The adored actress behind the character Nikki Newman of The Young and the Restless tells all in this scintillating memoir, divulging the insider details of her dramatic life and forty-year career.

Melody Thomas Scott admits she is nothing like her The Young and the Restless role, which has seen it all in her forty-year tenure on America’s highest-rated daytime serial. But the high drama, angst, and catastrophes aren’t confined to her character’s plotlines. In this captivating memoir, Melody reveals behind-the-scenes tales of her own riveting journey to becoming an icon.

As Nikki Newman went from impoverished stripper to resourceful, vivacious heroine-with missteps as gripping as her triumphs-Melody became a household name, enthralling audiences across the globe. But her road to stardom also had to be one to freedom marked by an escape fit for cinema. In Always Young and Restless, Melody tells of her troubled, untraditional upbringing for the first time.

Readers will learn how she suffered at home with her hoarder grandmother, whose cruelty as her manager is shockingly extreme; abuse at the hands of industry men; the intensity of acting in feature films with Alfred Hitchcock and Clint Eastwood; and how she finally took control of her life and career, in a getaway move as daring as any on The Young and the Restless. And of course, Melody divulges forty years’ worth of juicy on-and-off-set details of what it’s like to be one-half of the show’s most successful supercouple, Niktor, plus her personal path to healing, love, and family. In witty, warm prose, meet the shining, persevering heart of an American icon-and prepare to be moved by a life story fit for a soap opera star.