Author:
Tracy A. Ward
Genre: New
Adult Contemporary Romance
Release Date: March
28, 2016
Publisher: Self-published
About the book:
Who knew love could bring a playwright so much drama?
Writing three
plays for a nationally acclaimed theater in Phair, Texas, was never supposed to
put Ashlyn Carter’s inheritance at risk or make or break her future. And it certainly
wasn’t supposed to force her into constant contact with the very guy she’s
avoided since her teenage crush-gone-bad days.
Noah Blake. He's
Ashlyn’s enemy, for good reason. As her older brother's best friend, he seems
hell-bent on interfering with nearly every aspect of her life. So how then does
he also seem to be her muse?
When
Ashlyn reluctantly agrees to act out scenes with Noah from the play she’s
writing in order to trigger her creativity, the spark of passion she’d felt for
him as a teenager flares up again. But there’s more at stake than just her
future as a playwright or the inheritance she never cared about in the first
place. Finding out the theater she loves is in danger of closing puts
everything she thought she knew and felt about Phair…and Noah...to the test.
Will there be a standing ovation for Ashlyn Carter, playwright, or will the
curtain drop and fade to black? Only by facing their biggest fears together
will Ashlyn and Noah learn to trust in themselves and each other.
About the
Author:
After
the birth of her children, Tracy had an epiphany: banking just wasn’t her
thing. So she quit her corporate job, let her nanny go and became a
not-so-desperate housewife by day, Sexy Women’s Fiction author by night. Her
characters are every-day women, following their dreams, searching for that
elusive happily ever after.
My thoughts:
ARC via NetGalley.
Looking for a sweet romance with a theater/Broadway
background? Fair Play is a good choice for you, then.
This is the love story of Ashlyn and Noah with three
of the tropes I like in this genre: hate to love + brother’s BFF + (a variation
of) fake relationship.
Ashlyn, the main character, is a writer who dreams of
conquering Broadway. After a few successful plays,
Ashlyn sees the opportunity to take her career to the next level with her next
project, a play for a nationally acclaimed
theater in a small town in Texas. If she does well, she’ll not only get closer
to her dream, but the theater will also win a prize that will guarantee it
keeps its door open. If she fails, the town of Phair will lose its main
attraction, which will impact the economy greatly, and Ashlyn will lose her
inheritance because of a deal she made with her control-freak father a while
ago. A successful career on Broadway means money and independence, so Ashlyn is
ready to fight for that.
But fighting might be what she needs to STOP doing in
order to win. That and kicking this writer’s block to the curb, because she
needs to finish the play ASAP.
When Lucas, the play director and Ashlyn’s boss, sees her
interacting with Noah – her brother’s best friend and the owner of the local
bar, he recognizes the similarities between Ashlyn and Noah’s relationship and
the one portrayed by the main characters in the play. Ashlyn doesn’t know it at first but she’s
writing her love story with Noah. I honestly don’t know if Lucas intended on forcing
them to acknowledge their feelings for each other or if he was just trying to
save the theater, but he proposes (forces) Ashlyn and Noah to work together so
she’ll draw inspiration from their interactions and finish the play. Basically,
they start a (different kind of) fake relationship; one almost everyone knows
it’s fake.
It doesn’t mean that their feelings aren’t real.
I thought the author did a good job putting a spin on
the “fake relationship” trope. Instead of pretending to be a couple to please
or deceive other people (like it normally goes in stories like this), Ashlyn
and Noah use the excuse of playing characters to hide their feeling from each
other, and as the story progresses to explore those feelings.
This is more like a slow-burn romance, since it takes
a while for things to go from platonic to romantic, and for Ashlyn and Noah to
finally admit they never really disliked each other and have wanted to be more
than frenemies for a long time. But sometimes all people need is a push, which
was what Lucas provided by proposing that deal.
Aside from the romance, there were other aspects that
made this story interesting. The theater references, from writing a play to rehearsing
to taking part in a contest, were a big part of the plot; and so was Ashlyn’s past
with one of the judges. I won’t get into details because I don’t want to spoil
anything, but the guy was a real douchebag. I’m glad Ashlyn found a way to deal
with him and that she did it herself instead of letting her brother or Noah fix
the problem.
That aspect was also a big part of Ashlyn’s character
arc and it matched Noah’s struggle. While Ashlyn came from a relationship with
a father who tried to control her life, Noah’s father was the complete
opposite. He saw his father lose control of his emotion so many times that he
became a control freak himself. So Ashlyn tried very hard to be independent and
Noah wanted to fix everything for her. In order to work as a couple, they had
to learn how to find balance. Just like in real life, huh?
This story was sweet and romantic, pretty much
everything you’ll probably want to find when searching for this type of books,
right? So go read it.
a Rafflecopter giveaway
Giveaway:
- (1) lucky Grand Prize Winner a $25 Amazon Gift Card and a digital copy of Fair Play,
- and (5) Runner-up Winners a digital copy of Fair Play!
*Tour Organized
by Barclay Publicity’s
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