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!
So hard to pick, but ALL time favorite has to be Hello Dolly!
Gentlemen Prefer Blondes was the first movie musical I saw and fe1l in love with. I’d love to see a stage version someday. My first live musical was Cats so it has a special place in my heart. But I’m pretty sure once I see Hamilton that will take the top spot. I have tickets for 2017 and am taking my mom. I’ve already listened to the soundtrack too many times to count and know the whole show. But my mom hasn’t. I’m kind of jealous that she’ll get to hear it all for the first time live.
Chess 🙂
Only one musical??? I’m going to choose Hamilton, then. <3
I love lots of musicals, but i’ll pick West Side Story specifically for this. Love the music and dancing.
Omg, I already have this pre-ordered because Act Like It is probably my favorite contemporary, ever. I just re-read while being home sick with the flu. I even got chocolate digestives to eat along with Lainey.
As for my favorite play… I’d have to say the Women. Or Hamlet. It’s hard to pick just one, and there are so many I haven’t seen or read.
Les Miserables
This is a tough one Book of Mormon or Much Ado About Nothing
On the Town. Guys and Dolls.
The first musical that popped into my head was “Gigi”; however, I think my favorite that I’ve seen performed on stage would have to be “The Pirates of Penzance”
For plays, probably Arsenic and Old Lace – I always played Aunt Abby when we read it (several times, I don’t know why but I’m glad we did) in middle school English class.
For a musical, ooh, this is hard. Right now my favorite is Hamilton (I was a Schuyler Sister for last Halloween, an awesome way to reuse a floor-length iridescent bridesmaid dress.) But then there’s, like, all of Sondheim. I’ll call it a tie between Hamilton and Sunday in the Park with George.
The importance of being earnest
Anytime it’s showing I’m there!!
My favorite musical has to be “Into the Woods.”
It actually might be a good one to listen to today.
Disney musicals were my first introduction to the genre and I still have a deep affection for them. Beauty and the Beast is my favorite.
I loved Chicago.
For the longest time it was Les Mis until I actually saw it and was underwhelmed. Phantom is always enjoyable though I think I’ve seen it too many times. I’ve seen several others and at the end of the day the ones I think of late at night are Miss Saigon and Wicked.
Guys and Dolls for sure.
Favorite stage play is still Evita (I saw it in high school almost 40 years ago!).
Come From Away, an incredible new musical about the small Canadian town that hosted hundreds of passengers of diverted transatlantic flights on 9/11. Had a sold out run in Seattle last year and will be on Broadway soon. The music and staging are fantastic, it’s the best musical I’ve seen in 20 years (and as a volunteer usher, I see a LOT of musicals!).
Les Miserables! I first became obsessed with it because my mother owned the soundtrack. Then I saw it in our local HS theater. Then I saw it in the bigger theaters in town, twice. I can never seem to get enough!
Hamilton! And Seven Brides for Seven Brothers.
The Winslow Boy by Terence Rattigan – an oldie, but such a good one! Catherine, having to choose between her fiancé and her brother – so right-on.
Sir Robert Morton: I wept today because right had been done.
Catherine Winslow: Not justice?
Sir Robert Morton: No, not justice. Right. Easy to do justice. Very hard to do right.
And the final lines – just wonderful:-
Sir Robert Morton: Oh, you still pursue your feminist activities?
Catherine Winslow: Oh yes.
Sir Robert Morton: Pity. It’s a lost cause.
Catherine Winslow: Oh, do you really think so, Sir Robert? How little you know about women. Good-bye. I doubt that we shall meet again.
Sir Robert Morton: Oh, do you really think so, Miss Winslow? How little you know about men.
Much Ado About Nothing is my favorite stage play, while my favorite musical is probably The Drowsy Chaperone.
Much Ado About Nothing.
Although Tom Hiddleston’s Coriolanus is pretty amazing.
Tartuffe by Molière is one of my all time faves!
I would pick Singing in the Rain, but mostly because of Debbie Reynolds. I have watched a couple of times since her death. Such a great musical. And I haven’t read anything by Lucy Parker yet.
I’m torn between Wicked and Godspell. Both have songs that pull at your heart and melodies you never quite forget. Plus from OKC so Kristin Chenoweth hometown pride!
Les Miserables! Though I am particularly partial right now to the INCREDIBLE Dear Evan Hansen 🙂
Anything Goes!
The best play I ever saw was a local stage production of Romeo and Juliet. But I prefer ballet, to be honest. Thank you for hosting the giveaway, I’m eager to read Pretty Face!
My favorite is Oklahoma for three reasons. First, it was the very first musical I saw on Broadway when I was @ 9 years old. We couldn’t get tickets to Annie and this was the only other show even remotely suitable.
Second, immediately after I got married, my husband was stationed in Oklahoma. Cue buying and memorizing the soundtrack so we could sing at full volume as we drove across the border.
Third, when I taught in Canberra, the school I was at performed it (with their sister school). It was freakin’ AWESOME and my boys were psyched that they had a teacher who both knew the music AND had actually lived there.
Oh, What a Beautiful Morning.
Les Miserables!! Thanks for the giveaway!!
My childhood favorite musical was On The Town (maybe it’s what inspired me to move to New York, I don’t know.)
But Suzan-Lori Parks is one of the greatest living playwrights, and everything she writes is complicated and wonderful.
Also oh man Act Like It was THE BEST
Flower Drum Song. We watched musicals all the time when I was growing up. Loved them.
My Fair Lady! I still have a vinyl record with the songs that I play from time to time.
I have a special fondness for The Complete Works of Shakespeare (Abridged) by the Reduced Shakespeare Company. Everything gets condensed into a 90 minute show and it’s hilarious. The more Shakespeare you know the funnier, but anyone who knows the pop culture basics will have a good time.
I remember the first time I saw it, my grandparents got us tickets and we ended up leaving my grandfather at home because he wasn’t feeling well. So my grandmother and I (with a friend of her subbing for my grandfather) went to one of the first shows in the run. The theater was about 1/2 full. As soon as the play ended my grandmother and I agreed that we should get another batch of tickets and take both my grandfather and my father, which we did. The second show we saw was playing to a packed house (word of mouth matters) and it’s been a family favorite ever since.
I was blessed with the opportunity to see Idina Menzel perform live in If/Then. While it’s not my absolute favorite musical, it was my most memorable theater experience.
Singin’ in the Rain. I found the soundtrack album in an old book fair– the kind I used to haunt when I was a 13 year-old wannabe Nancy Drew in search of secret keys and coded messages. I found this record–from the original pressing–with Gene Kelly dancing under an umbrella, and I knew I’d found a clue to the mystery of love.
I have to say that I have rarely laughed out loud as much as when I saw Spamalot in NYC.
So many to choose from! One of my favorites is Legally Blonde the Musical, but honestly, I could write a full list of my favorites.