And, thanks to Carina Press, we have an exclusive excerpt for those who are anxious to revisit Parker’s writing, as well as three (3) digital ARCs to give away!
For readers who may not want to be spoiled ahead of time, we’ve hidden the excerpt. Just click the pink bar to reveal the text!
“I kissed you. Technically.” Although he’d been a fairly active participant in the whole misguided, shivery shebang.
“It was—” He stopped, obviously intensely uncomfortable.
It was like coming home.
She couldn’t say that. She wasn’t this woman. She was not going to be, for the rest of her theatre career, the actress who got her first big stage break and slept with the director. Some of the less reputable papers had already implied as much, but there was made-up sex and scandal, and there was knowing and living the truth.
There was self-respect.
He was speaking stiffly now, back in his robotic comfort zone. “But I can assure you that it won’t happen again, and it will have no impact whatsoever on your role in this production or any other.”
“It’s okay,” she said quietly. “I know you wouldn’t punish or reward anyone professionally for anything that happened outside of work. You’re not that sort of man.”
That sent a flush of colour into his face. He tucked a stand of hair behind her ear. Apparently realising what he was doing, he swore and took a deliberate step back.
Lily lowered her hand from where she’d instinctively reached to hold on to his fingers. “Maybe we ought to keep some distance between us for a while.”
“Until Monday, you mean, when we go to Oxford together, and then the next four weeks of intensive, occasionally one-on-one rehearsals?”
Well, if he was going to be rational about it.
“You could try being pleasant and malleable,” she suggested. “I’d probably find it a complete turn-off. I didn’t realise I had this penchant for militant men. It’s giving me whole new insights into my personality.”
“Militant?”
“I thought it sounded more polite than ‘bossy.’ No?”
“I’m not bossy.”
He actually sounded like he believed that.
“Okay, Captain Von Trapp. Keep telling yourself that.”
She’d broken the stern director facade again. He was grinning. “Are you sure you weren’t fired from CTV? Because if you talk to Steve Warren like this, I’m surprised you didn’t find yourself falling down an empty lift shaft in the second episode.”
She would never dream of speaking to Steve, or any other director, like this. It was just hard to return to business as usual when she knew what his tongue felt like against the roof of her mouth.
“No, amazingly I left by choice.”
“When do you shoot your final scenes?” Luc seemed to be equally determined to get things back on a professional footing, and finding it as difficult. His eyes kept wandering over her lips and tousled hair.
“End of the week. Then I’m all yours.” She closed her eyes and groaned. “It’s like I’m reading from the script for The Cliché Film, the unresolved sexual tension scene, isn’t it? Do you want to kiss again? I think that was our cue.”
Don’t miss PRETTY FACE by Lucy Parker,
available February 2017 wherever Carina Press ebooks are sold.
www.CarinaPress.com
Copyright ©2017 by Laura Elliott
Now to the really good part: giveaway time!
To enter to win one of three digital ARCs, comment with your favorite stage play or musical. Maybe it’s an old favorite that you watching growing up. Or perhaps it’s something new that you’re excited to see performed. Let us know!
Standard disclaimers apply: We’re not being compensated for this giveaway. Void where prohibited. Must be 18 years of age. Be sure to study your lines and work on those jazz hands! Get those high kicks higher and remember to speak from your diaphragm. Open to international residents where permitted by applicable law. Comments will close at or near 12pm ET on Monday 23 January 2017 and winners will be announced shortly afterward.
Good luck!
Update: The winners are Marci, Camille, and Jessica! Congratulations and thanks so much to all the awesome stage/musical talk!
My all-time favorite is My Fair Lady. I know all the songs and dialogue by heart.
Yay, new Lucy Parker! Also, thank you for hiding the excerpt.
Hamilton. (And I’ve only listened to the original Broadway cast recording and watched Youtube clips. :D)
The Tempest, by William Shakespeare. It can be staged in a wide variety of ways, the masque sequence can be a gorgeous performance, depending on the director, Ariel has been very well played by a number of women, and the play has the best declaration of love ever.
Miranda – Do you love me?
Ferdinand – Above all limit of what else in the world, I do love, prize, honor you.
I am SO EXCITED for this book! I adored Act Like It!
I haven’t seen many musicals or plays performed live, but I did drag friends to see Jesus Christ Superstar twice, once in Massachusetts, once in Wisconsin. So, Jesus Christ Superstar!
I am, of course, dying to see Hamilton.
I adore Lucy Parker! As for favorite musical, nothing will ever top ‘Singin’ in the Rain’ in my heart. Thanks for the giveaway!
My favorite is The Phantom of the Opera. I would watch it again if I could.
There’s a play called Venus in Fur and it’s about gender and sexuality and dominance and power and class and desire and the theatre and it’s great. I was lucky enough to see it on Broadway with Hugh Dancy and Nina Arienda.
Romeo and Juliet A Love Song. It’s a film version, set in a West Auckland caravan park. The characters do their lines in different musical styles, rock, pop, hip hop and gospel. Fantastic but still a tragic ending.
High Society with Bing Crosby and Grace Kelly based on the movie The Philadelphia Story. Dang, now I need to watch both of these movies!
Love love love The Sound of Music! Seen it twice – once a traveling Broadway production in Hong Kong and once in India. Know almost all the songs and all the lines by-heart <3
I love the Sound of Music and that excerpt from Pretty Face is awesome. I can’t wait to read it!
I love the old musicals, but just saw my son in a high school production of The Radium Girls and am still reeling!!! Everyone should see it!
Beauty and the Beast- I’ve probably seen it on stage at least 10 times.
Les Miserables. I’ve seen it in London multiple times, Virginia, Vancouver, and Seattle. But I now have tickets to see Hamilton in London next year, so it may be my new favorite — we shall see.
Right this second? It has to be Hamilton. I’m just chiming in for fun, though, because I love musicals. I’ve already pre-ordered Pretty Face, because Act Like It was just that good.
Oklahoma!
Pirates of Penzance. I was lucky enough to see Jon English as the Pirate King in a live performance. He was amazing.
I love musicals of all kinds – my favorite movie musical is Singing in the Rain (really anything with Gene Kelly is good), my favorite stage musical is A Chorus Line (*not* the movie version!), and for a great movie that is about a stage musical (& life and death) All That Jazz.
Hard to pick a favorite, but despite close competition from Hamilton and Les Miz, I’m going with the musical of The Secret Garden. Lyrical, bittersweet, sublime.
Les Miserables. Never ceases to make me cry like a baby.
I love musicals and would love to get my hands on this book.! It’s so hard to pick a favorite but honestly it would have to be Hamilton.
Hard to pick a favorite – Les Miserables or Guys and Dolls are old favorites. Hamilton is quickly rising through the ranks!
Mamma mia, hands down!
Favourite show is Cats
Much Ado about Nothing, but Les Miserables is my favorite musical.
Like everyone else, I’m desperate to see Hamilton. But I adore musicals of all stripes, really.
My favourite is Wicked- I’ve seen it twice and would totally go again!
Eeeeee! I can’t wait to read this!!!
My favourite play… gotta go with Macbeth. Scotland, witches, proto-feminist villainess who has the best lines – yeah, Macbeth has everything.
I have to say “Guys and Dolls”. I played Adelaide in high school and my daughter is doing it in theatre camp this summer. I am unreasonably excited.
Hamilton! I listen to the soundtrack non-stop. Thanks!!!
Allegiance. Or Lemonade (choreopoem).
Crazy for You
I love Goldman’s ‘Lion in Winter’. I saw a student production in Oxford once where they’d cast Americans as Philip of France and Eleanor, and the accents worked so well in the context – sometimes Eleanor would be on the stage as the sole foreigner, surrounded by her English sons and husband, and you got this real sense of her isolation. It’s just a fabulous, clever play.
Hamilton!
Simply all of them 🙂 New, old, classic, quirky etc. and the more dancing the better :)) The most memorable production for me was the Moulin Rouge – I saw it 3 times in cinema and even more on TV, DVD, etc.
Also one that surprised me was “Beyond the sea” with Kevin Spacey – he sings really well and was a perfect cast for his character!
Hamilton!
The only play I’ve seen in recent memory is Venus in Furs. It was amazing!
To Kill a Mockingbird. We did the book in school, which as I’m British isn’t as common as it is in the States. Then many years later a friend of mine who is an actor got the role of Bob Ewell and a few years later the part of Atticus Finch. He’s a good enough actor that I very soon stopped seeing him and saw only the characters he was playing. It’s a very powerful play that I probably wouldn’t have gone to see – it isn’t exactly fun! – if he hadn’t been in it, but I am very glad I did.
Ugh, I have to choose just one??? (At one point in my life I was going to be a Broadway-musicals scholar.) How about A Little Night Music, music by Stephen Sondheim.
Another vote for Hamilton – the whole family has been listening to it non-stop.