⋙ Libro Free Act Like It A SlowBurn Romance London Celebrities Book 1 edition by Lucy Parker Contemporary Romance eBooks

Act Like It A SlowBurn Romance London Celebrities Book 1 edition by Lucy Parker Contemporary Romance eBooks

Download As PDF : Act Like It A SlowBurn Romance London Celebrities Book 1 edition by Lucy Parker Contemporary Romance eBooks

Act Like It A SlowBurn Romance London Celebrities Book 1 edition by Lucy Parker Contemporary Romance eBooks

What a delightful read! It was British romantic chick lit at it's FINEST!!! I had no idea how much I was missing that artfully smart/dry British humor until I read this little beauty.
This was the type of slow burn read that makes the brush of an arm leave you REELING for pages!!! Seriously, the amount of squealing butterflies Lucy Parker's writing gave me is kind of pathetic (on my part...not hers).

Okay favorite things about this book:
1. The Characters!!! Richard....R.I.C.H.A.R.D. I've never read a more hot, owly, opinionated, smart alec of a hero that I wanted to make my own. And Lanie...just the perfect contrast to his crassness. They were exquisite together.

2. The Writing!!! Skillful, highly talented and gorgeously executed. Not to mention super smart. Several references I didn't even understand, which I LOVE. I like being pushed!

3. The Setting!!! Set in the London backdrop of the West end theater district, I loved all the stage/acting references. They weren't over-done or forced, they were light, perfect, and beautifully executed.

Loved this book. It would make the best romantic comedy. So original with the theater backdrop and storyline. Truly a fun, fun read and I look forward to more from the exceedingly talented Lucy Parker
5 Beautifully British STARS!!!


Tags : Act Like It: A Slow-Burn Romance (London Celebrities Book 1) - Kindle edition by Lucy Parker. Contemporary Romance Kindle eBooks @ Amazon.com.,ebook,Lucy Parker,Act Like It: A Slow-Burn Romance (London Celebrities Book 1),Carina Press

Act Like It A SlowBurn Romance London Celebrities Book 1 edition by Lucy Parker Contemporary Romance eBooks Reviews

Maybe 3.5, an extra .5 for really good prose.

I didn't like this as much as everyone else. For the first third, I was giving it five enthusiastic "this is a good contemporary romance with good prose! amazing." stars. Then I realized that this was a book that didn't really have a second act, didn't really have any conflict (even though conflict is built into the premise) nobody really has an emotional arc, I didn't feel the people falling in love nearly as much as I was told that they were. I really, really, really liked the opening quarter of the book, so I would have liked to have kept liking it. Alas.

Premise Lainie is a West End theater actress who's recently broken up with the male lead in the production she's currently playing a supporting role in. The production's villain is played by Richard Troy, son of rich conservative politicians, rude genius/diva, played in the author's mind by Tom Hiddleston. To redeem Richard's ugly reputation, Lainie makes a deal with him and his team that she'll be his fake girlfriend for a while, so long as they financially support her kids-with-cancer charity. Then romance blooms for real, something something something.

I really did like the opening section. Lainie is a charmingly-written character - although I also found her too smooth and passive to get much of an emotional grip on. She has one of those cliched romance novel huge/supportive families, likes her job, has no hangups about her love life (she recently split with another actor, but there's no angst, really), no hangups about her very voluptuous body (good for her, but it seemed like a missed opportunity for a smidgen of tension given that it tends, apparently, to typecast her)... generally Lainie is having a pretty good time in life. It doesn't really seem like there's anything she wants but doesn't yet have. I think this type of character, where everything is breaking just right and they're basically great and kind and nice and liked by many, can be hard to invent a satisfying romantic arc for, unless you have them go through a low period. That doesn't really happen. in this book, so it's a flat emotional experience without a lot of tension to feel or see resolved. Lainie starts out sweet and great, is sweet and great in the middle, is sweet and great at the end. I missed having an emotional arc for her. The prose is good and the dialogue is almost always good, but I just didn't really feel any emotion in Lainie or a real connection to Richard. She's kind of sweetly-wry for the whole book. Nothing really touches her. She has a brief professional disappointment at one point, but she talks herself into getting over it in one paragraph. She's sort of "Ugh, I wish I had never dated him" about her ex, but she doesn't feel shamed or angsty about it or hung up on him, or (that I could tell) really very hurt that he ended it.

Richard is slightly more interesting, because he's grumpy and arrogant. I mean, he isn't exactly likable right off the bat, but he's never really a terrible person... so he doesn't have much space to change, either. He sort of moves from being "kind of a diva" to "slightly more polite to the staff", which is not unenjoyable, but it isn't really the big emotional shift I was hoping for to make up for how relatively flat Lainie's character is.

I didn't really feel the romantic or sexual connection between Lainie and Richard. Okay, if I'm honest, I felt ZILCH. It's the kind of book where things are pretty good so long as they're bantering, but as soon as there's physical contact, I felt like I was reading something written by someone who doesn't like writing sex scenes. It felt really, really, really paint by numbers to me, phrases you've read a million times, zero sexual charge in any personal way between the characters. (For myself, I would rather that sex scenes fade out than this. I just want the sexual tension, I don't really need vague descriptions of specific acts.) It wound up feeling to me that the book described an early phase of realization of attraction, and then jumped ahead to them being in a relationship.

I must sound like I"m being really hard on this book. You know what it was? I feel like this author has REAL TALENT, and I think that's so rare in the field of contemporary romances. So my expectations were raised and then ....not supported. So there's some disappointment powering my grumping. Overall, as a read, it's FINE. But it feels to me that there's a GREAT book hiding inside of it somewhere, a book where there's more of what really works (Richard being grouchy, the world of West End theater, the world of professional actors who aren't that famous, Richard and Lainie being tetchy with each other) and less of the cutesy huge family gatherings with Adorable Moppets, less of the sexual and romantic dynamic that felt sudden and rushed and unreal, unsexy. More exploration of how exactly Lainie was ambitious (I mean, she's successful, but she's also so seemingly satisfied, it's hard to see/feel where she's aching for more, where growth is possible for her), more of the parts where it's about weirdo actors.

Anyway. I wanted more, but the beginning is super charming, so I'll definitely be looking for the author's next release. And based on the many rave reviews, I suspect that most readers will enjoy. Again, the prose is great!
Nice easy-breezy and intelligent writing put this romance a cut above most CRs I read. Dialogue here is excellent, romantic attraction between H and h is developed well, starting from antagonism-indifference to believable love. All in all, I found this to be a very entertaining escape read.

Author Lucy Parker is a New Zealander but this story takes place in modern-day London and involves characters from the world of the theater (I guess that should be "theatre"). Up-and-coming actress Lainie Graham has one of the leading roles in "The Cavalier's Tribute'", in its eighth month at the Metronome Theatre.

Unfortunately for Lainie, her role requires her to canoodle every night with leading man Will Farmer, with whom she was romantically involved in real life until he dumped her for another woman. But she's coping. And then there's talented actor, Richard Troy, another leading man in the play. Nobody likes Richard. He's a bit of an arse. Arrogant, ill-mannered, with feelings of entitlement, Richard is upper-class and very rich, but there's baggage in his personal life and all that.

It seems it's almost the last straw for Richard's handlers and for the director at the Metronome, His behavior is getting out of hand, he is losing popularity with the public, and theater attendance is dropping off because of this. What to do? Well, Lainie is persuaded to pretend a romantic attachment to Richard, in the hopes that her London's Sweetheart image will improve his own.

So that's basically it. Not great literature or a big-wow of a plot. It was just, for me, a really fun read. I truly enjoyed seeing the relationship between Lainie and Richard grow into love. It's the writing, more than the plot, that made this a good read and I've put Lucy Parker into my Follow queue and hope she'll be coming out with more romances in the future.
What a delightful read! It was British romantic chick lit at it's FINEST!!! I had no idea how much I was missing that artfully smart/dry British humor until I read this little beauty.
This was the type of slow burn read that makes the brush of an arm leave you REELING for pages!!! Seriously, the amount of squealing butterflies Lucy Parker's writing gave me is kind of pathetic (on my part...not hers).

Okay favorite things about this book
1. The Characters!!! Richard....R.I.C.H.A.R.D. I've never read a more hot, owly, opinionated, smart alec of a hero that I wanted to make my own. And Lanie...just the perfect contrast to his crassness. They were exquisite together.

2. The Writing!!! Skillful, highly talented and gorgeously executed. Not to mention super smart. Several references I didn't even understand, which I LOVE. I like being pushed!

3. The Setting!!! Set in the London backdrop of the West end theater district, I loved all the stage/acting references. They weren't over-done or forced, they were light, perfect, and beautifully executed.

Loved this book. It would make the best romantic comedy. So original with the theater backdrop and storyline. Truly a fun, fun read and I look forward to more from the exceedingly talented Lucy Parker
5 Beautifully British STARS!!!