Love Scenes

By: Bridget Morrissey

Narrated by: Saskia Maarleveld

A BuzzFeed Best Book of June

"A heart-stirring, tear-inducing read you won’t want to put down.” (Emily Henry, New York Times best-selling author of Beach Read)

Acting like she's in love with her handsome nightmare of a co-star - in a movie directed and produced by her complicated Hollywood royalty family - is Sloane's job. But what happens when the lines between script and reality get blurred?

Out-of-work actress Sloane Ford is in desperate need of something to do after losing her steady TV gig. When her famous family ropes her into working as a producer on their World War II-era romance, they neglect to mention that the film will be headlined by Joseph Donovan, her least favorite former co-star of all time. The roguish actor made her life a living hell the last time they worked together, using his movie star good looks and Irish charm to cover for his erratic professional behavior. On their new film set, he promises he's different now, but Sloane is far from convinced.

As filming gets underway, it becomes clear that anything that can go wrong will go wrong. When the lead actress is abruptly fired, Sloane agrees to step in and take over the role, and she starts to remember why she fell in love with acting in the first place. On camera, she and Joseph share an electric chemistry. Off camera, they've been honing their characters and, much to Sloane's surprise, growing closer. But playing the role of a woman in love with Joseph Donovan is a dangerous business, and the more time they spend together, the less Sloane can tell what's real between them, and what's just for show.

©2021 Bridget Morrissey (P)2021 Penguin Audio

Critic reviews

“Real, raw, and immensely tender, Love Scenes is a book about second chances: in love, in work, in family. Bridget Morrissey writes with the kind of effortless warmth and complexity that elevates characters to real people you know and love, with quirks and flaws you understand.” (Emily Henry, New York Times best-selling author of Beach Read)

"Love Scenes is pure joy from start to finish. With Hollywood antics, a simmering slow-burn romance, and a tremendous amount of humor and heart, this book makes even its most famous characters feel like friends. A love letter to the messy, wild, wonderful families who make us who we are." (Rachel Lynn Solomon, author of The Ex Talk)

"Love Scenes is an enemies-to-lovers story set against a Hollywood backdrop, but it's so much more than that. It's the messy love of a complicated blended family. It's the ugly parts of Hollywood, not just the glitz and glamor. It's a heroine fighting to be her own person despite what the gossip sites and a songwriting ex-boyfriend says. It's an earnest, swoonworthy hero doing his best to be a good man, despite his past. Bridget Morrissey has a voice that leaps off the page and invites you to join her for a page-turning good time. Good luck putting this one down!" (Jen DeLuca, author of Well Played)

An unexpected delight

I bought the book Love Scenes because the premise sounded interesting, and it was priced at $5. Not long after, I had finished the audiobook I was listening to and needed something else. I previewed Love Scenes and immediately fell in love with narrator's voice and with Bridget Morrisey's prose. I honestly had zero expectations going into this novel, as I have not heard anyone really talk about it. It is average rating on Good Reads is pretty good.

I wound up genuinely enjoying this book from cover to cover, so to speak. I fell in love with Sloane's extended family, and I really loved Joseph Donovan. He would be a tough one to resist. Sloane is your pretty standard, slightly dramatic heroine, but, because she is an actress, she is dealing with a very public breakup at the beginning of the novel. I could only imagine how vulnerable someone would feel having to experience such a thing under public scrutiny.

The only criticism I would say about Love Scenes is that we needed to spend more time with Sloane and Joseph, and a little less time on Sloane's family drama. I get that these new adult romances tend to have two plotlines, one about the romance, and usually a side plot about family drama and/or career drama, but I just think these books work best when they put more focus on what the readers really want from romance books, which is romance.

I will definitely be checking out another book from Bridget Morrisey in the future, and I would love to see what else Saskia Maarleveld has read.

Ok

I really wanted to like this but I found this book extremely hard to get into. The protagonists internal dialogue goes off on sooooo many tangents that I found myself tuning her out. It felt like when someone is trying to tell you a story and it keeps getting interrupted by side conversations with passersby. There were many opportunities for there to be tension in the romantic storyline but that fell flat. There was also hardly any conflict that wasn’t resolved a second later. I would find myself finally getting into a certain aspect of the story and then it would be resolved immediately and without any the kind of tension that is necessary in telling a good story.

Hauntingly beautiful

Brilliantly written with sensitivity and insight. Mature with a story and characters who satisfy in every way. Easily the best novel I have read in a long time.

Super Cute

I liked it! I predicted a lot, but it was still nice. I am a little disappointed to not hear what happened with the movie. Did it do well or not? I mean, I guess we assume it was saucy because they actually liked eachother in real life. It's like when I was watching True Blood and I was like, "Dang- Sookie and Bill- you are really selling this"... then finding out they were together in real life.

Enjoyable read

I enjoyed this book. I felt like some of it wasn’t super realistic, but it is celebrities. If you are one of those people that needs it to be super realistic, this wouldn’t be for you. I thought the banter was good, and enjoyed the dynamic written between characters. The narrator was good with accents.