Lucy Parker - The Austen Playbook

Freddy Carlton knows she should be focusing on her lines for The Austen Playbook, a live-action TV event where viewers choose the outcome of each scene, but her concentration’s been blown. The palatial estate housing the endeavor is now run by the rude (brilliant) critic who’s consistently slammed her performances of late. James “Griff” Ford-Griffin has a penchant for sarcasm, a majestic nose and all the sensitivity of a sledgehammer.
She can’t take her eyes off him.
Griff can hardly focus with a contagious joy fairy flitting about near him, especially when Freddy looks at him like that. His only concern right now should be on shutting down his younger brother’s well-intentioned (disastrous) schemes—or at the very least on the production (not this one) that might save his family home from the banks.
Instead all he can think of is soft skin and vibrant curls.
As he’s reluctantly dragged into her quest to rediscover her passion for the stage and Freddy is drawn into his research on a legendary theater star, the adage about appearances being deceiving proves abundantly true. It’s the unlikely start of something enormous…but a single revelation about the past could derail it all.

Comment: This is the most recent installment in the London Celebrities series by author Lucy Parker. Her romance books have had some hype in the last few years and I confess I share most readers' opinions on them but the third book - and now this one too - were a little less appealing. I still enjoyed reading but yes, for me the stories have lost some of their initial magic.

In this fourth book we don't have such an obvious correlation between protagonists as we had in the first two books but the setting and world is the same for all four books.

Freddy Carlton comes from a known family in the theater industry, especially because her grandmother Henrietta wrote one of the most famous plays in England, even studied in school programs. 

However, Freddy's heart isn't in the dramas and heavy pieces that made her family famous but instead she likes comedies and light plays that make the audience laugh and have a good time. It's no wonder one of the most read critics of the London acting industry keeps mentioning how mediocre her work has been and how much it shows she is uncomfortable.

When the chance to be part of an adaptation  of several Jane Austen's characters in a special interactive play comes forward, this is precisely the sort of work Freddy loves and a potential new project can come from it if she does well. 

It's really just a coincidence the play will happen on the theater a man has built for her famous grandmother and that is now managed by the same critic that has brought Freddy's lack of will for dramas to the public. But between secrets and sudden romantic inclinations, will Freddy's heart endure it all?

If one were to judge stories only for their ideas or premises, this is one of those that would be immediately a great one.

The thing is, since each reader is different, all people can look at the same thing and have different opinions and while I agree that this was another successful story which I enjoyed in its majority, there were also a few details that prevented me from giving it five stars as I did the first two in the series.

I liked the way we got to have several clues on how Freddy and Griff, the hero, were the way they are or why their personalities are like we see them. I especially liked Griff's sense of responsibility and although for many he can be a little too serious and straight, I can accept his need to be in control of things when those around him weren't always reliable. I'm also quite happy how he listens to Freddy at some point regarding his relationship with his brother.

Freddy is also very likable because we can see how she likes to work with comedies but she does feel guilty and in need to match the expectations her father has of her and how realistic can this be? When we love out family, even if have a strong personality, we still want to do things to make those we love feel good too. For this alone, I'd have liked Freddy as a character. 

The romance between these two develops quickly after they start spending time together and that happens because of the play taking place in Griff's estate but the author has cleverly inserted two other chapters where we got to see where the couple met and where they initially interacted. Yes, this is by no means a prelude to their romance but it does give a little glimpse of why they can now be in each other's radar and why their connection can get deeper so quickly. I would say Freddy is quite bubbly and Griff quite unbreakable in his behavior and sometimes it feels like there's no balance or compromise between them but it worked for the most part for me and I was definitely happy for them to fall in love and trust each other.

Unlike the first two novels, though, I guess what this story is lacking is a more obvious declaration from part to part on how in love they are after a certain point of the story. Yes, they act the part and they say the words but because this story also focused on more elements, their falling in love felt more secondary. The transition from "what are we doing" to "we are in love" was a little too quick for how they were acting and I mean this in relation to the moment after their get intimate and acknowledge it. I guess it wasn't as obviously romantic as I felt books #1 and #2 were. This is why I said it can depend on people's interpretations and opinions on the same situation.

Despite my personal pet peeves or preferences in how things could have been developed, this was still a good, entertaining read and since it's more character driven than plot driven (even if in this one the author went that direction), it was very good to spend so much time with the characters and see how they could become better people just because they were together. I liked this about Griff and Freddy.

It seems there's a next book in the works, it will be about Freddy's sister Sabrina and her nemesis Nick so I do anticipate a good enemies to lovers plot!

Grade: 8/10