gossip columns. Can I crack the case before Eva becomes just another falling star? My camera is trained on two jealous actresses, one kick-butt publicist, and the boy next door (well, he plays one on TV). No one is playing their part as expected. As it turns out . . . not even me.

Sisters is the first major history of the pivotal role played by nuns in the building of American society. Nuns were the first feminists, argues Fialka. They became the nation's first cadre of independent, professional women. Some nursed, some taught, and many created and managed new charitable organizations, including large hospitals and colleges. In the 1800s nuns moved west with the frontier, often starting the first hospitals and schools in immigrant communities. They provided aid and service in the Chicago fire, cared for orphans and prostitutes in the California Gold Rush and brought professional nursing skills to field hospitals run by both armies in the Civil War. Their work was often done in the face of intimidation from such groups as the Know Nothings and the Ku Klux Klan. In the 1900s they built the nation's largest private school and hospital systems and brought the Catholic Church into the civil rights movement. As their numbers began to decline in the 1970s, many sisters were forced to take professional jobs as lawyers, probation workers, managers and hospital executives because their salaries were needed to support older nuns, many of whom lacked a pension system. Currently there are about 75,000 sisters in America, down from 204,000 in 1968. Their median age is sixty-nine. In Sisters, Fialka reveals the strength of the spiritual capital and the unprecedented reach of the caring institutions that religious women created in America.

Savor the inside scoop on over-the-top superstars "I'm not a paranoid, deranged millionaire. . . . I'm a billionaire!" "Acting is an empty and useless profession." "Good girls go to heaven. Bad girls go everywhere else." "I'm interested in being provocative and pushing people's buttons." Which screen icons gave us the quotes above? How do stars get away with self-indulgent, unrestrained behaviors-or do they? In The Hollywood Book of Extravagance, longtime industry insider and Hollywood historian James Robert Parish gives you a provocative look behind the scenes at the lavish indulgences and larger-than-life egos of Tinseltown's rich and famous. The featured celebrities range from heartthrobs to industry tycoons, and from yesterday's matinee idols to today's hottest celebs. The stars are grouped according to their excesses: ego, neurosis, partying, power, rich living, and romancing. You'll devour little-known details on the excesses and exploits of notables ranging from Mae West to Madonna, Greta Garbo to Marilyn Monroe and Marlon Brando, Bela Lugosi to John Belushi, Zsa Zsa Gabor to Paris Hilton, Errol Flynn to Jude Law, and many more.