I went into this book so wary, because I did not think Nick could redeem himself after his actions in the last book. But this was just so delightful and sweet, with an awesome slow burn. A delightful book.

I received an ARC from Netgalley and I am happy to give my honest review.

I have been itching for Sabrina's story since The Austen Playbook. You don't need to read that one before reading Headliners but I recommend it to help know the backstory.

Sabrina is a smart, talented and loyal newscaster. She has a very public year where she finds out her long time boyfriend cheated on her and her father willingly kept a pretty big family secret that exploded because of Nick, another newscaster and adversary.

Nick is good looking, funny, and charismatic. He regrets blasting Sabrina and her family (including his friend Griff) so publicly. Their producer has now put them both on a morning show and given them a month to get their act together.

The description of being on set and how they prepare was really interesting. I was cracking up with all of the little accidents that happened like the Wibble. One of my favorite scenes was them filming on the Murder Express. The two know they have chemistry but their personal history was stopping them from being involved. Until it didn't. And then they lit the place up with their fire. I had to fan myself.

Check this book out, especially if you have read the others in the series. I would say it's not as funny as some of the previous books but it is SOLID and I love anything Lucy Parker writes.

Received an advanced copy in exchange for a fair review.

I have started saving new Lucy Parker books for days I know I can read them in one go. Headliners was no exception and might be one of my favorites in this series. Sabrina and Nick were set up at the end of the Austen Playbook but I had no idea how they could come back from where Parker left them -- Nick callously breaking a news story that would wreck Sabrina's family and hurt his best friend who was just getting together with Sabrina's sister. That's quite a redemption arc he'll need.... and she makes it happen.

Nick and Sabrina are wonderful, likable characters with totally believable enemies-to-lovers chemistry. Their respective evening programs were in competition but are being combined after a merger and only one can get the job -- but after both have PR disasters that possibility disappears and instead they are shoved into a morning show together with a ticking clock to bring ratings up. This set-up... makes no sense. What network would borderline reformat and recast a program and say "you have less than four weeks to get ratings up, oh and it's over the holidays"? Not one being at all rational. This is silly.... but watching Nick and Sabrina start working together is delightful as is the sub-plot of trying to figure out who is sabotaging them.

The emotional plot is great as both characters appear to be mature and the silly misunderstandings that could have served as hurdles don't happen because they have come to trust each other. The conflict comes from real things that would cause a new couple to stumble: conflicting goals, beliefs and priorities.

Old couples return, especially Sabrina's sister Freddie, and old villains and plots pop up in a way that is really rewarding to someone who has read allllll of these books. Definitely worth a day-long marathon to fall into this world.

The well-loved tropes in this delightful contemporary cornucopia runneth over -- we've got hate to love, we've got office romance, we got huddling for warmth, we got fake relationship, we got Slytherin & Slytherin romance. All the tropes! And surprising no one, Lucy Parker totally pulls all these elements together in a lovely, believable way. This is one of the funnier entries in her London Celebrities series (driven mainly by the hijinks on the main couple's morning show), but that doesn't take away from the genuine internal & familial conflicts she's able to weave into the plot. Her character work remains stellar: these are characters that are imbued with a real interiority and motivations that make sense.
The things that kept me from loving this as much as ACT LIKE IT or THE AUSTEN PLAYBOOK (which is an admittedly high standard, as these are 2 of my favorite contemporaries ever :)), were a) a true hate to love dynamic (rather than disdain or annoyance to love) is always a bit of hard sell to me, and b) I wasn't 100% sold on the speed of Nick's redemption with Sab.
That said, I still think this is an excellent contemporary romance that I would happily recommend to just about anyone... I think it could be read as a standalone, but the character work will have a bigger impact if you read THE AUSTEN PLAYBOOK first

It's the first book I read by this author and won't surely be the last as found it engrossing and entertaining.
I liked the well crafted plot, the fleshed out cast of characters and the setting.
The romance is excellent and you cannot help rooting for the characters.
A very enjoyable read, recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine.

I absolutely love anything and everything that Lucy Parker writes and Headliners was definitely no different! This was the most enjoyable read that I absolutely flew through in just a couple of days.
I loved both Sabrina and Nick and their chemistry just about jumped off of the page. One of my favorite things about this book was that while of course there were some conflicts and roadblocks the couple had to work through, as any couple has. They worked through them together and really had faith and trust in each other as people and in their relationship. It was just so nice to see two adult characters act like adults and not make silly mistakes or have major and frustrating miscommunication.
I also really liked seeing behind the scenes at a morning tv show and how each of her books in this series show you a slightly different side to the entertainment industry.
Overall this was another amazing romance that I would definitely recommend to anyone who loves a lot of witty banter and some hate to love perfection!

How does Lucy Parker continue to deliver one fabulous book after another every year? This is her fifth book and my fifth 'A' for her. I read her first Act Like It in one sitting and laughed and laughed so much that my husband read it as well. He loved it -- one of a rare handful of romance novels he had read. Since then, he has read every one of Parker's books and can't wait to dive into this one. I can't recommend Headliners highly enough.

Two feuding work colleagues discover attraction and love. On the surface, this sounds like a common premise these days, but in Parker's hands it turns into something memorable -- an engrossing story of fascinating characters that is told in an engaging, fast-paced style and is punctuated with acerbic comments and biting witty one-liners.

For years, Sabrina Carlton and Nick Davenport have been rival presenters on the same TV network. Neither can stand the other, and the feud has involved barbs being aired about the other on their shows. The viewers have lapped it up and the numbers ratings for both shows are high.

In a moment of journalistic decision, Nick airs Sabrina's family's scandal on live TV just as it is breaking. It is an action that he feels justified in making in service of his viewers. Understandably, Sabrina feels hit over the head with brickbats just when she is feeling her lowest, and she is furious. The remarks they trade on their shows now take a turn for the nasty. In addition, Sabrina's job as the headliner of a show is now on shaky grounds thanks to the scandal.

Life: just when you seemed to be heading down a path of total bullshit, the light would return, birds would sing, and your greatest professional rival would walk the social-media plank for the viewing pleasure of over one million people.

In a moment of stupendous lunacy, Nick airs his expletive-laden unflattering views of their network chief to an unknown, silently-recording intern who promptly puts it on the internet. Nick's show is now toast.

The network is in a dilemma. In order to save face, the chief wants to sack both Nick and Sabrina, but their viewership gives him pause. So in a Machiavellian move, he decides to punish them while at the same time save the failing morning show -- he makes Nick and Sabrina cohosts. They feel it like a punch to the gut but also lucky to have a paycheck. They accept even though they want to maim the other.

The kicker in the new job is that they only have all of December up until Christmas Eve to make a success of the dying morning show otherwise they're out on their rears. Viewers start tuning in to watch their animosity played in real time now that they are pitted against each other. Initially, they are disappointed at their professional amicability. But then the viewers get a whiff of romance in the air – gasp! Sabrina and Nick are caught briefly holding hands. Nothing like a budding romance between enemies to spice things up.

There is a delicious sub-plot involving a saboteur on their show resulting in turning what-they-had-hoped would be a mature professional show into a Laurel & Hardy show. Their TV viewers -- and Parker's readers – find these mishaps highly entertaining and ratings soar. Nick and Sabrina, less so, feel like the morning show is a come down in the world of journalism from hard-hitting news, so the continuous gaffes cause them to pound their heads in embarrassment and grimly band together to unmask the culprit.

Much to their discomfort, Sabrina and Nick discover vulnerabilities in each other where before they thought the other is a hard-baked journalist who has no fucks to give. It is dizzying when the ground shifts under their years of firmly-held views, but I liked that instead of disbelieving and holding on to their past views, each is willing to give the other a second chance. For such outwardly proud adversaries, they are humble enough to acknowledge that they could be wrong about the other person.

People make mistakes all the time, and not all mistakes are irremediable. It is easy to make a snap judgment and condemn the other person for all time, but it takes courage and maturity to see the humanity in the other person. So when Nick apologizes with sincerity and humility, instead of throwing his words back in his face, Sabrina decides to trust him and believe him. She gives him a second chance, and he appreciates what a precious gift that is, and he, in turn, returns her esteem by tuning in to her emotions and thoughts and providing succor and care.

Their movement from being on opposing sides to being on the same side isn't instantaneous, but thoughtful and careful. But once they are on the same side, they are all-in -- no misunderstandings are allowed to fester, because they always look at the other in a benevolent charitable light. This to me is the hallmark of their HEA -- the ability to give the other the benefit of the doubt at all times.

It is such characterization that makes Parker's books so memorable. And unexpected sharp humor makes these moments truly shine. Parker's books are unforgettable.

<b>Disclaimer! I received this as an ARC from NetGalley, but this has in no way influenced my review. </b>

While this works fine as a standalone contemporary romance, both characters and some of the events that complicate their relationship early on are introduced in <i>The Austen Playbook</i>, which I can also heartily recommend.

To say that I was eager to get my hands on this ARC is an understatement. I renewed the site once or twice a day, checking whether I'd been granted a copy. Of course, about the point when I was starting to give up hope and stopped checking, I received an e-mail confirming I was one of the lucky ones to get this book early. Lucy Parker is one of the few authors writing, in any genre, who has the honour of being not only on my auto-buy list, but one of the few who deserves the very coveted pre-order treatment. So even before I was granted a copy of this, I had paid money for it, because all of Parker's previous four novels have proven excellent reads, and I was pretty sure this would be too.

While Sabrina and Nick may initially detest each other, they are also professionals, who do the jobs they are hired to and don't let their animosity for their closest co-worker get in the way of doing their very best. Of course, neither of them are stupid, either, and it doesn't take them long at all to figure out that there is someone trying to sabotage the show. They're unsure of whether the guilty party has it in for one or both of them, but once they join forces to try to flush the culprit out, they also end up spending a lot more time together, and all that passionate dislike starts turning into something a bit more affectionate.

For those readers who have read <i>The Austen Playbook</i>, there are cameos from Freddy, Griff, Charlie and some of the Carlton sisters' friends who we were introduced to in that book. The two sisters are still really close, and Nick's thoughtless behaviour taking advantage of the Carlton family's scandals affected both of them, and pretty much ruined his long friendship with Griff. So obviously Sabrina takes her sister's opinions into consideration when her feelings towards Nick start to change.

Sadly, there is also a re-appearance of Sabrina's douchy movie star ex-boyfriend, and I was deeply grateful that there didn't appear to be any jealousy drama to complicate the plot, and that his appearance was relatively brief. I'm a little bit worried that movie-ex is going to feature as a hero in one of Parker's future books, but at the same time, she's written enough of my keeper shelf novels by now that if that's a choice she ends up making, I will probably end up loving him as much as I do Richard, Luc, Leo, Griff and now Nick.

It was going to take a lot for me not to like this book. I've never rated a Lucy Parker novel lower than four stars, this features enemies to lovers (one of my favourite tropes), while also displaying a lot of competency porn. Both Sabrina and Nick are amazing at their jobs and work really hard for the things they've achieved. The book gives fun insight into the behind the scenes bustle of a popular talk show and there's an amusing minor subplot where both Sabrina and Nick have to scramble to secure a horrible electronic toy, the most sought after present of the Christmas season, for a child they care for.

All I can say is that if you've enjoyed any of Parker's former novels, you will absolutely like this one too and should consider pre-ordering it. I still think <i>The Austen Playbook</i> is my absolute favourite, followed by <i>Pretty Face</i> in second place, but this may edge out <i>Act Like It</i> for third (because it doesn't have that slightly shaky last act with the overly dramatic building collapse). The book will be on general release on Janurary 20th, 2020.

<b>Judging a book by its cover:</b> While I think <i>Act Like It</i> still has my absolute favourite of Lucy Parker's book covers, this comes in at a close second. There is such utter joy on both of the cover model's faces and the background and lights is magical and romantic. They seem utterly besotted with one another, which is exactly what you want from a romance cover.

For years, Sabrina and Nick, rival TV presenters, have traded barbs. The public can't get enough of their feud. But after a low blow, the gloves are off. While they can barely stand to be in the same room together, they are thrust together to become co-hosts. Add in a staff member attempting to sabotage the two. Their chemistry is explosive and the audience believes they are meant to be. This book was a sweet contemporary romance with lots of hilarious moments. I actually laughed out loud! I also really love a good enemies to lovers book.

Thanks to NetGalley and Carina Press for an advanced eARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

For years, rival TV presenters Sabrina Carlton and Nick Davenport have traded barbs on their respective shows. The public can’t get enough of their feud, but after Nick airs Sabrina’s family scandals to all of Britain, the gloves are off. They can barely be in the same room together—but these longtime enemies are about to become the unlikeliest of co-hosts.
With their reputations on the rocks, Sabrina and Nick have one last chance to save their careers. If they can resurrect a sinking morning show, they’ll still have a future in television. But with ratings at an all-time low and a Christmas Eve deadline to win back the nation’s favor, the clock is ticking—and someone on their staff doesn’t want them to succeed. With small mishaps on set start adding up, and Sabrina and Nick find themselves working together to hunt down the saboteur…and discovering they might have more in common than they thought. When a fiery encounter is caught on camera, the public is convinced that the reluctant co-hosts are secretly lusting after one another...

Lucy Parker is one of my new favorite romance writers. The fifth in the London Celebrities series follows two of the supporting characters from The Austen Playbook as they straighten out their careers, make up for past mistakes, and work towards happier relationships. Sabrina and Nick are well developed, interesting people. Highly recommended.

The London Celebrities series by Lucy Parker has consistently been one of my favorite series; the characters never fail to interest and entertain me and I just love feeling like I'm behind the scenes of broadcast or play productions. In the case of Headliners I really enjoyed the enemies to lovers tension between Sabrina and Nick. Their snark and sniping at each other was hilarious and made their falling for each other that much more fun to read. Throw in all the shenanigans happening on their live broadcast and their future contracts connected to their mutual success and I just could not get enough of them. I have no idea if there are more couples to explore in this romcom series but if this is it, sign me up for whatever Lucy Parker is writing next because I have a feeling I'll love it.

Guys, I really loved this book. I’ve read this author before and she is just such a great writer. This book checked all of my boxes! Thank you to netgalley for the ARC!

We've got enemies to lovers, London as a setting, a Christmas miracle and deadline, and an HEA. All signs to point to a perfect romance read. For a romance with traditional tropes, the story feels original. From beginning to end, it's enchanting, fun, and so damn cute.

This is one of those books where I am so incredibly torn about my rating. It’s my first time reading a book by Lucy Parker, and initially I was loving it. Enemies to lovers is my favorite trope, so I loved the tension we feel between these two, and the potential in the writing itself was definitely there. But somewhere along the way, a combination of the involvement of characters from previous books in the series and the laidback, serious tone of the writing made my enjoyment of the story diminish significantly. That initial tension faded very quickly, leaving behind a subtler, more relaxed read that still has plenty of merit - it’s just not what I was looking for.

The story follows Sabrina and Nick, two nighttime TV hosts whose images have both become tarnished recently. Their careers are in jeopardy, and things have deteriorated so much that they’re being given one last chance as morning show hosts during the month leading up to Christmas. Though these two have never gotten along, things took a turn for the terrible when Nick threw Sabrina’s whole family into the public eye, so working together comes with its own set of challenges. When things start falling apart with the show, they find themselves leaning on each other and digging beneath the surface to find the potential beneath all the regret.

I will say that I really loved the intimacy that developed between these two. It’s one of the more realistic and adult relationships I’ve seen portrayed in books, with difficult conversations and a romance that develops along the way. The writing itself is so unique, and while I found it to be a little drawn out (and ultimately somewhat boring), I think there’s a whole lot of potential there. If you like a quieter, more serious romance then you’ll probably enjoy this more than I did - it just isn’t quite my style. I also think reading the books in order is somewhat important, because there were a lot of characters in play. So, while this didn’t work for me on all levels, I also think a lot of people will love it. I received an ARC via NetGalley and am voluntarily leaving a review.

I received a complimentary ARC of this book from Netgalley but all opinions provided are my own.

This is one of those books that I want all of my friends to read, because it’s so wonderful and I know you all will love it. (Please do what I ask; it’s for your own good.)

Okay, now that that’s out of the way.

I’ve loved Lucy Parker’s books since I first read the sensational opposites-attract romance Act Like It, and I think that Headliners is my favorite of a truly special series. Featuring long-standing professional rivals whose relationship has recently turned even more nasty, Headliners sucked me in with its glares and insults and caustic chemistry and then it slowly turned as sweet (and necessary to my happiness) as sugar. For much of the book I was a pile of goo.

In the previous book in the series, The Austen Playbook, journalist Nick Davenport reveals a huge scoop that just so happens to drag his reporter-nemesis Sabrina Carlton’s family through the mud and casts aspersions on her character. It’s the lowest moment for him personally, even if it does temporarily give him the career boost he wanted.

Now, in Headliners, Nick’s career’s in trouble, and the only way he can save it is by teaming up with Sabrina, who, thanks to Nick’s earlier scoop, needs her own success story. The struggling morning show they’re tasked with running is the only thing keeping them both professionally afloat, which is really unfortunate since they can’t stand each other and there’s quite a lot of bad blood between them (and not in a cute Taylor Swift song kind of way).

There’s so much about Parker’s writing, and Headliners in particular, that stands out to me—even in the sea of really well-written contemporaries I’ve read this year—but I think what it really comes down to is that Parker’s romances feel believable. The pacing is marvelously done: each moment of vulnerability feels like it’s leading convincingly to a future HEA, even if the protagonists started out as the most bitter of enemies at the beginning of the book. Even if one of them, *cough Nick cough* did something pretty bad that he’s now ashamed of.

It feels like Parker's characters make genuine connections through touch, potentially awkward situations, and difficult conversations, and you can see them fall in love as it happens (even if the characters themselves are less than aware). There’s no moment of doubt for me—no wondering if the characters actually know each other even as they proclaim their love. Just the sense that two flawed and yet lovely people have found their person and they’re fantastically well-matched.

I love Sabrina and Nick together--and also Freddy and Griff, the protagonists of The Austen Playbook who return in Headliners and are as cute as ever *bops them all on the nose*.

Headliners is all so good: warm and witty and told in Parker’s distinctive fashion, and I loved every word of it.

5 ⭐️

I liked this book well enough. Lucy Parker is a new to me author, and I will probably read more by her. I liked the characters, and enjoyed the love story, but I found it a little slow-moving. I did like that it was somewhat Christmas themed, though. 3 - 3.5 stars.

I haven't read the book before this one but I was intrigued by the premise of this book, and the cover. I wasn't lost at all since the reason for Sabrina and Nick's strained relationship was explained in this one.

I'm always a sucker for enemies to lovers trope and here we have co-workers who don't like each other and are forced to work together, a great set up! This worked really well here, add in some on set mishaps lol and I enjoyed this.

I will say I was iffy about this one initially because the author is white and Nick is black, and while I enjoyed Nick's character, I will say I was a bit iffy on him not having any friends who were black or of colour??? The closest person to him, who was a POC / black was his mother. I wasn't quite sure if his ex-wife Tia was a person of colour, I don't recall if it was stated? Either way why does Nick have zero friends who are black / poc? Seems odd.

I did love that Nick fell first, realized he was in love first, then Sabrina after a while and eventually at the end they both say it. Love when the hero falls first. And I must say the sex scenes in this were portrayed as steamy and intimate. Even before they ever kissed, their chemistry was so obvious.

I'm also intrigued by Nick's step-brother though, so i'm hoping he gets a book too.

Enjoyed this for the most part.

This book was delightful. I was not a fan of Parker’s last few books but Headliners is a home run. Nick and Sabrina are rival newscasters with faltering careers. Sabrina has particular reasons to dislike Nick, as he’s previously reported on her family in a hurtful manner. The books starts with them thrown together to head up a failing morning show, with their mutual antipathy turning out to be a thin veneer over attraction. With their viewers watching their every move and waiting for them to kill one another—or kiss—the professional stakes are high.

Headliners captures the heady feeling of falling in love perfectly, and Sabrina and Nick are adorable together. Parker’s books often play with power gaps, but these two are equally matched. I don’t usually enjoy enemies to lovers stories but this made me appreciate why this trope is so popular. The emotional tension between them was delicious. I think it helps that they are forced to cooperatively work towards the same goal and have a great deal of professional respect for one another. Nick clearly liked and was impressed with Sabrina from the very beginning of the book, so I didn’t have to deal with a moment of him being cruel or dismissive. Their period of direct competition is mostly in the past which allowed me to enjoy the lingering tension of years of them hating one another...without watching them metophorically trying to destroy one another and wondering which one of them will lose.

I thought the representation of Nick was generally handled exceptionally well. For example, I appreciated the lack of othering descriptions of his hair, skin and cultural background. However, I found it strange that he had no close relationships with people of color, other than his mother. All of his friends (and stepfamily) are white. When I read books with white/POC interracial relationships, they always feel much healthier when the person clearly has a strong network of friends and family of color. Nick seems to be written to make him surrounded by whiteness, either as an oversight or for palatability to white readers. For a man who’d grown up in multicultural London, I found it off-putting that he lacked a Desi mate or black women friend.

There’s also a minor mystery, but the perpetrator is obvious early in the book, although it takes our heroes ages to figure it out.

Overall though, I found Headliners totally absorbing. And a primer on winning over a woman: from comforting touches, to excellent consent rep, to proactively picking up period supplies.

I received an ARC from netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

The fifth book in Lucy Parker's London Celebrities series may not have displaced Pretty Face for my personal favorite, but I did have a big smile on my face the entire time I read this one. One of the recurring themes is that the main characters, celebrity journalists Sabrina Carleton and Nick Davenport, have magic when they are together, regardless of whether they are antagonists, co-workers, or lovers. I felt absolutely convinced of their chemistry, on and off screen, and that's despite everyone in their lives pointing it out to them at every opportunity. As astute TV personalities, they are frustratingly aware that chemistry is nothing to brush aside.

At the start of the novel, Sabrina and Nick are respectively chastised in HR for bad professional behavior (some of this is spillover from the fourth book in the series) and subsequently demoted to morning rather than evening news. They are given the entire month of December to work together as a team and bring up the ratings on Wake Me Up London, a folksy, morning magazine type show filled with human-interest stories. Reluctantly agreeing, and being competitive pros, they are determined to succeed, and in the process, rescue their flailing careers. As far as forced proximity tropes, the set up here is one of the best I've read, and I loved the countdown to Christmas as the culture of a morning talk show slowly takes over their lives. The book has a number of laugh out loud moments with two serious journalists thrust into ridiculous scenarios involving baking on set, test driving some truly bizarre Christmas toys, interviewing London locals in silly settings like a row boat on the Thames, or cosplaying on the Murder Train. There are too many scenarios to name here, but all of them are highly entertaining on their own merits, and each successive one forces Sabrina and Nick to confront the feelings they have long had for each other. There is also a subplot involving a mysterious person trying to sabotage their collaboration, and it is fun to try along with the couple to determine who is out to get them.

One of the few drawbacks (maybe?) to the enemies-to-lovers theme here though is that I did at times wish for a peek into some moments of antagonism prior to the start of the novel; we are told they are two big personalities with a great deal of friction between them. We don't really ever actually see them as enemies in this book though, and once Sabrina and Nick set off on their joint venture to save the morning show, they quickly come to an agreement to set aside past strife and work together as harmoniously as possible. I think a book like <i>The Hating Game</i> handled the co-worker’s enemies-to-lovers theme especially well because we get a bit of time with the couples' juvenile hostility before romance inevitably takes over, and I couldn't help but wonder if such a set up would have worked well here too. On the other hand, we instead get so many lovely scenes of the two characters sincerely trying to work together as adults, and it's clear pretty early that chemistry is a facade for deeper feelings. Also, Nick realizes he's in love early in the book and is honest with himself, and so this is a book that really stands out to me with respect to mature characters who work through their difficulties. Any time I felt anxious that misunderstandings or conflict would create obstacles, I was pleasantly surprised by Parker's insistence that respect and maturity are foundations for love.

There is here a slightly underdeveloped examination of journalism that I found curious, though I'm not quite willing to call it a flaw in the book. Nick comes to the morning show with a strong background in hardcore journalism and a professional goal of making a name for himself in this field. The novel though is fairly apolitical and never ventures far into contentious issues, and there is not that much scrutiny of the ultimate decision Nick needs to make whether to stay in morning versus night time news. Along these lines, it's pretty much un-examined in this book that Nick is black and Sabrina is white. I don't know if that is a flaw in the book either, as interracial relationships have been a matter-of-fact focus of other Parker novels. Maybe interracial relationships should be unremarked upon, even in such racially charged times as we currently live. I’m genuinely divided on this topic. To complicate the racial dynamics, both main characters are celebrities, and so neither are simply ordinary people. Nick, in fact, is one of London's sexiest bachelors and even has a FB page devoted to “Nick's Chicks,” for which Sabrina relentlessly mocks him. Does all of that negate the racial histories and identities of his character? Maybe it doesn’t matter because I fully bought into the romance between Sabrina and Nick, but in some ways the book feels like a fairy tale of a world where macro conflict, including racial unrest, do not exist.

As with all of Parker's books, I simply adore the focus on the arts and the culture of city life. I think too that a shift from theater to television worked very well here as the London Celebrities series continues to broaden its scope. I think the hero of the next book is present and quite active in this story, and if it is who I think it is, I'm excited to read his book. I love Allen the Yorkshire terrier - how adorable is it that he is Nick's darling little baby. I loved the many secondary characters who populate this world, and I enjoyed reconnecting with past main characters from the previous books in this series. Parker never fails to entertain, and this fifth book is as romantic and charming as all of the books in this wonderful series. Highly recommend!

I adore Lucy Parker’s books. Several are among my favourite contemporary romance books of all time, and this was a strong delivery.

This book is somewhat of a continuation of the previous in the series, The Austen Playbook>, and it doesn’t work great as a stand-alone – but it works. The main lead, Nick Davenport did something pretty bad in the last book, but I knew LP would find a way to make me like him. I just wasn’t sure how.

Although I do feel LP writes men the way she wants them to behave, rather than the reality, I don’t mind. I don’t read these books for that. Then again, she lifts conversation to a mature and adult level, which a lot of romance books fail to do.

I loved the change in scenery (sort of) from theatre to television, and I loved that we got to briefly catch up with characters from book 1 and 4.

Like most of her books (if not all so far), there are major parental issues for all the main characters that has left them all a bit wounded, battered and in need of some attention, love, tenderness and comfort. And Lucy Parker combines those ingredients SO well.

The only negative is that I find there to be too many unnecessary characters and biplots, which at times can make me feel as exhausted as her characters often do.