Act Like It
by Lucy Parker
Series: London Celebrities #1
Published by Harlequin, Carina Press on November 30th 2015
Genres: Contemporary, Romance
Point of View:Alternating First Person
Pages: 199
Format: eBook
Source: Purchased
Add It: Goodreads

This just in: romance takes center stage as West End theatre's Richard Troy steps out with none other than castmate Elaine Graham

Richard Troy used to be the hottest actor in London, but the only thing firing up lately is his temper. We all love to love a bad boy, but Richard's antics have made him Enemy Number One, breaking the hearts of fans across the city.

Have the tides turned? Has English rose Lainie Graham made him into a new man?

Sources say the mismatched pair has been spotted at multiple events, arm in arm and hip to hip. From fits of jealousy to longing looks and heated whispers, onlookers are stunned by this blooming romance.

Could the rumors be right? Could this unlikely romance be the real thing? Or are these gifted stage actors playing us all?

I’m struggling to get my life together this month. I had all of these grand plans of all of the books that I was going to read and I didn’t do anything or read much of anything. February’s prompt for the 2017 TBR Reading Challenge was to read a new to me author. Boy was I lucky when Bookish Ames pointed out that I did read a book that fulfilled that prompt. I hadn’t realized. Duh.

I’ve been wanting to read Lucy Parker ever since she came onto my radar. I’ve been seeing so many of my favorite book bloggers singing her praises and I knew that she was going to be an author that I enjoyed so when I opened up Act Like It, I was ready to be impressed…and I was.

Richard Troy is a bastard. He takes no shit from anyone and he doesn’t mince words. He doesn’t tolerate dumbasses and he makes no apologies for who he is. Normally, he wouldn’t care what the tabloids but his bosses on the play he’s working on do and before he knows what’s what, he’s in a fake relationship with his co-star Lainey Graham. The plan is for her to use her good press and big heart to soften his reputation.

Lainey Graham is being forced to play girlfriend to another asshole that she works with and she’s pretty much had it with asshole coworkers being her boyfriends. She just got out of a relationship with the other leading guy in the play and that didn’t end well because the asshole broke up with her by using the tabloids to tell her he’s moved on to someone else. Someone that he was seeing while they were still together. She may not be happy about playing the girlfriend to another castmate but she’ll do it because her bosses want her to.

What started off as something that neither of them wanted begins to change into something they weren’t expecting at all and boy was I here for all of it. I enjoyed getting to know both Richard’s grumpy ass and Lainey’s too nice for her own good self. They were fantastic characters that I just fell in with. The beginning was a little slow but not enough to put me off. I’m glad that I pushed through because these two became such dear characters to me.

Richard was a total asshole and he said and did things that I would never do myself but for some reason, it worked for me. I loved him through all of her assholey behavior. I loved seeing him fall in love with Lainey because even though he softened some, he was still the same asshole we met and fell in love with anyway. Kudos to Parker for making us fall in love with the asshole and not changing the asshole into a sap. That was great.

Lainey was fun to get to know. I love how aggravated she would get with Richard because he was such a jerk. I loved seeing her with her bestie and I liked that she had a life outside of work. I loved when she tries to fix things between Richard and her when she messes up because it really showed how much she cared and really, it just showed the kind of person that she was.

All in all, this was a great first read by an author that I will definitely be reading more from. I definitely recommend Richard and Lainey’s love story. It’s a good one.

4 out of 5