It’s summer 1976; London is languishing in the sultry heat. Beautiful and talented nineteen-year-old, Alice Abbott, arrives in the city with high hopes of one day seeing her name up in lights but first she must impress Richard, the producer of a new West End show, Theatreland.
Alice is befriended at the audition by the more experienced Gina, who, although burdened by her own dark secrets, is determined to protect the newcomer from the sleaze behind the glamour. She also attracts attention from the male lead in the show, Peter, a former pop star struggling to escape his playboy reputation.
Alice’s star seems to be rising as fast as the temperature until she naively accepts an impromptu dinner invitation from Richard. What happened that night? And how far will Richard go to protect his guilty secret?
Guest Post
Thanks very much Jo for inviting me on to your blog to talk about my latest novel Alice in Theatreland, which is set in the West End theatre world of London in 1976.
From the audience point of view, stage productions are all glitz and glamour but the reality on the other side of the footlights can be far from the polished productions we all applaud particularly when there is a despicable impresario like Richard involved.
Richard, who we meet in chapter two, is the main villain of the piece, cruel and thoughtless to his wife, Anita, and harbouring a secret desire for innocent young dancers, but there are a few other seriously unpleasant characters.
In the excerpt below, we meet Franco who is the boss of a 'hostess' club, The Ostrich, where Alice's new found friend, Gina, is working while also rehearsing for Theatreland. Gina believes Franco may have mafia connections and is justifiably afraid of him...
I hope that you have enjoyed the excerpt and that you will enjoy reading about all the characters (there are some nice ones too) as much as I enjoyed writing about them.
Excerpt
‘My office. Now.’
Gina’s head shot upright from the position where her chin had been resting on her chest. Franco was towering above her, his face like thunder and the podgy, balding American, whose business selling greetings cards had made him a millionaire but not a very interesting one, was drumming his fingers in an aggravated manner on the table. As Gina eased out of the private booth, she could hear Franco apologising profusely and offering the customer a bottle of Moet on the house.
Shit, Gina thought, I’m for it now. Momentarily she debated whether or not to make a run for it but what would be the point? Franco knew where she lived and he would have no hesitation in sending the boys round to rough her up a little. Imagine if I turned up to rehearsals tomorrow with a black eye or worse, she thought.
Four and a half weeks of burning the candle at both ends had finally caught up with Gina. She was up each morning at 7.30 to get to rehearsals for 9, getting home at 7 for a couple of hours sleep before cabbing it in to the Ostrich Club for 10.30. Even on quiet nights she wasn’t allowed to leave until half past two, which meant crawling in to bed an hour later for four hours sleep before the whole routine started over.
It was little wonder that she had dozed off as the boring American droned on and on about the global expansion of his company meaning he was constantly travelling away from his wife and family. Earlier in the evening, he had shown her a photo of his wife wearing a swimming costume, crown and a sash with the words Miss Idaho on it. Apparently, that was how they had met. As a successful local businessman, he had been one of the judges in the beauty pageant and the newly-crowned Miss Idaho, who must have been thirty years his junior, had fallen head over heels with the dashing and scintillating Mr “Cards R Us”. It clearly had nothing to do with his millions of dollars, Gina thought, as she perched on the edge of her chair waiting for Franco to finish trying to sort out the mess she had caused.
‘You’ll pay for that bottle of Moet out of your wages,’ Franco said from behind her, his voice laced with ice. ‘I don’t know what’s been wrong with you this past couple of weeks, Gina. You used to be one of my best girls but carry on like this and I’ll have to get rid of you.’
Gina sat perfectly still, not daring to even blink. What did he mean by “get rid of you”? she wondered.
Julia Roberts’ passion for writing began when, at the age of ten, after winning second prize in a short story-writing competition, she announced that she wanted to write a book. After a small gap of forty-seven years, and a career in the entertainment industry, Julia finally fulfilled her dream in 2013 when her first book, a memoir entitled One Hundred Lengths of the Pool, was published by Preface Publishing. Two weeks later she had the idea for her first novel, Life’s a Beach and Then…, book one in the Liberty Sands Trilogy, which was released in May 2015.
Julia still works full-time as a Presenter for the TV channel QVC, where she has recently celebrated her twenty-third anniversary.
She now lives in Ascot with her partner of thirty-nine years and occasionally one or other of her adult children and their respective cats.
You can find out more about Julia and her upcoming books on her Facebook page www.facebook.com/JuliaRobertsTV and her website www.juliarobertsauthor.com
You can also follow her on Twitter @JuliaRobertsTV
By Julia Roberts
Life’s a Beach and Then… (Liberty Sands trilogy, book one)
If He Really Loved Me… (Liberty Sands trilogy, book two)
It’s Never Too Late to Say… (Liberty Sands trilogy, book three)
Time for a Short Story
The Shadow of Her Smile (free short story on www.juliarobertsauthor.com)
One Hundred Lengths of the Pool
Links
Amazon
short link
No comments:
Post a Comment