Decatur, Illinois, 1972. Seven-year-old tomboy Victoria Bolt sneaks among the tables at her mother’s Bunco game, where housewives are tittering over a magazine spread. Though Victoria couldn’t have imagined what was on those pages that day, Smokey and the Bandit era Burt Reynolds would soon change the course of her life for good. In BANDIT DREAMS AND BEYOND, former stuntwoman Bolt shares how she escaped a volatile and violent home life to make movies with her childhood crush, Burt Reynolds, in 1980s and ’90s Hollywood. There are long-haul truckers, narrowly missed punches, family dysfunction and unconditional love, and appearances by BR himself. This is a middle American fairy tale set to John Cougar Mellencamp in a smoke-filled bar. This is a shoutout to readers who grew up on the champagne wishes and caviar dreams of the eighties. This is an action-adventure love story, filled with laughter and heartache—and yes, the memoirist does all her own stunts. Bolt’s tell-all memoir includes photos from the author’s life amidst the grit of suburban Illinois and the glitterati of Southern California. A story reminiscent of The Glass Castle and The Tender Bar, BANDIT DREAMS AND BEYOND has nerve to spare and a whole lot of heart.