Whatever Happened to Lori Lovely?: A Novel

Sarah McCoy

Sep 2025 · Sold by HarperCollins

About this ebook

From New York Times bestselling author Sarah McCoy—a spellbinding novel based on a true story: a beautiful young movie star of Hollywood’s Golden Age gives up her bright career to become a nun.

In 1969, twenty-three-year-old starlet Lori Lovely, the apple of Hollywood’s eye, shocks the world by ditching a promising film career to take vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience as a Benedictine nun. Gossip columnists and scandal sheets can’t get enough of the story. Why would such a beautiful girl take the veil? Was she hiding from someone? Did it have anything to do with her costar, heartthrob singer Lucas Wesley?

In 1990, Lu Tibbott is under the gun to complete her senior thesis in modern American history. Instead of spending weeks in dusty archives, Lu decides to dig into a true twentieth-century mystery and write about her aunt Lori, now the Mother Abbess at a cloistered convent in rural New England. Biographers, journalists, and media types have long speculated about her aunt Lori’s sudden departure from Hollywood. Mother Lori, however, has refused all requests for interviews—until Lu arrives at the abbey with a tape recorder in hand. To her delight, Mother Lori announces she’s finally ready to talk...but only if Lu is truly ready to listen.

Lu is shocked to discover that the story of Lori Lovely’s rise in Hollywood was far more tumultuous than she’d ever expected, a fairy tale twisting with ambition, unforeseen alliances, forbidden love, and secrets. What began as a history thesis now threatens to upend all their lives with its unexpected truths, especially as the media gets wind of Lu’s project and begins to ask…

Whatever happened to Lori Lovely?

Ratings and reviews

Wow I loved this book can't wait to read more of Sarah books so lu has to write a thesis in order to graduate and she wants to write about her aunt Lori who was a movie star but is a nun now she wants to know what happened why she stopped being in the movies did she find true love what turns out to be her story as well as aunt Lori story

Excellent

About the author

SARAH McCOY is the New York Times, USA Today, and international bestselling author of the novels Whatever Happened To Lori Lovely?, Mustique Island, Marilla of Green Gables, The Mapmaker’s Children, The Baker’s Daughter, a 2012 Goodreads Choice Award Best Historical Fiction nominee, the novella “The Branch of Hazel” in Grand Central, and The Time It Snowed in Puerto Rico. Her work has been featured in Newsweek, Lit Hub, Write or Die Tribe, Real Simple, The Millions, Your Health Monthly, Huffington Post, Read It Forward, Writer Unboxed, and other publications. She hosted the NPR WSNC Radio monthly program “Bookmarked with Sarah McCoy” and is the founder of The McCoy Grant. Sarah previously taught English writing at Old Dominion University and at the University of Texas at El Paso. She lives with her husband Doc B, dog Gilly, and cat Tutu in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.Connect with Sarah on Instagram at @SarahMMcCoy, on her Facebook Fan Page, Goodreads, or via her website, www.sarahmccoy.com.