Book & Author Details:
Grounded By You by Ivy Sinclair
Publication date: November 20th 2013
Genres: Contemporary, New Adult
Synopsis:
Lights, camera, and passions flare as a small town boy gets the break of his career. As the lines of life and art blur together, can he also find a way to win the love of the girl who got away?
Carter Samuel Groveson.
His name is on the lips of every woman in the country who has a pulse. An actor pulled from obscurity to star in the most anticipated movie of the century, he’s an enigma to all. Everyone wants a piece of him.
Except her.
Amelia St. John isn’t about to follow the life plan that her father set out for her. She refuses to be tied down or commit to anyone. A year ago, she ran as far and as fast from Sam Groveson as she could. But when he reappears in her life and asks her to be the friend he needs to keep him tethered to reality in the midst of the chaos, she can’t say no.
Unfortunately for Sam, his big break comes with expectations that threaten his career if he doesn’t toe the line. In this high stakes game of love, everyone is watching.
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18634359-grounded-by-you?ac=1
Purchase:
—Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Grounded-By-You-Ivy-Sinclair-ebook/dp/B00GQMI2FQ
—B&N: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/grounded-by-you-ivy-sinclair/1117448954?ean=2940149013906
_______
Excerpt
Grounded By You
Excerpt:
Sam held up his beer bottle. “Here’s to the wild and wacky world
of finally being a grown-up.”
Millie giggled and clinked his bottle. She took a long pull and
then startled him when she reached over without warning and grabbed his bicep.
“I notice that somebody’s been hitting the gym. Impressive.”
His muscle twitched reflexively under her fingers, and her eyes
widened. Sam wondered if she was looking at him in that moment like a friend,
or something more, but then the expression on her face was gone. “It’s kind of
a requirement for the acting thing,” he said. He downed the beer and put the
bottle down, feeling anxious again.
“Have you snagged any decent parts? Will I get to see you on
Broadway someday?” Millie giggled again.
It was the perfect opportunity to tell her. “I actually got a
call today about a role I’m pretty excited about,” he said carefully.
Millie sat up straighter and then scooted closer to him.
“Really? Tell me all about it!”
“Well, it was a complete fluke that I decided to audition for it
at all,” Sam said slowly. “I’ve got so little film experience that I didn’t
think there’d be anyway they’d consider me.”
“So it’s a movie? Anything I would have heard of?” Millie
started to bounce on the sofa cushion. Sam loved her like that, so attentive
and open. She had always made him feel like he could do anything.
“Funny you should say that.” Sam cleared his throat wondering
how to say it just right. “I’m sure Kate told you that she got a call a few
months ago from that executive producer in Hollywood who wanted to rent out the
Willoughby for a few weeks.”
Millie squealed and clapped her hands over her mouth. “You got a
role in Where My Heart Breaks? I couldn’t believe it when I heard that they
finally cut through the red tape with Walter Moolen’s estate and got the green
light for the film adaptation. It’s going to be HUGE! That is so exciting!”
“Yeah, I know,” Sam said. “It’s generated a lot of interest
already.”
“So what’s the part?”
Sam took a deep breath. “Jackson Monroe.”
Millie’s eyes widened, and she looked shocked. “Are you serious?
You got the lead?”
Hearing it said out loud made Sam’s mouth run dry. “I know. It’s
crazy, right? That they picked a complete unknown for the part? I’m having a
hard time believing it myself.”
Millie stood up and disappeared into the kitchen. She came back
out with a magazine that he knew covered Hollywood gossip and news. She flipped
open the cover and then shoved an article under his nose. “They’ve been
speculating for weeks about who would be cast as Jackson. Like, everybody in
the entire country is waiting to hear the news with bated breath. Sam, this
will be massively huge when everyone finds out.”
His stomach muscles tightened.
He knew that any expectation he had of what was about to happen was probably
woefully inadequate. “They told me that the press release goes out tomorrow
morning.”
Guest Post
We all have our guilty pleasures. One of mine, that proves
useful at the most random times, is my love of entertainment and celebrity
news. Some people check their daily horoscopes or fantasy football stats- I
check up on what’s going on in Hollywood. One of the most utilized apps on my
phone (aside from Facebook, of course) is my EOnline app. Several times a day I
troll the latest entertainment headlines and oh and ah over photos
from recent celebrity sightings across the globe.
If you’d ask me why I’m so intrigued with the happenings in
movie and TV land and the people who inhabit them, I wouldn’t have a good
answer. In a way it’s like asking an avid reader why they like to read so much.
You just do, and it feels at times like it’s programmed into your DNA. It’s a
hobby of sorts for me, but one I take very seriously.
I enjoy my role of being the first one in my social circle to
know the latest break-ups and hook-ups in Hollywood, what movies have recently
gotten green-lighted, and who has been cast in the next big blockbuster movie.
It makes for good happy hour conversation if nothing else.
It’s easy to point to the reason for celebrity watching as a
kind of envious observation from afar. These beautiful people make a living
playing out fiction for our entertainment. They can choose to be anyone they
want to be, there’s the appearance that they make a lot of money, and since we
always see the same faces in front of the camera, we assume their life is glamorous
and fascinating in a way that we ordinary humans will never experience.
But once you start peeling back the layers, you realize that
choosing to live your life in the spotlight brings just as many negative
aspects as it does positive ones. Watching an emotional Halle Berry and
Jennifer Garner testify in court in an effort to protect their children from
harassment by the paparazzi shines a much different light on the whole topic.
That’s the level that I wanted to explore in one of the
major subplots in Grounded By You. The hero of the story, Carter “Sam” Groveson,
is plucked from obscurity to star in the film adaptation of a well-known and
loved literary novel. His life is changing forever and he has to learn to
maneuver living life in front of the cameras. How that impacts his relationship
with woman he cares about, and wants to build a future with, is one of the main
obstacles that he needs to overcome.
Ironically, a real story came out around the casting issues
for the Fifty Shades of Grey film
adaptation that showed a parallel to Grounded By You. The original actor
cast as Christian Grey decided to drop out partly due to the pressures of being
thrust into the limelight. While this isn’t exactly what happens with Sam in
the book, it was a relevant example of an actual situation where life happened
to be imitating my art.
While I enjoy the glitz and glamour stories of Hollywood
today, it’s the stories that show the human “in real life” side of the business
that truly interests me. Probably because it’s nice to know that despite their
jobs, at the end of the day, the people involved in creating those fairy tale,
fictional worlds are more like us than we give them credit for.
AUTHOR BIO:
Ivy Sinclair cut her romance teeth on classics like Gone With the Wind, Casablanca, An Affair to Remember, and Sabrina. She is a firm believer in true love, a happily ever after ending, and the medicinal use of chocolate to cure any ailment of the heart. Ivy's guilty pleasures include sushi, endless Starbucks lattes, and wine. Readers of Ivy's stories can expect smoldering sweet stories of romance that tug at the heartstrings.
Author links:
http://www.ivysinclair.com/
https://twitter.com/Author_Ivy
https://www.facebook.com/authorivy
https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6923882.Ivy_Sinclair
________
Thank you for sharing Grounded By You with your readers! :)
ReplyDeleteIt's interesting to see how other people view Hollwyood and all of the hoopla. Having grown up in LA, I see the gamut...and it's nice to see those who remember what it was like to be one of the 'little ordinary people'. Thanks for the excerpt, guest post and giveaway!
ReplyDelete