BSB Authors' Blog: Just A Little Starstruck

I love the escapism that you can get from films, TV shows, and books. Where, for a brief moment in time, you can suspend your imagination and enter into a myriad of other worlds and just be somewhere else, be someone else, and leave this world behind. I’m all for that. I’m never happier than when I’m either in someone else’s story world or playing in one of my own.

Starstruck is my eleventh book published, the sixth I proudly have with Bold Strokes Books. I had a lot of fun writing it, mostly due to one character being quite the wise ass and threatening to take the story over if I wasn’t careful. All the characters are very real to me, I see them quite plainly in my mind’s eye, and I hear their voices. What was fun this time around was nearly everyone plays two parts. Cassidy Hayes is an actress so you’re introduced to the character she plays as well as her true self. Aiden Darrow is a writer, someone well used to having one foot in the real world and another in imaginary realms. She also loves the character Cassidy plays on screen and that’s where the idea for my story originated. Can someone very fantasy minded separate the actress from the character she plays? Especially when she is such a fangirl of the show the actress stars in? There’s always that inevitable disappointment when you see your favourite actress or actor in real life or being interviewed and they just don’t embody the role you adore them in. They either see it as ‘just a job’ (I’m looking at you, Harrison Ford!), or that how you interpret the character is not at all like they think they are playing them (I don’t have enough room to call out all of “Once Upon A Time” here!) and then there’s those whose personality is bland compared to the hero/heroine they play and they just want to sign whatever it is you’re sticking under their nose and move on to the next person in line. You’ll have to read the story to see what kind of character Cassidy is off the stage and how Aiden reacts to her.

Did I mention Cassidy has a stalker? It’s got to be the biggest fear of anyone in the limelight that someone out there is going to think that they have sole rights over them and will do anything in their power to prove it. It’s been in the news too many times, not always with a happy ending. It’s where you draw the line between reality and fantasy. You only have to look online and see how media whips up a storm between fans and the stars. We’re constantly fed a steady diet of their every movement until we feel we know them better than ourselves. Twitter/Facebook/Instagram takes us into their homes and we get to celebrate holidays, meals, births with them as if they are family. It’s no wonder some think they have some right to stars both on and off the screen.

Do I have favourites on TV and film? Hell yes! And I usually have a piece in my stories as to what shows I am watching as a time code for my work. I use the TV for background noise and sometimes look up and see something that makes its way into my plot. This time? Check out Aiden’s four wheeled pride and joy which came from a certain film playing late one night as I wrote that particular scene.

I really hope you’ll all enjoy Starstruck. I had a great time writing it and am thrilled that its publishing date starts this New Year off with new characters ready for you to read. I’m already working on the next book, no release date confirmed yet but Raging At The Stars is coming next! Stay tuned to my website http://www.lesleydavisauthor.co.uk and to the Bold Strokes web page for further details!

Happy reading and a happy 2016 to you all!

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