I really enjoy the London Celebrities series. Rom coms set in London that feature the theater world? What’s not to like? Check out my review of Headliners below!

Headliners (London Celebrities #5) by Lucy Parker. To be published by Carina Press on January 20, 2020 . Thanks to the publisher for providing a review copy!

If you want a recap of books #1 and #2 in the London Celebrities series, you can find one here!

Synopsis: For years, rival TV presenters Sabrina Carlton and Nick Davenport have traded barbs on their respective shows. The public can’t get enough of their feud, but after Nick airs Sabrina’s family scandals to all of Britain, the gloves are off. With their reputations on the rocks, Sabrina and Nick have one last chance to save their careers. If they can resurrect a sinking morning show as co-hosts, they’ll still have a future in television. But with ratings at an all-time low and a Christmas Eve deadline to win back the nation’s favor, the clock is ticking—and someone on their staff doesn’t want them to succeed. Their chemistry has always been explosive, but with hate turning to love, the stakes are rising and everything is on the line. Neither is sure if they can trust these new feelings…or if they’ll still have a job in the New Year.

Review: Headliners by Lucy Parker

This whole series is just so much fun. It’s not absolutely necessary to read the prior books before diving into this one, though characters from earlier books do make crossover appearances. I would recommend reading book #4, The Austen Playbook, before this one, though, because the main conflict between these two characters is set up in that book. (You can read my review of the Austen Playbook here.)

Sabrina and Nick are rival TV hosts. Both are competitive, and their competition had been fairly friendly until Nick broke the story of a scandal involving Sabrina’s family. Now she and her entire family openly detest him.

Nick and Sabrina are offered a take-it-or-leave-it deal: co-host a morning show together or lose their jobs. They have the Christmas season to make their onscreen pairing work, and if it doesn’t, the show will be handed over to someone else in the New Year.

This was such a great hate-to-love story! Sabrina and Nick are worthy opponents and the book really shows their relationship going from hate to disdain to grudging respect to sparks of attraction to full on steamy lust to a very sweet love. This is how you do hate-to-love!

Many of the other London Celebrities books feature a harder-edged guy with a more vulnerable woman, and I loved that Sabrina was every bit as tough and competitive as Nick was. She was also really funny, something I didn’t realize from book four, which was about her sister Freddie, and featured her as a supporting character.

I thought all the subplots–the lingering family drama, the sabotage on the set–worked well with the main romance plot.

Bonus: I didn’t realize this book was set during the holiday season , which also made it a very fun read for me!

I definitely recommend this series. Pretty Face is still my favorite, but I think this one takes second place!

Have you read any of this series? Tell me in comments!