The Hollywood Assistant

February 1, 2024

The author of A Likeable Woman, with a Starz series adaptation greenlit for The Hunting Wives, returns with a psychological suspense novel inspired by films such as Body Double and Fatal Attraction. Cassidy thinks she has landed her dream job as personal assistant to a high-powered Hollywood couple. But she just might have been hired to be the ideal murder suspect. Prepub Alert.

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May 1, 2024
Texan Cassidy Foster has dreams of being a writer, but it isn't until her best friend from college, Lexie, secures her a job working for a Hollywood power couple that Cassidy makes the big move to Los Angeles. The Sterlings, handsome writer-director Nate and stunning actress Marisol, are as glamorous as it gets with their beautiful Malibu home and tempestuous, sexually charged relationship. Cassidy, recovering from a recent heartbreak, finds herself drawn to Nate, and is flattered once he entrusts her to read and evaluate scripts for him, including a secret project he's written for Marisol to star in. But Nate is also plagued by concerns that Marisol might be cheating on him, and when he enlists Cassidy to start spying on his wife, Cassidy finds herself torn between her growing attraction to Nate and her genuine affection for Marisol. Cobb, whose novel Hunting Wives (2021) is being adapted for television, keeps readers wondering if Cassidy herself can be trusted once the growing tension between the Sterlings turns deadly. A wild and gripping ride.

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May 20, 2024
An aspiring novelist rebounds from a bad breakup by becoming the assistant to a Hollywood it-couple in Cobb’s deliciously twisty if flawed latest (after A Likeable Woman). When Cassidy Foster’s film producer best friend offers her a job working for director Nate Sterling and his supermodel-turned-actor wife, Marisol Torres, it sounds too good to be true: she’ll make a handsome salary and be in proximity to some of L.A.’s brightest stars. But Cassidy soon discovers that in the privacy of their Malibu mansion, Nate and Marisol’s relationship is far more tempestuous than it appears in the tabloids. In spite of herself, Cassidy falls for Nate, and agrees when he asks her to tail Marisol and find out if she’s cheating on him. Four weeks later, in flash-forward chapters sprinkled throughout the narrative, homicide detectives come knocking at Cassidy’s door with news that one of her employers has been killed, and Cassidy waffles over whether to come forward with crucial information related to the case. As in her previous novels, Cobb maximizes suspense by intersplicing timelines and withholding crucial bits of information. Unfortunately, this time out, the late reveals spin a once-credible narrative into absurdity. This has its glossy charms, but it fails to stick the landing. Agent: Victoria Sanders, Victoria Sanders & Assoc.

June 15, 2024
A would-be novelist falls into the perfect job and then keeps right on falling. Cassidy Foster's boyfriend may have dumped her, but all is far from lost. Before leaving to work on a film shooting in Prague, her oldest friend, Lexie, persuaded her to move from Texas to the Hollywood Hills by dangling a dream job in front of her. Running errands for Marisol Torres and Nate Sterling may not sound like a big deal, but Marisol is a hot actress, Nate is a hot director, they live in a beautiful house in Malibu, and the job pays $5,000 a month for remarkably little work. And Cassidy, who approaches her employers' every casual remark with the enthusiasm of a puppy, is actually good at what work there is. In no time at all, she's organized Marisol's closets to a fare-thee-well, earning herself bonuses like "Fourteen pair of designer jeans!," and Nate is asking her to read and comment on screenplays that have been sent to him, rewarding her with cash bonuses that are likely to double her salary. This would all be too good to be true even if Cobb didn't keep interrupting the idyll with flash-forwards in which Cassidy, questioned by the police in connection with some long-undisclosed crime, indulges in rueful reflections like "How did I think by agreeing to do something so crazy, things would end well?" When Nate asks Cassidy to read his own unproduced screenplay for "a feminist, erotic thriller," she thinks things have gone about as far as they can. Readers will know that they've barely begun. An inverted fairy tale that goes on long enough for savvy fans to predict every single twist.

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