Tuesday, March 25, 2014

REVIEW: THE REDHEAD PLAYS HER HAND BY ALICE CLAYTON

Grace has landed the lead in a new TV series—but when the director asks her to lose fifteen pounds, she goes public with her weight struggles and suddenly develops a huge fan club who support her right to have curves. But between that and the public’s continuing fascination with her “are they or aren’t they” relationship with Jack, Grace begins to wonder if anyone’s really interested in her because of her upcoming TV series, or if it’s all speculation about the size of her ass and her bedroom partner.

Meanwhile, Jack is voted the Sexiest Man Alive and becomes a little too enamored with the party-hard lifestyle. Grace vows to give him the space he needs to find himself, but then he begins to spiral down from lovable Brit to Hollywood brat. People are talking, but are Jack and Grace? Her career is on the rise, and his continues into the stratosphere, but will she be able to catch him if he falls? Will they ever be able to just be a couple who can hold hands when they walk down the street?

Paperback, 320 pages
Published December 17th 2013 by Gallery Books
copy provided by Net Galley for an honest review

OUR REVIEW
In the third book in this series, we have a continuation of some of the things I loved about the first two:
  • witty banter *yes, the boobies still crack me up*
  • a normal sized heroine and honesty about women and their struggles with weight *i think this is by far the best part of this book. celebrity craziness defines our life daily and what women should look like so I am always for someone standing up against that!*
  • Grace and Jack and Holly *I was all about Grace and Jack this time around...Holly...I had to warm up to her again* 
Alice Clayton has a knack for writing funny smut and this one did not fail me. The first little bit of the novel was nice..seeing Jack and Grace settle in to their coupledom after all of the tumult of the first two books. Of course the undercurrent of bad shit to come also came early on and then it felt like I was watching a trainwreck --the before, during, and after. In the midst of this trainwreck, Grace's star is on the rise. She's getting a ton of press for her new series (and her weight and her boyfriend). She's growing in to a Hollywood actress and all of the trappings of fame that go with it. Meanwhile, Jack is also feeling the trappings of fame (emphasis on trap) and is finding not so great ways of coping with it. 

YES! You just wait and wait for the shoe to drop. You know it's coming. You know that there is no way in hell that something insane isn't going to happen (which is why it took me sooooooo long to read The Redhead Revealed, if you remember). Alice Clayton has a seriously amazing knack for stringing out details and putting a teeny seed of doubt in my mind that just fucks with my head the whole book. Things are good. Things might not be good, but Grace is giving Jack room to grow. Jack killed me, but so did his plight. (Though reading the harsh realities of super-stardom, it makes you wonder why so many do it...right? Because the paparazzi is truly insane!) The sexy times were still very sexy and definitely not stale for a couple we know so well (who do it all the time) but their new normal times together were even more adorable and I couldn't wait to see how they would be there for each other....but as you know...dun, dun, dun. Don't hold your breath! 

As much as I loved the book, I'm not sure if I liked the news-y bits...sometimes it felt like they were in lieu of the story rather than just enhancing the story. They provided an outside perspective but I'm on the fence about whether I always liked them. I also sometimes didn't feel as connected to the characters as I had before--but maybe it had just been so long since I'd reread book 2? 

I have to say I was 50/50 on these parts (Gossip rag tag lines at some chapter beginnings). I liked them in the first part/mid part of the book because it gave quite an insight into what was going on in the tabloids without Grace just saying "They ripped apart my relationship and weight in the tabloids." It made me think because I used to be an avid knower of pop culture and it would be so difficult if that was your life. I can't even imagine people wanting to know every move I made and who I spoke too...so for that it felt very genuine to the story and how famous they were becoming. It was harder at the end, because obviously we are in the resolution of the story and I wish there had been a little more! I always want more words though! 

I enjoyed how this book ended and felt that it gave me all the closure I wanted for Grace and Jack. I definitely recommend it. That's hilarious too, because with the end...I had to ask "This is the final book right? There isn't supposed to be another one?" It seemed closed, but still open to me. I dunno...could just be my mind hoping and speculating because I am a hardcore lover of the lovable Brit. 

Shelley: 4 Stars
Courtney: 4 1/2 Stars


Alice Clayton is a novelist with an unholy love for her KitchenAid mixer. Making her home in St Louis, she enjoys gardening but not weeding, baking but not cleaning up afterwards, and is trying desperately to get her long time boyfriend to make her an honest woman. Hi sweetie!!

After working for years in the cosmetics industry as a makeup artist, esthetician, and national educator for a major cosmetics company, Alice picked up a pen (read laptop) for the first time at 33 to begin a new career, writer. Combining her love of storytelling with a sense of silly, she was shocked and awed to be nominated for a Goodreads Author award in 2010 for her debut novels, The Redhead Series.

Alice has penned three novels, The Unidentified Redhead,The Redhead Revealed, and coming soon in November 2012, Wallbanger. She thinks you should purchase them immediately. She’s not kidding, not even a little bit. Everyone needs some comedic erotica in their lives. She is hard at work on the third book in The Redhead Series, set to release in Spring of 2013, continuing the saucy and sexual escapades of everyone’s favorite couple, Jack and Grace. 

Additionally, Alice loves spending time with her besties on Not Your Mother's Podcast, make sure you check them out at notyourmotherspodcast.com or over on iTunes. 3 women rushing towards their forties still acting like teenagers. A saucy little mix of sex, love, relationships, pop cultural, celebrity gossip and All Things Jake Ryan.

Alice enjoys pickles, Bloody Mary’s, 8 hours of sleep, and a good pounding.

Finally Alice would also like all her readers and listeners to help her convince Mt. Alice that the only other thing that would make her truly happy is finally bringing home a Bernese Mountain Dog. She is totally serious. And done talking about herself in the third person

FIND HER HERE:  website | Twitter | Goodreads


Buy the book : here

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