Title: ShutterGirl
Author: CD Reiss
Release Date: May 20, 2015
My Rating: 4.5 Stars
Author Note: If you know me, you know my Submission and Corruption books. This is different. This is about love and loss, ambition and talent, and our commitments to ourselves and each other. I don't close the door on the expression of love, but this is not the usual dirty pleasure.
I am not hurt.
I don’t need a second chance with him, or a life I thought I had.
While he was out forgetting me to become a movie star, I was building a career out of nothing. A career as a paparazzi, but a career. For a foster kid who bounced around every home in Los Angeles, that wasn’t easy.
This camera is all I have.
He’s nothing to me. Every time I take his picture and sell it, I remind myself that I did it all without him or his approval, his cinnamon smell or his clear green eyes. He lights up the screen like a celestial body, but he’s nothing but a paycheck to me.
He can throw my camera off a balcony, and nothing has to change. We can stay king and queen of the same city, and different worlds.
Except this is Hollywood, and here, anything can happen.
"It's always been you."
Hurting. Healing. Loving. Living. That, in a nutshell, is what this story is about. Laine Cartwright and Michael Greydon shared a blink of time years ago, a blink where lasting impressions were made, and believe it or not, love began to form. That was before the tracks their lives were on took them even further apart. To places they never asked to go, and for both places that molded them into people who are missing their spark. Missing their spark, because the only one capable of lighting it was the other.
In true CD Reiss form, this dear author has given her readers something equally unique and just as spellbinding as her previous works, yet completely different at the same time. She took the angst out, and put the realism in. All the while leaving the heart-gripping moments and emotional rollercoaster. ShutterGirl has left the dirty grit at home, but brought on full intensity, and a really memorable story that will touch your heart and cheer for Michael and Laine's conclusion.
The one word I think best describes this book is - refreshing. It could have gone down so many boring, predictable and mundane paths, but it reeled me in and trapped me in its flawless story. It brought me two characters that simply wanted to be. Be with one another, despite their livelihoods clashing neither made sacrifices based on the other's demands. And it also took all the bulls--t out of romance books. Obviously, I love romance novels, but I have my pet peeves. ShutterGirl didn't hit a single one of those pet peeves, which is a bit miraculous in and of itself. Laine and Michael are an independent/dependent couple if that makes sense. They want each other, and they become the best versions of themselves with one another, but they also have several aspects of their lives that are theirs alone. It's hard to explain and I hope I don't sound like a rambling ninny, but despite me not having one iota in common with either of them they seemed incredibly relatable and real to me. And that's that. That's what it comes down to is that I related and I enjoyed every bit of the time I spent in a world I could only imagine. Definitely earns high recommendations from me.
Happy Reading!
*ARC provided by the author in exchange for an honest review*
Links to buy:
I am so happy with the response to Shuttergirl, and I cannot wait to send Michael and Laine out into the world, because who doesn’t swoon over a second chance at love?
It’s a new genre for me, and I’m exploding with excitement, so I’ve dropped some fantastic reasons for readers to get the book right away.
TREAT YOURSELF LIKE A MOVIE STAR!
$500 Spa Gift Card
If you could get an hour, or ten away from the daily grind of paparazzi and interviews (or the job and kids), what would you do?
Get a foot rub/slash/pedicure? A massage? Maybe something called a Sleep Treatment that right now sounds better than sex?
Maybe you’d bring a friend or two, or maybe you’d just get a manipedi when you wanted one. Because the life of a megastar ain’t for the weak-willed or lazy, and running from paparazzi can really wear down a girl’s nails.
Woodhouse Spas are no joke. They’re all over the country and they’re….sigh. Fabulous. But if you don’t live near one, we can do Burke Williams, Halcyon Days or Red Door.
HOW TO ENTER
Take the fun SHUTTERGIRL READER QUIZ!
The link to the quiz is in the back of the book, and yes, that’s the ONLY place to find it! There are bonus questions relating to Jonathan and Antonio for extra prizes. You have until June 3rd to enter! That gives you a solid two weeks to read the book and get your chance at a $500 movie star spa treatment!
If you are a paperback reader, email me and we’ll work it out .
Meet Christine:
Born in New York City, she moved to Hollywood, California to get her master’s degree in screenwriting from USC. In case you want to know, that went nowhere, but it did embed TV story structure in her head well enough for her to take a big risk on a TV series structured erotic series called Songs of Submission. It’s about a kinky billionaire hung up on his ex-wife, an ingenue singer with a wisecracking mouth; art, music and sin in the city of Los Angeles.
Critics have dubbed the books “poetic,” “literary,” and “hauntingly atmospheric,” which is flattering enough for her to put it in a bio, but embarrassing enough for her not to tell her husband, or he might think she’s some sort of braggart who’s too good to give the toilets a once-over every couple of weeks or chop a cord of wood.
If you meet her in person, you should call her Christine.
If you meet her in person, you should call her Christine.
Connect with Christine:
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