Bethenny Frankel's Novel 'Skinnydipping' First Look (Exclusive)

Adam Olszewski/Bravo

Bethenny Frankel, the multi-hyphenate reality star, can now check novelist off her bucket list.

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Skinnydipping, her first novel, arrives in bookstores May 1 and The Hollywood Reporter has an exclusive preview.

Skinnydipping follows the story of Faith Brightstone, an aspiring actress, who moves from New York to Hollywood with big dreams of making it as an actress. But her plans don't pan out. The only role she lands is in a cheesy movie and she hates her job as the personal assistant to the wife of a big shot producer, so she moves back to New York.

Five years later, she is cast on a new reality show after a producer spots her at a fancy food trade show. Quickly, her blunt honesty and loud mouth get her in trouble with her castmates and Faith doesn't care. The winner of the reality show gets her own show on a cable network and she's hungry for fame. But as the contest nears an end, Faith meets the man of her dreams, forcing her to possibly choose between love and fame.

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Skinnydipping is a totally fun, dishy read, especially for fans of reality TV. Clearly, Frankel has drawn inspiration from her own life to construct the plot of the novel and half the fun is trying to figure which characters and events might be drawn from her real life and which are entirely made up.

Publisher Touchstone Books rightly touts it as the "perfect guilty pleasure."  This is the kind of book that is perfect to pack in your beach bag.

Frankel will be appearing at the Los Angeles Times Book Festival on Sunday April 22. The novel hits bookstores on May 1.

Read the first chapter of Bethenny's novel here>>