Blogtour Review: Prince of the Playhouse – Tara Lain

Posted 18 April, 2016 by Linda @ (un)Conventional Bookworms in Blog Tour, Reviews / 22 Comments

Blogtour Review: Prince of the Playhouse - Tara Lain

*I received a free copy of Prince of the Playhouse from Dreamspinner Press via Enchantress Design and Promo. This has in no way influenced my voluntary review, which is honest and unbiased *


Warning: This book includes mature content such as: sexual content, and/or drug and/or alcohol use, and/or violence.
Blogtour Review: Prince of the Playhouse – Tara LainPrince of the Playhouse by Tara Lain
Series: Love in Laguna #3
Published by Dreamspinner Press Genres: Adult, Contemporary, LGBT, Romance
Format: eARC
5 Stars

Driven by his desire to become a successful fashion designer and concerned with hiding his questionable past, Ru Maitland lets his obsession with action movie star Gray Anson on the big screen replace his social life. Then obsession and reality collide when Ru is asked to design fashion costumes for a special performance of Hamlet at the Playhouse in Laguna starring none other than Gray Anson. Gray turns out to be a compelling mix of shy and brash and, despite a high profile engagement to a female socialite, the signals Gray sends Ru have his libido doing the salsa.

Gray Anson has what most people only dream of—great wealth, huge fame, a job he loves. For that, he’s given up any semblance of privacy and the right to say no to the thousands of people who depend on him and the millions who love him. He sees everything he’s ever wanted just outside the bubble of his life, but how can he make the compromises needed to embrace it? When Ru’s shady past crashes into Gray’s paparazzi-haunted present, both men have to learn that sometimes the only acceptable compromise is the truth.

Adult - (un)Conventional Bookviews Contemporary - (un)Conventional Bookviews LGBT - (un)Conventional Bookviews

Prince of the Playhouse exceeded all my expectations, even if they were extremely high! I loved Ru from the first time I met him, and seeing him unfold his wings and soar was beautiful!

Review - (un)Conventional Bookviews

One of the things I love about Tara Lain’s novels is that even if there are homophobes in the world, there is always one or two people close to the main characters who love them no matter what! Prince of the Playhouse was a wonderful tale, and I enjoyed myself immensly while reading it. Ru is the perfect fashion designer with an amazing vision, and when his long-time crush – Gray Anson, action movie star – is scheduled to play Hamlet at the local Playhouse in Laguna, with Ru creating the costumes, Ru finally got to meet his hero in person.

Of course, the literature major in me loved that Shakespeare had a part in this story, and I would definitely go see this production of Hamlet in a theater. The story itself was so well done, with both Ru and Gray hiding something, and where especially Ru’s past came to bite him in the proverbial back-side. Even if Prince of the Playhouse is a quite short novel, I felt like I got to know the characters very well, and the side cast was well fleshed out, too. It was like being backstage with Ru, seeing him create his beautiful and outrageous costumes, while hearing the actors practice their lines.

Written in third person, past tense, and with an omniscient narrator that chose exactly what to share with the readers, I was totally engrossed with the story, and I definitely felt all the feels! Also, standing ovation to Gray’s mother – her reaction to a homophobic pastor was priceless! If you enjoy romances, and you are all for diverse characters, Prince of the Playhouse should definitely be a part of your collection – I’ve found a new favorite!

Fave Quotes - (un)Conventional Bookviews

The idea of meeting the man, touching him, gripped his brain somewhere between extasy and terror. His cock on the other hand, had no such confusion.

“Things may be swinging your way politically, but there are still a lot of haters out there.” “My way? I see. Doesn’t that suggest that you should arrest the haters rather than warning me to be careful in my own neighborhood? ” A crease popped out between his brows. “Maybe tone it down a little.” “Just as a woman who wears a low-cut dress is asking for it?” He shrugged. “Just sayin’.”

Giveaway - (un)Conventional Bookviews
a Rafflecopter giveaway

 

About the author:

Tara Lain - (un)Conventional Bookviews

Tara Lain writes the Beautiful Boys of Romance in LGBT erotic romance novels that star her unique, charismatic heroes. Her first novel was published in January of 2011 and she’s now somewhere around book 23. Her best­selling novels have garnered awards for Best Series, Best Contemporary Romance, Best Ménage, Best LGBT Romance, Best Gay Characters, and Tara has been named Best Writer of the Year in the LRC Awards. In her other job, Tara owns an advertising and public relations firm. She often does workshops on both author promotion and writing craft. She lives with her soul­mate husband and her soul­mate dog in Laguna Beach, California, a pretty seaside town where she sets a lot of her books. Passionate about diversity, justice, and new experiences, Tara says on her tombstone it will say “Yes”

Author Links:
WebsiteBlogTwitterFB Author PageGoodreadsPinterest

 

Series info:

Love in Laguna - (un)Conventional Bookviews

The image takes you to the series Goodreads page, and you can also read my reviews for Knight of Ocean Avenue and Knave of Broken Hearts. As you can see, I’m a big fan of this series 🙂

Prince of the Playhouse teaser - (un)Conventional Bookviews

Here’s the different places you can order your own copy of Prince of the Playhouse:

Dreamspinner eBookDreamspinner PaperbackKindleAmazon Paperback KoboIndiebound B&N

|All Romance eReader

 

Thanks for stopping by today, and good luck in the giveaway!

Reading this book contributed to these challenges:

Linda @ (un)Conventional Bookworms

About Linda @ (un)Conventional Bookworms

Linda is an English as foreign language teacher and has a Master's degree in English Language and Literature. She's an avid reader, blogger, compulsive one-clicker and a genre omnivore. Ever since she learnt how to read she has been seen with a book or two in her hands everywhere she goes.

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22 responses to “Blogtour Review: Prince of the Playhouse – Tara Lain

  1. Wow! I am stunned – thanks a lot for all the great information! I don´t know if it was part of the blogtour that you provided some author information, but it is great to read.
    best wishes
    Vi @Gone With The Books

    • Yes, the author invitation is part of the blogtour things… I agree with you that it’s nice to have some more info – but for my own posts I feel that it just takes a lot of time to prepare, and so I don’t… If there was a way to import author bios, I’d do it in a heartbeat 🙂

      • Vi@Gone With The Books

        You are using the UBB Plugin, right? I am not sure because I don´t use it yet & I could be wrong about it, but I understood it this way (when I talked with Ashley), that you only have to put in the author bio once when you put a review of that certain author online for the first time. The next time you review a book by the author, you only have to mark the certain field and the rest is already in the system – at least that´s how I understood the entire thing 🙂 Anyway, I like your blog and your reviews very much no matter if you put in those additional information or not! 🙂
        best wishes
        Vi@GoneWithTheBooks

  2. My Lexxie — you are amazing! Thank you so much for reading Prince of the Playhouse! I’m so happy you liked Ru and Gray! *hugs* : )

  3. Of course we’d both love this story, Lexxie! I adored Ru from the beginning as well so I’d been really excited to see his story. And it was a good one. I love what you said about Tara always having at least one person really close to her characters that love them no matter what. That’s so true and I thought Gray’s mom ROCKED! I’m so, so happy you introduced me to Tara’s writing. And there’s so much more for me to read from her. 😀
    **BIG HUGS**

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