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!
I’m with @kitkat9000. My all time favorite is My Fair Lady. Saw it on the stage in London theee times in the span of two months once. Grew up with the movie version. It never gets old for me. I sing the songs randomly throughout my life. *Sigh*, good times.
I still have wonderful memories of watching the late, lamented Alan Rickman prowling the stage in black silk pajamas in Private Lives. The decidedly unladylike fight for the opera glasses, however, should probably be forgotten.
Favorite movie musical: Easter Parade
Favorite stage musical(s): Les Miserables, The Drowsy Chaperone
My favorite play is “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead” by Tom Stoppard and my favorite musical is “Falsettoland”
Miss Saigon.
I was a theater major. I don’t think I can actually choose one favorite. Heck, I have a hard time choosing a favorite Shakespeare or even my favorite Lerner and Lowe.
If it’s just /a/ favorite, then… I think for this purpose I’ll go with Rosenkrantz and Guildenstern are Dead.
Or maybe Noises Off. See, hopeless.
Right now, Hamilton. But before, Wicked, and before that, Rent!
Right now it’s Hamilton. Bought the soundtrack for my 8th grader for Christmas and he listens to it all the time. I’m also partial to Footloose since my son played Willard in the high school musical. “Momma says”… still chokes me up. My mother loved musicals and we all knew bits and snatches of random songs that she would sing to us. South Pacific, Camelot, State fair, Oklahoma, the list goes on.
Camelot!!
I really haven’t been a fan of musicals for a while, though I’ll always have a soft spot for Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat and Cats (yes, I was an 80s teen, why do you ask?). But there used to be an Ancient Greek theatre company here, and I had a chance to see Aristophanes’ Clouds with the chorus sung to the oeuvre of Barenaked Ladies, and it was AWESOME.
My favorite play has to be PHANTOM OF THE OPERA. I love how dark it can be – and the music just can’t be beat!
My favorite musical is Rent.
Noises Off!
I have to say that I like the classics so I am going with the Sound of Music.
Tom Stoppard’s Arcadia will always be my favorite stage production. Hamilton wins for best musical.
Into the Woods, without a question. It was my favorite musical I was ever in (my high school production) and still my favorite to listen to all the music.
For my favorites, we have to go wayyyyy back – all the way back to Mozart! I find it hard, sometimes, to decide which one of his operas is my favorite, but I think I’ll go with Don Giovanni.
Singing in the Rain!!
Ahhh, I can already tell this is going to be amazing! My favorite play is probably “The Merchant of Venice.” I weep every time
Carousel. You’ll never walk alone.
Another vote for Hamilton
I vote for Wicked too. But I can’t help but chime in for Hamilton as well. I’ve been singing the songs to myself for weeks.
Camelot, I saw it when I was a kid and Richard Burton was King Arthur. It was the last time he did that role, he became ill and he died a year later, so I saw magic.
Arms and the Man – also love the film version with very young Helena Bonham Carter.
The Music Man. First musical I ever saw on stage!
Sound of Music has been my favorite since I was a kid, but oh man, Les Miserables just gets to me. I swear I almost start crying just hearing some of the songs!
My mom took me to every musical she could once I was old enough to like them, and I haven’t stopped going since – I think the time we saw Camelot, on the lawn at Wolftrap (a national park theater), in the rain, with Richard Harris as Merlin, is one of my fondest memories ever. I’m not sure I can pick a favorite, but Camelot is sure up there!
I saw Merryl Streep and Raul Julia in The Taming of The Shrew in Central Park many years ago as part of the New York Shakespeare Theatre. Even my high school self realized that I had seen something that was electrifying.
So excited for the new book! My favorite musical is 1776. I’m a history nerd and I have fond memories of watching this with my parents and sister when I was little. We still use some of the lines for inside jokes 🙂
Anastasia! I really want to see the stage production.
You’ve got to stop asking these pick your favorite child questions! A play is as much about the experience as it is the a trial story.
I’d say West Side Story because it was the one cast I made in high school. We had more fun than the law should allow.
But then there’s sitting in 4th row watching Yul Brenner perform his magic in The King &I. Sigh.
Or the school trip to Godspell at the Shubert. A hundred 13yos hyped up on sugar and great music & a couple nuns hanging out on Michigan Ave. at 10 o’clock at night waiting for our bus.
Or watching my goddaughters experience their very first stage productions. Beauty & The Beast & <The Lion King. That was as magical as what happened on the stage. Which, in both cases, was brilliant.
See, favorite child.
Favorite Musical that I haven’t seen onstage (yet)–Hamilton. Favorites that I’ve seen onstage–Into the Woods, Pippin, and Wicked.
I can’t chose just one, can’t. Favorite musical movie is probably Umbrellas of Cherbourg. Although that might constitute an opera and my favorite opera would be a book length essay. I will stop and watch any Fred Astaire musical, but just for the dancing, a live staging wouldn’t do it for me…wait, does the first Xena musical episode count?
Ok, stage play… I can’t pick a favorite stage play either! Only one? It seems so cruel. Best one I’ve personally seen was Streetcar with Cate Blanchett, but that was down to her, not the actual play. I have seen Lear more than anything else, so that’s presumably meaningful. I guess I’m going to pick King Lear, but only because I’m really excited for this ARC.
I would love to see Hamilton, but my favorite play (before it was a movie) was A Few Good Men. Obviously was many years ago but I loved the play and remember we were excited when it was made into a movie.
Since the Bitchery has covered a lot here, a shout-out for Evita! Such fierce performances on the Broadway album (I haven’t seen / heard the Madonna version, though that combo, especially in light of the Hillary / Madonna connection that someone made recently, would probably be interesting to come back to). I used “Don’t you forget / what I’ve been through and yet / I’m still standing” as a mantra after I went through some pretty severe injuries and it wasn’t at all clear that I’d be standing again (and yet… 😉 ).
So excited for this book!
Sentimentally, my favorite is the stage version of Singin’ in the Rain I saw at the St. Louis Muny when I was in high school. I loved it so much I went back several times in a week. I’d love to see it performed on stage again sometime.
My Fair Lady all the way. When I was young I used to play it on a loop whenever I was sick.
Hard to choose but I’d go with a few old musicals – Guys & Dolls, and The Pajama Game. Favorite stage play is Inherit the Wind.
I don’t get to watch a lot of shows but I loved the Queen musical.
Much Ado About Nothing.