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 cannot WAIT for this book!!!!! I loved loved loved Act Like It. Lucy Parker writes such fluffy and adorable romance and I can’t get enough of it! That excerpt is perfection.
My favorite musical is a split between Beauty and the Beast and Wicked. I can’t choose! They’re both fabulous and I know all the songs to each lol.
I’ve seen one show on Broadway, If/Then with Idina Menzel. It was amazing, she was amazing, I bawled my eyes out and had no tissues in my purse.
I could never choose a favorite play or musical, but this summer I got to see Ralph Fiennes and Vanessa Redgrave in Richard III at the Almeida in London. That was an amazing experience that I’ll never forget. It’s such an intimate theater that I swear I made eye contact with Ralph Fiennes during several of his monologues.
Hamilton- it’s mind blowing!
I love Jesus Christ Superstar and I’m not trying to sound highfalutin’, but I love seeing Shakespeare on stage. I saw Macbeth with Christopher Plummer and Glenda Jackson a number of years ago.
This past December my girlfriends and I went to a play called Miss Bennet: Christmas at Pemberly which tells a delightfully charming and hilarious love story for Mary Bennet that takes place 2 years after Pride and Prejudice! Elizabeth introduces Darcy to a German tradition called a Christmas tree. Jane and Bingley are expecting. There was even a silent budding romance between the maid and footman. We laughed and squeed so much during the show, we must have been the loudest people there. It was one of the best staged experiences I’ve ever had.
used to be Camelot–now Hamilton!
Wicked for a musical and A Midsummer Night’s Dream as a play. Also yay for a new Lucy Parker!
Phantom of the Opera – it was the first show I saw on Broadway.
Evita
My favourite is Singin in the Rain. I saw it first as a stage adaptation, and they really dumped tons of water on the stage! And the guy in the Donald O’Connor role really did those flips live! Then I saw the movie, and it’s one of my favourite of all time. Geez, I saw it when I was a teenager, so I guess I’ve loved it for half my life or more. I used to quote all of Lina Lamont’s best lines in high school and feel dejected that no one recognised them.
Rent!
Hard to choose first one I remember watching is “Grease” but my mom made me watch “The Sound of Music” too. Love both and “Singing in the Rain”.
So many choices of favourite stage plays/musicals. How about “First Impressions”? It’s not the best, but it is a sentimental favourite.
Now have to run off to Goodreads and add this to my To-Read list!
Les Miserables. Saw it during my 5th grade class trip and have seen it countless times since.
Yay Lucy Parker!! My favorite stage play is Much Ado About Nothing, and my favorite musical is Into the Woods 🙂
I’ve loved My Fair Lady since I saw it when I was a teenager!
Les Miz. I saw it at an impressionable age, my only Broadway show, and I fell hard. I have loved every vetsion since. (Except for Russell Crowe, whose Javert was just wrong, not to mention horribly sung.)
I adored Act Like It (thanks for the recommendation), so I am crossing my fingers so hard right now.
I’d have to say Phantom of the Opera. I’ve seen it about 4 times with the “womenfolk” of my family and it became a tradition that we all go when it was in town. Thanks for sharing! Loved the first book 🙂
Auntie Mame with Rosalind Russell – I know it’s not a musical but I can quote that baby backwards and forwards but you can also throw in Rosengrantz and Guildenstern are Dead is one of my favorite plays
Ach, just choosing one is so hard! I’m a total musical theatre geek. At the moment, I’m really enjoying Dear Evan Hansen.
I loved Act Like It!
My favorite stage play is Metamorphoses by Mary Zimmerman, and my favorite stage musical is Into the Woods.
A Chorus Line.
I have a soft spot for all the old Hollywood musicals. My mom made watching them a special movie night event – complete with Jiffy Pop popcorn, twizzlers, and Orange Crush.
I’d say my favorite was Seven Brides for Seven Brothers closely followed by The Sound of Music.
Much Ado About Nothing. Or Into the Woods. Or Hamilton.
Grease is my favorite!!!
I love A Chorus Line! I watched the movie many many times and in the 00s I got to see the revival in Chicago.
Lately it’s been Hamilton!
My favorites are My Fair Lady and Kiss Me Kate…I love the classics! Can’t wait to read this book, as I loved “Act Like It”!
A Funny Thing Happened On the Way To the Forum is one of my all-time favorites (although if my Jewish mother asks, it’s Fiddler of course).
Les Miserables. Empty Chairs at Empty Tables still makes me cry.
When I was 8 my parents took me to see “My Fair Lady” and I was never the same. I became a fool for the theater. When graduated college, I auditioned for Julliard and almost was accepted but for a speech impediment that could have been cured by surgery which I could not afford. As an adult, I learned to appreciate the lyrics of Alan Lerner, which, to my mind, are sheer poetry.
Godspell. It reminds me of being raised Catholic. Growing up listening to the movie soundtrack. And putting the record on, pushing all the furniture against the walls, and performing all the musical numbers with my brothers and sisters. A Big Production for the babysitter. Damn I miss folk mass.
New show – Come from Away just premiered here and is now off to New York… I couldn’t get tickets but the few people who saw it said it was AWESOME. My all time fave though really is Les Miz.
I like A Midsummer Night’s Dream, which isn’t really a musical. Singin in the Rain for Cyd Charisse works, too.
Yay, more from Lucy Parker! Loved Act Like It.
I have season tickets to our local Broadway Series and I see a lot, or at least what tours. I have many favorites. Probably #1 is Wicked. The end of the first act when Elphaba sings Defying Gravity gets me every time. I also enjoy Avenue Q quite a bit for the sheer silliness of it all being puppets and yet touching on so many current social issues.
And I’ll add last weekend we got to see The Curious Incident of the Dog in Night Time and it is outstanding. It’s based on a book that I plan to now read too.
Hamilton is amazing, but I also love the classic West Side Story and Into the Woods.
I’ve seen a lot of musicals, not so many plays. I’ll let my freak flag fly and go with Book of Mormon. I laughed through the whole thing, and I know the words to every song, and it helped me convert a recalcitrant best friend to my love of musicals.
That excerpt is so good! Possibly even better than the first book? I would so love to win an ARC.
My fav musical is A Chorous Line. I have memories of listening to the soundtrack over and over as a kid.
Hamilton! Saw it 2 weeks ago, it’s amazing!