At their worst, the two of them could do a cracker impression of circling warplanes. She came in as the Spitfire, all weapons blazing; Nick was the Avro Lancaster, biding his time and then suddenly dropping the high-damage bombs.
Former late night news rivals Sabrina Carlton and Nick Davenport are both in the doghouse. Sabrina is still dealing with the scandal exposed (by Nick!) in The Austen Playbook. Nick was caught on camera saying unflattering things about the boss. Their last chance to stay on the air will be to take on hosting duties on the network’s morning program. Together.
Fans of Lucy Parker are going to enjoy the latest installment in her London Celebrities series. While each installment stands alone, this one in particular would benefit from being read after The Austen Playbook. We get a little bit of Freddie and Griff–not enough–and everyone’s favorite villain returns to wreak her special brand of havoc on our couple.
Once again, Parker does a wonderful job of building a relationship in a believable way. Sabrina and Nick both sting a bit with the new job: not only having to host it together, but also that it’s a morning show (aka, not the realm of serious journalism). But they pull themselves together like the professionals they’re supposed to be. The fact that things start going hilariously awry from the beginning helps cement their growing sensibility of being in it together. However, as the mishaps increase in frequency, the pair join forces to discover the culprit. (That makes it sound hijinks-y. It’s not hijinks-y.)
While Act Like It remains my favorite in this series, Sabrina and Nick might be a close second. I continue to appreciate Parker’s skill in drawing characters who feel like real people I would want to spend time with. This time, I feel like Parker put in quite a bit of extra effort in building the world around the characters as well. We see both Sabrina and Nick deal with baggage from their families and exes. Those struggles barely intrude on their own dynamic, but nonetheless, it’s nice to see them as people with depth and not just through the lens of the incipient relationship.
I was provided with a complimentary copy of this book via NetGalley in order to facilitate this review. (And you’d better believe I pre-ordered it as soon as it came up on NetGalley!)