Coming Soon

Lucy Parker’s London Celebrity series has been one of my favorite romance series of the past few years. In general, they have been loosely connected, with characters from previous books showing up in later books. However, until Headliners, they have been stand alone books. In order to understand an important division between the MCs in Headliners you will need to have read The Austen Playbook. I will do my best to avoid spoilers, but you can assume that Freddy and Griff have ended up happily together.

Near the end of The Austen Playbook, a Carlson family secret came out and was scooped by Nick Davenport on his evening news program. The secret has left Sabrina with a tarnished public image just as Nick and Sabrina are competing for one slot as the evening news commentary show host. When Nick is recorded expressing his honest opinion about the head of the media company, he loses his advantage over Sabrina. In a last ditch effort to save their careers, they are jointly offered a failing morning program.

Even before the events of The Austen Playbook, Sabrina and Nick had a contentious rivalry, occasionally taking potshots at each other, but since Nick chose to break the story, contentious has turned to hostile. As they are forced to work together, overcome a common foe, and save their careers, they become a team. Eventually they become lovers. I love that they handle their disagreements and misunderstandings like adults, I thought Nick could have grovelled more, but I understood the point that Parker was making about seeing the whole picture of people instead of reducing them to caricatures. The older I get the more I want to see lovers hashing it out instead of storming off dramatically. Lucy Parker delivered with a pair of romantics who balance their heads and their hearts, but with the wit she is known for.

As I said, before you read Headliners, you should read The Austen Playbook (you should read it anyway). Parker is growing a lovely family of characters in her London Celebrities books. Family is important to her – both the harm family can do and the support family can give – blood, made, and found. This will be released January 2020 and will be a nice way to start your year.

This was an arc from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.