The first, "Violet in Private," is the third in a series by Melissa Walker, who grew up in Chapel Hill before becoming a Vassar College graduate and a magazine editor in New York.

The series main character is Violet Greenfield, a model from Chapel Hill who hits it big as a teenager in the modeling world. Throughout the series, we see Violet struggle with the demands of high fashion modeling while trying to stay true to her core beliefs and her childhood friends from Chapel Hill.

In this latest book, Violet continues to deal with weight issues (the main theme in the second book, which coincided with the international spotlight on too-thin models), boyfriend woes and a demanding, back-stabbing agent, all while figuring out how to juggle modeling and a college career.

Violet has much in common with Melody Ann Croft, or Mac, the character in Carol Alt's new book, "This Year's Model."

Although Mac is a modern-day model with modern problems, you can't help but wonder how much of the book really happened to Alt when she was rising to the top of the modeling world. In one chapter, Mac finds herself on a questionable overnight "photo shoot" and ends up holed up alone in a bedroom unknowingly chomping down on hash brownies, much to her dismay.

Her character, like Violet, struggles between getting an education and chasing her blossoming career in high fashion.

Both Violet and Mac don't (knowingly) do drugs. Both struggle with their weight. And both learn important lessons on making and keeping true friends in the highly competitive modeling world.

Walker says Violet came from her imagination after learning about the modeling world while working as the features editor at Elle Girl magazine.

"I got a glimpse of what their world was like," she says. "Although it was very glamorous and very pretty, there was definitely a dark side to their lives."

Walker says it was important for her to show how Violet grew with her experience in the business. "She was around people with eating disorders and pressure to exist in this really superficial world," she says. "It was important for me to have her find her own voice and find out where her own morals lie."

While both books show the glamorous side of the model life, each offers real-life lessons to potential models on the pitfalls of modeling and what models have to give up to get ahead.

"I wanted to bring some depth to what kind of negative things go on behind the scenes, what it's like to be treated like an object," Walker says.

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