Mini Reviews: Pretty Face by Lucy Parker

Hi everyone, Rachel and I have very similar tastes when it comes to reading, so much so that we're often reading the same books at the same time without realising it. So we thought it'd be a cool idea to share our reviews on books that we had both been reading recently. Rachel and I were big fans of Parker's first book Act Like it, so we'd thought we'd share our thoughts on her second book Pretty Face.

Pretty Face (London Celebrities #2) by Lucy Parker
Publisher: Carina Press
Publication date: February 20th 2017
Our ratings: 4 stars (Jasprit) / 4.5 Stars (Rachel)
Amazon | Barnes & Noble | TBD | Kobo

 

Highly acclaimed, award-winning author of Act Like It Lucy Parker returns readers to the London stage with laugh-out-loud wit and plenty of drama 

The play's the fling 

It's not actress Lily Lamprey's fault that she's all curves and has the kind of voice that can fog up a camera lens. She wants to prove where her real talents lie—and that's not on a casting couch, thank you. When she hears esteemed director Luc Savage is renovating a legendary West End theater for a lofty new production, she knows it could be her chance—if only Luc wasn't so dictatorial, so bad-tempered and so incredibly sexy.

Luc Savage has respect, integrity and experience. He also has it bad for Lily. He'd be willing to dismiss it as a midlife crisis, but this exasperating, irresistible woman is actually a very talented actress. Unfortunately, their romance is not only raising questions about Lily's suddenly rising career, it's threatening Luc's professional reputation. The course of true love never did run smooth. But if they're not careful, it could bring down the curtain on both their careers… 

For some reason Pretty Face took me a while to get into, I blame the high that Act Like it left me in, nothing really could compare with Richard and Lainey’s relationship. However, despite the struggle with the initial start, once again Parker was able to win me over with her fantastic characters in Luc and Lily. Both Lily and Luc came from different backgrounds, so much so that I didn’t see them working together at all. Lily was a person who was completely overlooked, her role in show Knightsbridge didn’t have people flocking to hire her, but seriously though I knew beneath that assumptions that so many people had already made of her, there was serious talent and I was hoping that Luc would give her a try. Luc on the other hand was my sort of guy, he quickly lost his temper (which I loved, why do characters that get easily riled up or come to someone’s defence always come across as super-hot!). But also he wanted the best from his production, so once he’d finally been convinced of taking Lily on, I appreciated the confidence he exuded in Lily had and the extent that he would go to, to make Lily’s character the best. Really from Luc, Lily was able to become the best that she possibly could. Also with the time spent along the way, the miscommunications and difficult situations a really beautiful relationship was able to develop between Lily and Luc. For me once again Parker did an incredible job with the build-up of their relationship, the way they would both get torn up over things that happened really crushed me at times, but just went onto show how far both characters had come in their development and their feelings for one another. Alongside this great relationship that Parker gave us between Luc and Lily, there was once again an abundance of quirky secondary characters, which brought a great amount of delight and laughter to the story. Seriously though Parker really mixes up the romance, fun and tough scenes really well once again in Pretty Face. She was also once again able to win me over with a charming romance which I had my doubts about in the beginning. Pretty Face was another great follow up from Parker who is quickly becoming my go to author.

After reading and loving Act Like It, I was thrilled to get my hands on Pretty Face and it was everything I hoped for! Lucy Parker excels at writing witty, fun dialogue and banter, with British-isms like “snogging, kerfuffle, whinge, and arse-over-tits”; the last has to be my favorite, lol!
 
The relationship between Luc and Lily was sexy and fun, and full of emotion and chemistry!  Ms. Parker made Luc and Lily come to life, writing them with insecurities and faults, but each with a pureness of heart that made you love them even when they screwed up. I laughed, cried, (just a tear or two; don’t judge, I find I’m getting more emotional as the years go by!) and my heart welled with happiness when I finished.  I can’t wait for the next lovely Lucy Parker story!

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