A new book, “Grace & Steel: Dorothy, Barbara, Laura, and the Women of the Bush Dynasty” by Ridley native J. Randy Taraborrelli, takes a look at the Bush legacy through the Bush women, writes Jane Eisner for The Washington Post.

Taraborrelli is a 1974 graduate of Ridley High School.

He is the author of 20 books, 15 on the New York Times bestseller list.

The American journalist and biographer has written about Marilyn Monroe, Madonna, the Kennedy family, Elizabeth Taylor, and Michael Jackson, among others.

  In “Grace & Steel,” Taraborrelli explores the Bush dynasty through Laura Welch Bush, wife of the 43rd president; Barbara Pierce Bush, mother of the 43rd and wife of the 41st president; and Dorothy Walker Bush, wife of a U.S. Senator and mother of the 41st president.

He shows how the women started off tolerating the spotlight, then relishing it.

There are interviews and gossip about the Bush women but not much on how their Washington lives affected their world view, Eisner writes.

“Where Taraborrelli excels is in excavating the personal histories of the three women and how they were forever shadowed by painful episodes in their lives,” she wrote.

Read more of the review at The Washington Post.

See J. Taraborrelli’s first interview about Grace & Steel here.