REVIEW – INTERVIEW & GIVEAWAY! Famous in Love by Rebecca Serle

Title: FAMOUS IN LOVE

Author: Rebecca Serle

Pub. Date: October 21, 2014

The romantic story of a girl who gets plucked from obscurity to star in the next major feature film franchise based on a book and the ensuing love triangles she gets entangled in on—-and off screen.

Meet Paige Townsen, Rainer Devon, and Jordan Wilder…

When Paige Townsen, a young unknown, gets cast in the movie adaptation of a blockbuster book series, her life changes practically overnight. Within a month, Paige has traded the quiet streets of her hometown for a crowded movie set on the shores of Maui, and is spending quality time with her co-star Rainer Devon, one of People’s Sexiest Men Alive. But when troubled star Jordan Wilder lands the role of the other point in the movie’s famous love triangle, Paige’s crazy new life gets even crazier.

In this coming-of-age romance inspired by the kind of celeb hookups that get clever nicknames and a million page views, Paige must figure out who she is – and who she wants – while the whole world watches.

Awesome fact! LOCKED which is the story/movie script the characters are cast for inside FAMOUS IN LOVE is a real book! Written by Rebecca Serle writing as Parker Witter, who is also the reclusive author character in her Famous in Love series! Read the article in Publishers Weekly HERE!

About Rebecca:

Rebecca Serle is the author of When You Were Mine, The Edge of Falling, and Famous in Love and is an obsessive lover of all things pop culture. She blogs about The Vampire Diaries for New York magazine’s Vulture and can be found on Twitter: @RebeccaASerle. She, like Caggie, lives in Manhattan—just far from the Upper East Side.

Photo by Tara Kelly

Find Rebecca Online:

Website | Twitter | Facebook | Goodreads| Instagram

Hey guys! Rebecca Serle here, author of the upcoming series FAMOUS IN LOVE. It’s a novel where fiction meets reality When Paige Townsen, a totally normal girl-next-door, is plucked from obscurity to star in the next major film franchise based on a book. When she relocates from her hometown of Portland to Maui (as in, Hawaii!) to film the movie, she falls for the two lead actors she meets on set: Rainer Devon, and Jordan Wilder

What was the idea that inspired Famous in Love?

I feel like I’ve been preparing to write this book my entire life. I first fell in love with Joshua Jackson right along with Katie Holmes and watched in fascination as, years later, their characters got together onscreen. It would be foolish to say Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson and the mania surrounding Twilight didn’t inform the book, certainly they did, but there are many, many more examples beyond just Twilight. Nina Dobrev and Ian Somerhalder playing Elena and Damon, Zac Efron and Vanessa Hudgens in High School Musical—the list goes on. I found myself really curious about the intersection of fantasy and reality in these relationships, and how you decide who you are and who you love when you’re so unbelievably visible.

What is the weirdest thing you googled while researching this story?

Nothing I don’t normally google way too often. Stelena vids, anyone? J

What was your favorite scene to write and why?

Probably the scene where Paige, Rainer and Jordan shoot a magazine spread together. It’s one of the first times we see the three of them interact, and they’re very much establishing their dynamic together. Plus Paige dresses up, and the boys are all over her, and there is fun music, and licorice.

Did any of your characters surprise you by doing something you didn’t expect?

Rainer surprises me often. Rainer continues to surprise me. *Yes, I’m working on the sequel now!

Did you always know how the story would end or did things change as you wrote?

I knew the scene this book would end on, but what happened in that scene I wasn’t entirely sure. When I got there, what happens felt really organic.

What are you currently reading? You’ve written quite a few swoony book boys… Do you have any favorites?

I’m currently reading Let’s Just Say It Wasn’t Pretty by Diane Keaton. Fun fact: I’m obsessed with memoir.

I suppose I have a soft spot for Trevor from The Edge of Falling. He’s the boyfriend I always wanted in HS but never had. And I won’t play favorite but Jordan Wilder did not grow on the page. He absolutely catapulted onto it. He has been entirely who he is from the first moment I met him. That, I love.

Any advice for aspiring writers?

Read as much as you can, write as much as you can, and read Stephen King’s On Writing. Also: being a writer looks different for different people, and what it looks like for you will change over the course of your career. Be OK with that and if you can, embrace it.

What’s next for you? Are you working on anything right now that you can tell us about?

I’m working on the sequel to Famous in Love. It will be out next fall! I can’t wait to continue Paige, Jordan and Rainer’s journey with all of you.

5 Favorites

Favorite Song (right now)

Rather Be by Clean Bandit

Favorite Book (right now)

Can I say Famous in Love? Famous in Love is definitely my current favorite book.

Favorite TV Show/Movie

The Vampire Diaries

Favorite Word

Infamous. I use it wrong constantly. Probably I don’t even like the real meaning. It’s negative, right? It doesn’t just mean super famous? Oh well.

Favorite Snack

I’m pretty healthy. Avocado on toast.

Jaime’s Thoughts
Famous in Love by Rebecca Serle
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I’ll tell you what it’s like to be with him.

How he kisses me. How he touches my cheek.

How he hold my pinkie, just slightly, so the cameras won’t catch us touching.

I’ll tell you our signals.

But you have to promise it will be our secret.

Come on… you know we’ve all had the same dream. You know the one… the one where you are plucked from obscurity to star in the next big movie adaptation of an amazing book series that everyone loves.

But that’s not all… Your co-star is one of the hottest guys alive… People magazine has even named him one of the sexiest men around and then there’s the bad boy co-star who you are determined not to like at all.

If you can’t help but try to place this story in real life, you’re not alone. I’m not going there though. In Famous in Love, the story I just described above, is exactly what happens to her. She is picked to play in the movie adaptation of Locked, which is a trilogy of which book 3 is going to be released soon. She’ll be playing August, the lead female who is torn between two different guys.

Paige worked hard to get where she is… she’s done theatre and worked on her craft and it’s finally paid off for her. But she’s learning the business as she goes and she’s struggling to trust herself and her instincts in playing this part and add to that the pressure of millions of fans and she’s finding herself off a bit while filming.

The only person she can count on to have her back is Rainer Devon and all the quality time they’re spending together is bringing them closer together.
Enter Jordan Wilder.

And as much as Paige wants to dislike him – I mean he’s got a reputation in Hollywood after all – she just can’t seem to do that.

What Paige learns along the way, is that the gossip you hear about the goings on of Hollywood maybe just isn’t as accurate as we think.

I think Searle did an amazing job here … there was a really good chance for this book to fall flat, and it absolutely didn’t do that for me. I really loved what she did with these characters. They felt true and real and I, like Paige, struggled to decide whose “team” I wanted to be on.

I loved the relationships we experience too – I’m not just saying the ones between Paige and the boys, but I mean the ones that includes her best friends Jake and Cassandra. It added a necessary dimension to the story and I think really makes you put Paige’s life into perspective and I think her mom said it best:

“You can’t blame your friends for carrying on life without you.”

I think my one complaint here would be that I wish we would have gotten to know Jordan a bit more. We really got to know Rainer, but kind of skimmed a bit over getting to know Jordan with the same depth.

If you’re looking for a cute contemporary, with an easy to read style, a coming of age story with characters that will have you thinking you know them and want to know more about them, make sure you grab this one when you can.

TIP: You might also want to pick up the novella ‘Locked’ once you finish…
Thank you to Little Brown for the advanced copy in exchange for my honest thoughts.