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It's not actress Lily Lamprey's fault that she's all curves and has the kind of voice that can fog up a camera lens. She wants to prove where her real talents lie—and that's not on a casting couch, thank you. When she hears esteemed director Luc Savage is renovating a legendary West End theater for a lofty new production, she knows it could be her chance—if only Luc wasn't so dictatorial, so bad-tempered and so incredibly sexy.

Luc Savage has respect, integrity and experience. He also has it bad for Lily. He'd be willing to dismiss it as a midlife crisis, but this exasperating, irresistible woman is actually a very talented actress. Unfortunately, their romance is not only raising questions about Lily's suddenly rising career, it's threatening Luc's professional reputation. The course of true love never did run smooth. But if they're not careful, it could bring down the curtain on both their careers…

Lucy Parker’s ‘London Celebrities’ is a rather unique series I think; there’s nothing quite like what I’ve gone through in my years of reading romance and I do like the premise that each story is based on. Revolving around the tv or theatre scene and written with startling and subtle acerbic humour at times, Parker brings together characters that stand out because of their (either revolting or outstanding) actions or their circumstances.

In this case, Luc Savage and Lily Lamprey clash when the latter is ‘forced’ cast in Luc’s latest production. The former is a stern, no-nonsense, work-first acclaimed director and the latter, often mistaken for her tv persona, is hopefully not just a pretty face with a penchant for stealing men under people’s noses and a voice that makes people cringe or get aroused. Stereotypes are par for the course at the start and insults are freely flung, but if this was going to be a falling-for-the-boss-type story, Parker injects so much more into this relationship than I could ever imagine.

The slow burn of ‘Pretty Face’ made this trundle along at times; Luc/Lily’s relationship slid along into something more congenial past their fractious meeting but I was still squinting to see their chemistry and heat by the time they kissed, much less when they fell into bed. There was plenty of drama that advanced the plot and how Luc and Lily soon became integral to each other’s lives, but much of it still felt like a lot of hand-wringing and indecision for both. In other words, I’d was hoping that their attraction was written more overtly, and their need for each other more obviously—and more shown rather than told through inner monologues.

The book’s last quarter was arguably the best bit, when push came to shove as their relationship was put through a test I wasn’t sure both could recover from, yet Parker’s resolution of it was satisfying, more so because of the maturity she injects into her characters. The charm of this grew on me as the story wore on as well, and by the time this ended, I was wanting more of Luc and Lily.