#Review: There She Goes by Lynne Shelby @LynneB1 @AccentPress #blogtour #newrelease #romance

It’s such a pleasure today to be joining the blog tour for There She Goes by Lynne Shelby, published by Accent Press on 6th June, and available for kindle and in paperback. My thanks to the author and publisher for my advance reading e-copy.

I so enjoyed Lynne’s last book, The One That I Want (you’ll find my review here), and when I picked this book up on a wet and gloomy afternoon I was rather looking forward to a little glitz and glamour on my return to theatreland. And I certainly wasn’t disappointed in any way – what a thoroughly lovely read this was…

When aspiring actress Julie Farrell meets actor Zac Diaz, she is instantly attracted to him, but he shows no interest in her. Julie, who has yet to land her first professional acting role, can t help wishing that her life was more like a musical, and that she could meet a handsome man who d sweep her into his arms and tap-dance her along the street…

After early success on the stage, Zac has spent the last three years in Hollywood, but has failed to forge a film career. Now back in London, he is determined to re-establish himself as a theatre actor. Focused solely on his work, he has no time for distractions, and certainly no intention of getting entangled in a committed relationship…

Auditioning for a new West End show, Julie and Zac act out a love scene, but will they ever share more than a stage kiss?

You really can’t fault that cover, can you? Those colours, the lighting, the figure in the foreground – and a similar look to the cover of the last book that I remembered enjoying so much. I knew I was going to love this one before reading the first page…

Waiting for her big break, Julie pounds the streets distributing night club flyers to make ends meet, along with a lot of other stars in waiting – but she dreams of a lucky break, and the role of her dreams on the West End musical theatre stage. And this book takes you very realistically into the world of auditions, the hard work and the excitement, the competition and the camaraderie, the repeated disappointment for so many, the abrupt dismissals, the agonising waits for a callback – and I loved every moment, on the edge of my seat with its characters as they waited to discover their fate.

As well as all that, there’s a really perfect love story – two characters who are totally made for each other, but there are a few intriguing secrets that lurk beneath the surface and could threaten the happy ending you really, really want. And while Julie and Zac are the focus for the story, there’s a really intriguing supporting cast – wonderful supportive friendships, more than a few complications, a bit of nasty skullduggery, relationships both new and faltering, some difficult decisions to be made. A few of those supporting characters are familiar from the first book, and I thought that was a rather nice touch – but nothing to worry about if this is the first of the author’s books you read, this isn’t a sequel and its story is complete within its covers.

The story is just wonderful – this was a book I entirely escaped into for an afternoon – and the way the author creates the world her characters inhabit is just sensational, and so very real. My knowledge of auditions and casting is drawn entirely from a mis-spent youth watching the kids from Fame, and this book rekindled every emotion I remember feeling, every moment of joy and agony, as I willed on its characters to get the opportunities they so thoroughly deserved. It really was sheer enjoyment from beginning to end – I loved this book!

About the author

Lynne Shelby writes contemporary women’s fiction/romance. Her debut novel, French Kissing won the Accent Press and Woman magazine Writing Competition. She has done a variety of jobs from stable girl to child actor’s chaperone to legal administrator, but now writes full time. When not writing or reading, Lynne can usually be found at the theatre or exploring a foreign city – Paris, New York, Rome, Copenhagen, Seattle, Reykjavik – writer’s notebook, camera and sketchbook in hand. She lives in London with her husband, and has three adult children who live nearby.

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