Starstruck (Carla Laureano) – Review

Posted 3 November 2018 by Katie in Contemporary, Inspirational Fiction, New Releases, Novella, Review, Romance / 3 Comments

~ About the Book ~

Novelist Christine Lind has achieved her lifelong dream—a string of best-selling books and a cable-TV adaptation about to go into production. But on her way to London FanFest for the cast reveal, disaster strikes: their leading man is injured in a motorcycle accident… and his replacement is the one person she hoped she’d never seen again.
Nick Cleary has clawed his way to recognition as a Hollywood actor, but it’s long past time he get the chance to show he’s more than a pretty face and a chiseled set of abs. His big break comes in the form of a juicy lead role in a new steampunk fantasy series. There’s just one catch—casting has to be approved by the author… a woman he once devastated through his own youthful stupidity.
Christine is the last person to be starstruck by the handsome heartthrob, but as the clock ticks down to the cast announcement and Nick races to show that he’s really changed, she begins to wonder if there’s more to her ex than his Hollywood persona. Except now the consequences of being wrong no longer apply only to her career… but also to her carefully guarded heart.
Genre:  Contemporary Romance
Series: #2 Discovered by Love (stand-alone)
Release date:  1 November 2018
Pages:  133
Publisher:  Laureano Creative Media

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~ Excerpt ~

Maybe she wasn’t being fair to Nick. She claimed her bias against him was based on his acting ability, but that wasn’t true. Nick was an excellent actor. He had always been. It wasn’t his fault that his roles so far required more looks than talent. Look at Brad Pitt. He’d gone from hunky eye-candy to Oscar winner in a handful of years.
The fact was, Nick was perfect for Jackson. She had written it with him in mind, first when she had been so in love with him that her enthusiasm spilled out onto the page, unbidden; later as she tried to redeem the character through hard lessons. She could admit that she had taken a twisted kind of delight in the torture she’d devised for Jackson in the later books.
So yeah, maybe she was letting her personal feelings interfere with her judgment.
And yet the idea of having to word with Nick, see him on a regular basis, made her feel a little ill. Or maybe that quiver in her stomach was an entirely different kind of sensation. She didn’t want to examine that too closely.

~ Review ~

If you’re looking for a quick, fun romance read, this is your ticket. Nick and Christine have chemistry aplenty, supercharged by the tension that remains between them after the way they separated several years ago. But chemistry isn’t the be-all and end-all in a relationship, and there’s some great depth to this story too, short though it is, as they consider where things went wrong for them before. Well, apart from the obvious: “that TV interview”.
Nick accepts responsibility for “being a moron” and is keen to show Christine not only that he’s changed but that he’s the right person to play her hero, Jackson Landry. And it seems no demand Christine levels at him is too outlandish! Christine, meanwhile, is forced to look deeper inside herself, beneath the sultry steam-punk public image she has crafted to the bookish sweatshirt-loving introvert she really is. Is her carefully crafted image just good PR, or is there more to it than that?
If I was going to level any complaint at this story, it would be that the climax and resolution felt a little rushed, but that didn’t stop it from being just the pick-me-up read I needed. Fun, engaging, satisfying, and perfect for a quick read.
I purchased my own copy of this book. This review is my honest and unbiased opinion.

~ About the Author ~

Carla Laureano is the RITA^® Award-winning author of contemporary inspirational romance and Celtic fantasy (as C.E. Laureano). A graduate of Pepperdine University, she worked as a sales and marketing executive for nearly a decade before leaving corporate life behind to write fiction full-time. She currently lives in Denver with her husband and two sons, where she writes during the day and cooks things at night.