My edition: ebook, published on 15th November 2013 by Novelicious Books, 101 pages.Description: Lucy Tilley dreams of a career in show business. But this isn't quite what she had in mind...
This year's Cinderella pantomime is the hottest production in town. What's more, Lucy is starring alongside Ryan Aspall: famous TV actor, sex symbol and potential love of her entire life. One teeny problem - Lucy is tripping the light fantastic as... the back end of the comedy cow. Surely nothing kills a flirty moment quite like wearing a massive set of udders?
At least she has the support of glamorous (if potentially flammable) Charmaine; a reality star diva of a Cinderella, who Lucy is completely fascinated by. But behind the fame and beauty, Charmaine is not all she seems.
With more drama off the stage than on it, and everyone wanting to be star of the show, will Lucy find the confidence to make it out of the cow suit and into the spotlight this Christmas?
Rating:
I'm thrilled to be a part of Novelicious' blog tour for the wonderfully funny and festive e-novella A Cinderella Christmas by Holly Kingston!
Lucy is an aspiring actress and she couldn't be more thrilled at the prospect of working alongside two celebrities she adores in this year's Christmas pantomime. And when one of them, reality star Charmaine, manages to bump Lucy's role up from the chorus line Lucy thinks this is going to be the most exciting production for her yet.
That is, until she realises that her grand new role is playing the rear end of a comical cow... Even worse, she has become the official babysitter for Charmaine's spoiled little Chihuahua, a job which takes up most of her spare time outside of rehearsals, and to her horror she finds out that she's unable to utter a word in front of the gorgeous Prince Charming of the production, television star Ryan Aspell.
I should start this review by saying that I'm not a huge fan of short stories or novellas as I find there's too little time for proper characterisation and as a result of this I never really care for the characters within. So unless it's written by an author I love and preferably slotting into a story I already know (so I am familiar with the characters and their backgrounds) I tend to avoid short stories and novellas, until now.
However, "A prince, a diva, a tiny cold dog, and a frustrated cow..." is one of the most funny and eye-catching tag lines I've ever seen and it is what made this novella stand out to me, so kudos to the author, or publicist, who came up with it. And when I read that the story is set around Christmas time during the rehearsals for a panto I knew this would be right up my ally, as I love anything to do with festive season and am a big fan of all things theatre.
The story itself definitely didn't disappoint as it was a hilarious journey from start to finish. I particularly enjoyed reading about the escapades of the diva from the tagline, Charmaine, as she is quite the character going from incredibly blonde in one moment (point in case, she named her dog Lenin after a member of The Beatles...) to cunningly clever in the next.
While, as I mentioned before, such a short novel doesn't allow for much character development, I found myself loving the main character of Lucy from the get-go. She was funny, sweet and likeable, all the elements that make a great protagonist in a romance novel of any length. The fact that author Holly Kingston managed to not only portray Lucy so realistically in a shorter novella, but also the characters surrounding her, is greatly admirable and has actually changed my perspective on shorter novels for the better.
At a 100 pages in length A Cinderella Christmas was still too short for my liking, but not because it was poorly structured or unengagingly written, on the contrary.... I enjoyed it so much that as soon as it was finished I was already craving more from Lucy, Ben, Charmaine and the rest of the gang.
You can purchase a copy of the novel from Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.com or your own preferred retailer.
Would you like to know more about the author? You can connect with her online at:
Website: www.hollykingston.com
Facebook: www.facebook.com/HollyKingstonWriter
Twitter: @HollyKWriter
Many thanks to Novelicious for a copy of the enovella in exchange for an honest review.
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