Star Crossed, a steamy and unforgettable second chance romance set in the flashing lights of Hollywood by New York Times bestselling author C.D. Reiss, is out now!
Michael Graydon has it all - looks, fame, and a couple of Oscars.
Does he see me in the crowd of paparazzi?
Does he know I sell pictures of him to the tabloids as if money could ever erase the feel of his lips on me?
Does he think I forgot the way he broke my heart?
Or does he know that I’ve ruined everything I’ve ever loved?
*
We were seventeen when I left, and I never forgot Laine. Not for one minute.
Since that day I’ve measured all women against her and every one of them has come up short.
We're in the same town, on the same block, in the same building, and the gulf between us is just too wide to cross.
Until I stop running from trouble long enough to throw her camera off a balcony.
She’s a career-killer. A PR disaster.
Loving her again is career suicide, and I don’t care.
This time, I’m running toward her, even if it ruins me.
** Star Crossed was previously released as Shuttergirl, and includes a brand new epilogue and previously unpublished, totally swoon-worthy and emotional new scenes.
Download your copy today or read FREE in Kindle Unlimited!
Amazon: https://amzn.to/39HUsCe
Amazon Worldwide: http://mybook.to/starcrosscd
Add STAR CROSSED to Goodreads: https://bit.ly/3aKjFgH
About CD Reiss
CD Reiss is a New York Times bestseller. She still has to chop wood and carry water, which was buried in the fine print. Her lawyer is working it out with God but in the meantime, if you call and she doesn't pick up she's at the well hauling buckets.
Born in New York City, she moved to Hollywood, California to get her master's degree in screenwriting from USC. In case you want to know, that went nowhere but it did give her a big enough ego to write novels.
She's frequently referred to as the Shakespeare of Smut which is flattering but hasn't ever gotten her out of chopping that cord of wood.
If you meet her in person, you should call her Christine.
Connect with Christine
Amazon: http://amzn.to/2iwpkPQ
Bookbub: http://bit.ly/37rKgNO
Facebook: http://bit.ly/2RoX1TL
Twitter: https://twitter.com/cdreisswriter
Instagram: http://bit.ly/2ROqFkn
Website: www.cdreiss.com
Stay up to date with Christine by joining her mailing list: http://bit.ly/2NVIehg
Sign up to hear exclusively about audio releases and sales: https://cdreiss.com/AudioAlerts
For Text Alerts: TEXT “CDREISS” to 77948 *standard text messaging rates apply*
Maturity of senses is the hardest thing to achieve.
I have this annoying habit (I don't think so ,but others day I do*eyeroll* ) of starting book and updating my friends of my progress in my book group. After every chapter they either hear me ranting or Bawling. The best books I've read get some moments where I read something so profound that I have to shut the book and either stare at the wall or rush to the author's page and tell her - your words moved me !! The number of these moments determine the number of stars I give the book. I know It's childish, but I'm childlike whenever I open new book.
my first book by Christine . She graciously picked me a winner for this paperback. After 5 chapters, I was ready to abandon ship.
What language does she write in !
What's her lingo!
She speaks and writes rapid - Fire. And her metaphors ...ugh !!
"A 16 year old with long mousey hair and eyes as grey as old coins at the bottom of the purse"
Seriously ! Not thunderous or stormy or clouded . .nope. I've never heard that unbecoming metaphor in my life. Makes me visualise an old , withered , battered lady rather than a 16 year old girl. So I did what I did best- I ranted. But then I reread the line and when you abandon your ego at the start of a book and go BEHIND the words , do you get to experience the beauty of the emotion or feeling that the writer is trying to convey. The 16 year old girl is Laine Cartwright who's a foster home jumper. To experience belonging and love , she makes a hazardous choice of bunking with a drug dealer - Jake the Pillow Snake, a foster stepsibling and his cronies , Foo Foo the Snoo. Just so , she could feel wanted. They abuse her everyday, multiple times, multiple people . Enough to screw her mind shut to the beauty and love in this world. She meets Michael Greydon at Breakfront school. He's a tennis enthusiast and practices in court while she sits on the Bleachers every day , trying to catch up with her studies. Some kind of connection develops but since they're too young, their life takes them in opposite directions, killing thier budding love right there. Michael moves to Stardom and Laine moves to Jake & Co. Tom thrusts the reality in her face and bitchslaps her senses and rescues her . She moves ahead with the help of Irving and becomes a photographer to the celebrities , aka Paparazza !
This couldn't have been more bizarre or serendipitous , depends on which way you look at it, two aching souls separated by a velvet rope. Sometimes it takes a lifetime to cover the distance of two steps, or over the velvet rope. Laine and Michael meet at a party and try and pick up where they left off. It's not easy. These are two completely different strata of celebrity world and shouldn't meet...ever . Let alone be bedfellows !
but love happens and how !
If she looks at Michael alone, he's just a boy Laine wants to love, but it's the excess baggage of stardom and drunk father , who needs this picture to make a comeback, a cold and distant mother.... that surrounds them that makes their path littered with obstacles. Add to it Laine 's dark secret that threatens to explode every bit of success Michael has worked for, every shred of respect she has earned in Pap world, Gareth dying career and health . But they try and work it out.
As Fate would have it- secret is reveled, world explodes, careers are ruined. For all !
Gareth 's liver collapses and Laine visits the hospital. I mention this scene because , Firstly christine writes a brilliant line -
Secondly , Laine meets Brooke , Michaels mother , now it's a very subtle scene. Laine has always fangirled over Brooke, she's a Goddess and her admiration for Brooke is coming to fruition here. She hugging her !!! It's an OMG moment for her. A person she's admired, looked up to all her life is hugging HER , a nondescript foster child, throwaway kid who stands nowhere in this world except the city backstreets and clubs driveways , is stroking her back warmly. It brings tears to her eyes. But it's Brooke's response ,
It's brutal in its honesty and stark and raw in its flavour .
I detect no malice from Brooke's end but the way it effects Laine, could well be a slap in her face , hard enough to rouse her from her rose tinted dream of a fairytale. They might as well be a step apart... a city apart ....or a world part , separated only by a velvet rope ! ( ok..a major cry-fest happening here )
The fog lifts and Laine sees clearly that despite love that they obviously have, Laine is dragging Michel down the hill with her to her underbelly of the city ! He's supposed to uplift her, swoop her away in his arms and be her Knight in Shining Armour....right? .....WRONG!
He's hanging off of a precipice here too.he wants to save her, but doesn't know how . Brooke stands in front of Laine as a symbol of everything she wants and can't have - Acceptance from the society that she and throwaway kids like her matter and are accepted. Their existence is acknowledged .
This scene has another vantage point too - Lucy. She's been a mean insecure, confused teen from High School who stuffed fivers in Laine's bra, just so she could feel superior , now has grown up to be a good friend of Michael and helps Laine to get to the hospital. Her crossing over to the other side shows that all is not what it seems and prejudices are just grey glasses you wear when you don't want to face the truth. Laine has always been jealous of Lucy because she was closer to Michael in her standing, wealth and upbringing. But she has matured enough to realise that her friendship for Michael is beyond petty feminine wiles. Here's where christine excelled, she created mature characters. Not your shy, docile, virginal sex pot, who orgasms on command by a growling "come"!!
Or a closed up alpha Faux- Dom, yet mouths Shakespearean monologues of true love OR growls you are mine ,On the very first meet. Nowhere is billionaire /Dom/Rocker/wrestler who right the wrongs with a click of their fingers . There's no evil twatwaffle lurking around who wanna mess up a perfectly smooth sailing love story - Just Because !
No ! . The characters are flawed, trapped in their obligations, tied up to thier commitments and pulled in opposite directions.
The city Laine thinks she owns, turns out to be her nemesis. She's trapped here while Michael is brave enough to escape , is a defining moment that ends up with Laine tearing up the map of her city- Los Angeles From the wall in tatters. Michael was back in her city and hadn't contacted her , her city was hollow and fake and useless without him. Very beautiful , cathartic scene.
The epiphany she has while walking down a fire escape - that it didn't matter what anyone thought of her. She was not a two dimensional , black-and-white photo , but a woman , in full colour, who moved in time and space, who had relationships, a sense of humour, a past and future. !!
A defining moment and you see a mind maturing right there !
that brings me last to the 5th moment if shut-the-book-and-stare-at-the-wall moment. The scene at the Oscars .
No lengthy speech of undying love or confessed guilt . Just simple-
I think I ran faster than Laine and climbed up ahead of her. And they kiss and sit with his arm around her, staring at their city- Los Angeles. Swooooooooooooonthump !!
The city is one major character in the story. It holds secrets, it divides people into groups and layers them into strata, their hierchy defined by their success. Either you're in bright lights of the strobes or on the sidelines, hiding behind bushes, your faces covered by cameras, making you anonymous lurkers . The underbelly and celebraties on two sides of the world - separated by a velvet rope *sniff*
5 shiny stars
No comments:
Post a Comment