Title: Theatricks
Author: Eleanor Gwyn-Jones
Genre: Contemporary Women’s Fiction/Contemporary Romance
Age Group: 25 - 50
Publication Date: December 3, 2013
Publisher: Omnific Publishing
Event organized by: Literati Author Services, Inc.
Synopsis
Enna Petersen has never been good at making personal decisions, particularly when she has to choose between her passions. As a theater director, the stage is her world, the spotlight her vitamin D, the waft of greasepaint her oxygen. However, when her handsome American businessman boyfriend proposes and paints the picture of a luxurious life in Pennsylvania, she has to tear her heart in two and give up on her theatrical dreams.
But as she navigates the visa gauntlet at the US embassy in England, she meets Will, a charismatic, erudite actor who encourages her to not give up on her dilapidated and much beloved theater. She is torn, tormented by the thought that her departure will certainly lead to Ashtead Theatre’s demise, but she follows her heart, says goodbye to her homeland, and begins her new role as Cole’s fiancée in America.
However, homesickness soon strikes. Enna longs for the English countryside, her theater, and the passion that Will has inspired in her. After her American dreams fall apart, she is reunited with all three back in the UK, and with Will's help, she soon finds her theater more successful than she ever thought possible. She has everything she's ever wanted, including a gorgeous man in her bed to share it with, so why is it she can't stop thinking about Cole?
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About the Author
Eleanor Gwyn-Jones lives in Scranton, Pennsylvania, but originally hails from Surrey, England. Huzzah! She studied biology at Southampton University before taking to the stage as an actress, agent and administrator of a touring theatre company. She performed in theatres, studios, schools and festivals across the British Isles before moving to the States. It was whilst visa-dangling and unable to take on acting work that she started to write and decided she far preferred it to anything else in the world! In 2008, Eleanor started her own ‘at home’ business to afford her more time to be with her ‘book babies.’ Now she spends her time writing by day and teaching ladies to look fabulous at night. She is a travel junkie—it’s research, darling, research!—a gourmand, a yogi, a sometime blogger and she adores her family and friends beyond all measure. She is currently putting the finishing key strokes to the sequel to Theatricks, due for release in 2014.
If she weren’t writing, she’d like to think you’d find her in Downton, The Paradise, or having a goblet of wine with Tyrion in King’s Landing.
Connect with the Author: Blog | Facebook | Twitter | Goodreads
Guest Post
A tall, goateed,
white-uniformed man approaches me. “Miss Petersen?” he whispers, laced with a
thick, rolling R. “Come wiz me.”
I follow his
rapidly disappearing frame through the maze of ornate arches decorated with
plastic ivy and purple grapes. My meerkat
neck is on a swivel as we pass various dimly lit rooms, each swathed with a
different colored chiffon scarf. I hear
none of the expected whale music or panpipes, but instead the trickling of
water which, I discover, springs from an impressive water fountain, where clear
water streams between the mouths of overflowing Grecian urns. Lucky
I don’t work here. I would constantly need to pee.
“Zee fountain of
youth, health and wellness!” he
announces. “Please, you take a coin and
make wish.” He passes me a rustic
terracotta pot filled with small silver coins.
Slightly bemused by this unimagined rite of passage, I half-smile and
take one of the proffered pennies. He
retreats and turns his back to me. The
coin is no bigger than a five pence piece, deeply engraved with the tarnished
picture of an urn. I flip the coin over
in my hand as I try to decide on a meaningful wish—when in Rome.
The reverse of the
coin shows a single letter, an E. E for
Enna! I clasp the coin with wonder, awed
by the bizarre coincidence that I should choose a coin with my letter on it. My spirits soar! How funny fate is.
Another wave of
thought.
Oh!
Spirits plummet, E is for Elisium, E-diot! And yet, ridiculous as it is, as much as I
know you make your own luck and everything else is just coincidence, maybe,
just maybe, it will be lucky for me.
I feel the cold
metallic sliver cut into my palm as I squeeze my fist tight. With almost religious conviction, I close my
eyes and concentrate on wishing. I
expect a wish list of fantasies to swim in front of my eyes: visions of the
theatre packed with patrons applauding another ground-breaking performance; with
me looking on, like the proud parent, my hand, held, feeling so small in
someone else’s, a clutch of beautiful, intelligent children around me. But the red-black blur persists, and instead
of seeing my inspiration, I hear my own voice resounding quite without thought.
“I just want to be
happy,” it says. I throw my penny and
watch it descend.
We
pass the fountain, and my goateed leader draws back a final sheer curtain to
reveal — “Zee Temple of Elisium.
Vel-com. Take a seat,” he says in
his unplaceable European tones. He
indicates one of the velvet-upholstered thrones surrounding a mosaic-topped
table laden with exotic fruit and jugs of flavored waters. He watches as I self-consciously sit in state
and await the unknown. “Zis is your first time, no?”
“Yes.” Sh*t, what
gave me away?
“Well, just relax
and enjoy zee experience.”
What’s with all
this “experience” nonsense? Surely going
to a spa for a massage can hardly be described as—gasp! Hold
breath—experience. An experience is
trekking through the Himalayas with a llama; the rollercoaster of performing
nonstop for three weeks at the Edinburgh Festival; traveling to Andalucia on a
university field trip, meeting a handsome local called Juan and being taken on
his moped at breakneck speed along the coast roads, clinging to his taut bronzed
body, before he stops, sweeps you into his muscular arms, carries you to a
deserted star-lit beach and makes love to you five times before the sun comes
up. That is an experience.
He stares at me
inquiringly. He is very intense looking,
with his pale skin, hair pulled into a pony tail, emphasizing his dark strong
brow and deep set eyes.
Russian perhaps, I think. Like
Rasputin.
“I am Xavier. I will be giving you your experience
today.”
I try not to
giggle childishly.
“First, I will
give you some cucumber water to hydrate yourself. You can make this yourself at home. It is
very good for yourself. Then you take
this robe and slippies and take off your clothes in changing room. Zee lockers are for your own use. When you are ready, you take yourself shrough
zat door theyare, take off robe, lie on bed and I will see you have good time.”
“Okay. Thanks.” I choke, trying not to spit my
cucumber water and hydrate Xavier too. I
take the robe and “slippies” and emerge “myself” from the changing room a few
minutes later, ready for my “experience.”
I peer through the
dim mood lighting and take in my new environs.
Candles flicker in their sconces, creating an ever-changing light show
on the pale walls and filling the air with a hint of jasmine. This room is accented with aqua sheers draped
around the door frame and the shower cubicle in the corner. The massage bed is the focal point, with
strategically positioned towels at chest and bum level, and beneath them what
appears to be plastic sheeting. That’s weird. Is Rasputin is about to wrap me up like a
bloody sandwich?
As instructed, I
disrobe quickly, hoping my curiosity has not taken up too much time, and Xavier
does not walk in and catch me in full pale, slightly chilly, glory. I flick off the flip flops, fling my robe,
and hop up to the high bed as elegantly as nudity allows.
I kneel on my
weirdy, sticky bedding, all the while eyeing the door handle, ready to hit the
mat should Xavier enter and find me still positioning. I shuffle my knees down the bed to lie face
down, but the sheeting clings so well that it sticks me. I do half a press-up and assess the
damage. The plastic beneath my boobs has
been shuffled south. Where my legs used to be covered in flesh, they are now
securely bound like two frozen chicken fillets in individually plastic-wrapped
portions.
“Sh*t. Sh*t.
Sh*t,” I curse under my breath, and I lift my torso and struggle to pull the
cling. It’s like I’m a human in a condom.
With a few heaves, I pull the plastic back into place, covering the bed,
and just as I settle again, fitting my relieved little face into the doughnut
head rest, I see the aqua towels which should be draped over my buttocks,
mocking me from the floor. “Shi*!” I must have knocked them off.
I reach for the
nearest towel, but my fingertips just graze the corner, unable to gain
purchase. I stretch. I shuffle on my
pallet, inching closer, but am still unable to grab it. “Urgh!”
I rock from side to side, trying to gain momentum and reach the bloody
towel, but the plastic sticks fast to every inch of skin it touches. I’m starting to sweat. He’ll be back in any minute.
I eye the door
knob. I eye the towel. I’m so close.
One more rock. I’m there. I’ve got it. I’ve got it. It’s between my
fingertips… “Wooooooo”… I flop to the floor, my slippery mermaid tail
following with a dramatically loud, wet fish thud. “Sh*t.”
“CLINGFILM
CALAMITY – Local theatre director found on massage room floor smothered by own
sweaty clingfilm!”
I push myself up
from the floor, but my wrapped legs are so tightly bound, I can’t bend them and
get to my feet. I shuffle, trying to
peel sticky limbs from their wrapping.
“Hillow? Knock
Knock. Is everythink okay in theyare?”
Sh*t, sh*t, too late.
“Umm, well,” I
call lamely, “not really.”
Yeah, right, I’m a
real spa professional! What Xavier must
think, God only knows, but fortunately, his steely Russian expression does not
change. He pries me from my sheath, ignores
my abashed nakedness, and busies himself with rolling out a new sheet and fresh
towels while I cower in the corner, brandishing the offending aqua article.
“It can get
sticky, no? There, I turn my back. You
get on, and I will cover you up.”
My mortification
is short-lived, as Xavier sweeps it away with every brush of his strong hands
on my taut muscles. He switches on the
whale music—I knew there’d be whale music!—and tells me in his hushed thick
accent what oils and lotions he is using.
His company is soothing, not obtrusive.
Thank God. He is happy to
concentrate on his work and I can…wait
for it…brace yourself, Enna… relax.
“You are
tense. You ’ave many knots here. You have lots of stress, I sink.
I work that out for you. Zis is the Sumatra
cocoa bean and vanilla exfoliating scrub. Zis is the soothing cocoa lotion. You will smell of zee milky chocolate.”
I am standing on a
wooden jetty. I have the rope in my
hand. I push off, leap across the water
and jump on the sailboat, casting myself adrift on waves of vanilla and
chocolate. The sun beats warmly on my
skin. I hear the whales as they fluke up
through the lapping oceans of milky chocolate, showering me with chocolatey
spray as they dive deep below.
The hour passes
all too swiftly. He whispers thickly in
my ear, “Is time to shower now.”
I stretch like a
sultry cat basking in the sun. I feel
energized yet heavy, as if I really have had
the Andalucian beach “experience.”
I watch Xavier as
he turns the shower faucet and adjusts the temperature. “Zare, it is warm for you. I go and you shower, then after you lie down
again, and I finish you off.” He frees
the aqua sheer curtain from the tieback and lets it fall between the shower and
the room. “For your privacy,” he assures
me. Horse, stable, bolted springs to
mind, now that he is acquainted with every inch of my exfoliated skin.
The water pours
down on me from the enormous shower rose, washing away every last grain of
cocoa bean. I close my eyes and feel the
surge of the water pouring overhead, luxuriating in the powerful flow. I run my hands down my body. I feel like the
surface of a ripe nectarine, all those peachy hair follicles and dull epidermis
rubbed away to reveal a smooth, glossy skin—a new me—albeit a little
bruised. The dead skin is sloughed away,
and I watch the soap and grains swirl in their watery tornado down the plug
hole.
How strange and
unexpected life is. A month ago, I was
about to jump ship from my ailing theatre into the arms of my lovely
fiancé. Now I have a thriving theatre,
great prospects, and flawless, silky smooth skin. A fair exchange? I turn the tap and watch the final gulp glug
down the metal gullet. I flick the beads
of water off and reach for the towel. Am
I happy? Am I? Happy?
Of course I
am! I am a v. successful, smooth-skinned
artistic director with vast, indefinable potential. Yes,
Oprah, I do have reasons to be cheerful!
I settle back down
on the raised bed, this time keeping a firm grip on the fresh, white
towels. Xavier re-enters and slathers me
in wondrous hypnotic aromas. His hands
do the work of ten, working in the chocolate cream blended with a hint of
fragrant coconut. I smell good enough to
eat, silky to the touch and, less fortunately, as h**ny as an alley cat.
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