Despite its subtitle, Satan's Sisters: A Novel Work of Fiction by Star Jones is a fast-paced, deliciously bitchy roman a clef by the former View co-host, who was dropped from the daily talk show by lead host Barbara Walters in a very public, ugly way in 2006. Apparently not all is forgiven.
Satan's Sisters opens when a former host of the Lunch Club--a daily TV talk show hosted by five women--who has gone on to host her own show, returns as a guest. She announces that her show will soon have as a guest another former Lunch Club host, Missy Adams, whose departure from the Lunch Club was as ugly as Star Jones's from the View and who has written a tell-all called... Satan's Sisters.
Upon hearing the news live on the show, the five current Lunch Club hosts are uncharacteristically speechless: they and other members of the staff immediately fear that Missy Adams may expose any of a number of Lunch Club scandals, including one host's Xanax and junk food addictions; several affairs involving a host and show and network executives, most of whom are married; a closeted gay host who fears being outed; the illegitimate daughter of two staffers. But the host with the most to lose is Maxine Robinson, the queen bee of the show whose career resembles that of the preeminent View host. Maxine forced out Missy, and in return for Missy's departure, Maxine agreed to keep quiet about a man languishing in prison falsely accused of rape by Missy when she was a teenager. This is just one egregious example of Maxine's manipulative, imperious, jealous personality.
The news about the upcoming book sets off a flurry of activity as Lunch Club hosts and staff try to find out what's in the tell-all, obtain copies and almost incidentally confront the things that they fear being exposed. In the end, most of the people wind up happier and in much better situations, even though this growth comes with sometimes painful upheaval. Even the ever-conniving, nasty Maxine has her moments of humanity and is rewarded.
Satan's Sisters is a well-plotted, satisfying fiction debut for Jones.