Elena is a by-the-script actress whose co-star, Michael, has a gift for improvisation that drives her crazy. Fighting a fiery chemistry, they work to keep their on-stage romance where it belongs-on the stage. But a year-long road tour stretches before them. How long can they keep a lid on their simmering passion? When his left-behind boyfriend, Tom, seems withdrawn on the phone, Denny questions his lover's faithfulness. Their once-solid relationship faces its biggest test during the long separation.
Inexperienced Gretchen is thrilled to land her first professional role in the musical, Transitions, but the pressures of performing are more than she bargained for. Entranced by her wholesome sweetness, Jake, the pit guitarist, endangers the very qualities he admires by giving her a "little something" to take the edge off her nerves.
Every night for a year, they'll play out a "happily ever after" on the stage. Before the last curtain call, will life imitate art?
Read an excerpt from The Final Act
Visit Bonnie Dee's web site
About Bonnie Dee
I began telling stories as a child. Whenever there was a sleepover, I was the designated ghost tale teller. I still have a story printed on yellow legal paper about a ghost, a witch and a talking cat. Writing childish stories for my own pleasure led to majoring in English at college. Like most English majors, I dreamed of writing a novel, but at that time in my life didn't have the necessary focus and follow through. Then life happened. A husband and children occupied the next twenty years.
It was only in 2000 that I began writing again. Fanfiction helped me reawaken that creative facet of my life. Having an already created world and characters to play with makes it easy for a writer to work on other aspects of the craft. My friend, Lauren Baker and I wrote Finding Home, which was published at Samhain. Since discovering the world of e-publishing, I've never stopped writing.
Backlist
Home Bound, Bone Deep, Seasons of Love, Moon Over Bourbon Street, Measure of a Man, The Fruits of Betrayal, Opposites Attract, Evolving Man, Finding Home, The Warrior's Gift, Undeniable Magnetism, Three, Boundless, Hot Summer Nights, Blackberry Pie, The Valentine Effect, The Countess Takes a Lover, Perfecting Amanda.
Coming soon
Coming in December: The Countess Lends a Hand
Coming in 2009: The Thief and the Desert Flower
An Interview with Bonnie Dee
By Katie Raines, Assistant for The Romance Studio
KR: Bonnie, thanks for talking to us about your featured book, The Final Act. What can you tell us about this fascinating new work?BD: The book is about the backstage of lives of members of the road company of a Broadway musical. It features three romances. Elena and Michael play lovers in the production and struggle to keep their romance professional and onstage only. Denny has to leave his lover, Tom back in New York and time and distance create problems in their relationship. Pit guitarist, Jake falls hard for the ingénue, Gretchen, but his hard-living ways are destructive to the naïve young woman.
The story is also about the theater and how it feels to be onstage performing in front of an appreciative crowd, or getting a negative review, or acting the same scene for the hundredth time while attempting to keep it fresh. These are things a writer can appreciate, too.
KR: Your story features several characters. What challenges lie in crafting a work with multiple story lines? BD: It is a huge balancing act to make sure all members of an ensemble cast get their fair share of screen time. I wrote out the story arcs for the three sets of lovers, then the individual character arcs, ie. how does so-and-so grow and change in the course of the book. I had to make the timelines for the development of each of these stories fit together.
On top of this, I wanted to make sure there was plenty of the flavor of theater life so the story didn't turn into one giant soap opera. I joined an online group of theater lovers, many of them actors with stage experience and picked their brains. I interviewed the production manager at our local theater about his time spent on a road crew. And I also invented a storyline for the play the actors are performing in. Michael's character in the play mirrors his counterpart in the story, as far as learning to open up and let love in.
KR: Who were your favorite characters in this story? BD: I suppose I like Elena, who is kind of intense, opinionated and bossy like, um, me. I find her love interest, Michael, very sexy. I mean, come on, how many times have you watched a love scene in a movie and thought about the actors having to portray that passion. It's a sexy idea, right?
I appreciate Gretchen, a wholesome, small town girl suddenly and unexpectedly achieving her dream and not knowing how to deal with it.
And even though Tom's role is mostly off screen, I love how he and Denny fit together in their brief scenes. He's such a steady anchor kind of a guy.
KR: Where did you get the idea for creating a story around a musical production? BD: I was inspired to write this story about the theater after watching the movie version of Rent and going to see Phantom on stage soon after. I started to think about what it would be like to work in touring theater, on the road, living in tight quarters with your co-workers. The situation seems ripe for brief affairs if not romance. But since I love romance, of course, the sets of lovers in my book get their HEAs.
KR: What do you hope readers enjoy most about this particular story? BD: I hope they appreciate that it's an attempt to do something different. This is not a book they've seen over and over again with slightly different twists. I hope readers, even those who might not be theater lovers, give this unusual romance a try.
KR: What can you tell us about The Countess Lends a Hand? BD: This book is a sequel to my Regency era romance, The Countess Takes a Lover in which la Comtesse Meredith de Chevalier gives a young man a sexual awakening and ends up falling in love with the studious botanist. In this sequel, Meredith and Chris's relationship deepens and they confront some issues about truth and the concealing of it.
This time the countess gives romantic advice to her long time ladies' maid, Cecile, who has fallen hard for a man far beyond her reach. Meredith invents a new identity for Cecile and encourages her fling with Nathaniel Covington. Of course, the fabrication can't hold forever, especially after love comes into the picture. Can a maid and a gentleman overcome their class differences to find love? And will Meredith ever learn her lesson about playing games with the truth?
Both books are at Samhain. The Countess Takes a Lover is available now. The Countess Lends a Hand will be released in December.
KR: What can you tell us about Rock Hard?
BD: Rock Hard, available at Loose Id in September, is a classic bodyguard story set in a sci-fi fantasy world. Leelah is the daughter of a very important diplomat. She's spent her life guarded and is tired of being unable to pursue her chosen career and find a useful place in the world. Her new bodyguard, Ja-hun has basically confined her to house arrest because of a recent threat. Of course, their relationship is sexually charged, because, duh, it's erotic romance! The free spirited woman breaks through his tough, emotionless exterior, and bad guys are foiled by the end of the book. But guess who ends up saving herself?
KR: Have you attended any conferences or made any appearances this year? What did you enjoy most about these?
BD: I haven't done either of those. I've barely spent time at author chats or visiting loops. I'm completely into the writing at the exclusion of the other aspect of sharing myself with readers. I always feel that I'm just not that interesting.
KR: What are you looking forward to most, personally or professionally, this fall? BD: Honestly, I've fallen in love with my Countess series and would like to write more with further development of Meredith and Chris's relationship, while she gets involved in other peoples' romances ala Emma.
Personally, one of the things I'm most looking forward to this fall is the return of some of my favorite TV series: Friday Night Lights, Lost, Heroes, Prison Break, Survivor, Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, also some new ones, Dollhouse and Fringe. If The Riches doesn't get renewed and it finishes on such an open-ended note, I'll die. I love TV way too much.
KR: What's your favorite way to interact with readers? BD: I think e-mail. If someone sends me a personal e-mail, I'll respond.
KR: Thank you!
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