Holly Hearts Hollywood
Release Date: 09/23/14
Swoon RomanceSummary from Goodreads:Seventeen-year-old Holly Hart wants to be a star. She moves to Los Angeles from the small town of Cedar Junction, only to hear she’s too fat and ugly to be a famous singer.
But when Shell Shocked Records looks past Holly’s plus-size and less-than-graceful-personality to offer her a recording contract, Holly cannot believe her good fortune. On closer inspection, however, the record execs want Holly to do all the singing, and a thinner and more beautiful girl, Lacey, would lip-sync and get all the credit. Holly goes for it because after all, she wanted to sing.
Contractually bound to secrecy, Holly is more than happy to sit backstage while Lacey shimmies in the limelight and basks in the fame. Before she knows it, Holly is friends with Serena, the pop-star daughter of a music-mogul, flirting with an intern, and developing a strange half-friendship with Lacey.
When Grayson Frost, the biggest country star in America, and coincidentally, a former school bully begins dating Lacey, Holly hopes that he won’t recognize or torment her.
Through a series of embarrassing and weird events, Holly gets to know Grayson and learns that he is much nicer and more mature than he was four years ago. Holly is horrified when she starts falling for him. When Grayson admits he fell for Lacey's voice, what is a girl to do when she can’t legally tell the truth at the moment when the truth matters the most?
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~ EXCERPT ~
Later, 12:30pm—Pink Palm Motel
Oh
my God. Oh my God. I can’t believe
that just happened. This kind of thing only happens in movies, unless I’m in a
movie and don’t know it, like that one movie with Jim Carrey where it turns out
his life is actually a reality show, and he didn’t know it.
First, I made a huge mistake by wearing my
Old Navy jeans and baby-pink shirt. I’ve never been more underdressed in my life,
even more so than when I forgot to wear my cowboy boots to the 12th
Annual Cedar Junction Hoedown.
Shell Shocked is a super cool place;
everything is covered in stainless steel, even the ceiling! Everyone we saw
looked like they’d walked right out of the pages of a magazine, and it made me
really uncomfortable. And paranoid. I was certain that as soon as I stepped
foot into the lobby, I’d run into him, even
though he doesn’t live anywhere near here.
When my mom told the lady at the front
desk we were there for our meeting with Mr. Salazar, she gave us a snooty look
of the first order. I don’t really blame her; Mom was wearing her favorite pair
of Birkenstocks and an orange peasant skirt with little bells. I’m sure the
city-bus-sized pimple on my chin didn’t help anything either.
Snooty Secretary led us to this giant
conference room that was, you guessed it, covered in stainless steel. I think
this was the point where my heart went into overdrive, and my palms began to
sweat. There were three men in the room. Two of them looked like twins, with
navy blue suits and brown hair.
The man at the head of the table had deep
brown skin, was wearing a crisp, expensive-looking suit, and was completely
bald. Seriously, his head was even shiner than the stainless steel. He didn’t
even have stubble, but his eyebrows
made up for that. They were very
voluminous.
“Mr. Salazar, Daisy and Holly Hart are
here to see you,” the secretary said.
The man at the head of the table stood up
and buttoned his suit jacket. “Ms. Hart, I’m glad to meet you. I’m Manuel
Salazar, I’m the studio president,” he said. His voice was very gravelly, like
Louis Armstrong’s.
Of course, the moment I needed to be cool
and actually say the right thing for once,
my words got tangled in my throat. I’m usually full of stupid things to say,
but this time I couldn’t say anything at all. I was so mortified to be standing
there in such a fancy building in a pair of stretched-out jeans and tennis
shoes. Why didn’t I change into the polka-dot dress I got from Target last
year? It’s my favorite. Luckily, Mom leapt to the rescue.
“Thank you for having us, Mr. Salazar,”
she said. Mom shook his bear-paw of a hand.
Mr. Salazar gestured for us to sit down,
which was a stressful decision of its own. There were at least eight empty
chairs. I didn’t want to settle down right next to Mr. Salazar like we were
best friends, but I didn’t want to sit on the far end like he carried the
plague or something. I finally just sat down and fought the urge to spin around
in circles until I was sick from dizziness. Mr. Salazar placed the tips of his
fingers together in an arch, and my stomach churned.
“What song do you have prepared for us?”
he asked.
Suddenly my stomach felt like it had
turned inside out. “Song?” I repeated, my mouth dry.
Mr. Salazar’s caterpillar eyebrows knitted
together. “Yes, you have to sing for us, of course. We need to make sure you’re
who we’re looking for before we talk about your future at Shell Shocked.”
I thought I was going to vomit, and that’s
not an exaggeration. I’d be more comfortable in a bikini than I would singing
in front of strangers. Which of course made me seriously consider what I was
doing there in the first place. If I couldn’t sing for those three men, how
could I expect to have CDs and concerts?
“Go on, Holly,” Mom said gently. “It’ll be
okay.”
I don’t know what came over me, but I
must’ve gotten a sudden rush of adrenaline. Next thing I knew, I was standing
up and singing “Jesus Take the Wheel” for the entire world to hear. And you know
what? It felt great. I mean, I
love to sing, I really do! I was so nervous to sing for these people, but once
I started singing, I couldn’t stop. I felt unstoppable. I felt like I could
take on the rest of high school, my first year of college, and maybe dismantle
the patriarchy while I’m at it.
They actually clapped for me when I
finished! I wasn’t sure what to do; no one had ever applauded me before. Well,
at least applauded nicely. The cafeteria applauds every time I fall or spill
something at lunch.
“That was wonderful,” Navy Suit #1 said.
“Amazing rendition,” Navy Suit #2 added.
“We were very lucky to find your videos on
YouTube, Holly,” Mr. Salazar said sincerely.
“I’ll say; I think you might’ve been the
only one to see my videos.” I wanted to kick myself as the words left my mouth.
I sat back down in my chair and cringed when I heard it creak beneath me.
“I’m sure it hasn’t escaped your notice
that Country Pop music is on the rise.” He didn’t wait for my response and
continued. “Well, unfortunately we aren’t a Nashville studio, and we don’t have
a single country artist signed. We here at Shell Shocked really want a piece of
the pie, but country artists aren’t exactly knocking down our door.”
“So, you want to give Holly a contract?”
Mom suddenly butted in.
Mr. Salazar raised an eyebrow and
continued. “Not exactly. In order to be a competitor, we need someone
incredible on every level. With your amazing voice, we believe we can create the perfect country-pop artist.”
“Wait,” I said, my throat dry. “You want just my voice?”
Mr. Salazar dropped his hands on the table
and leaned back in his chair. “There’s a very particular look we’re aiming for
in the artist we sign, and your look isn’t exactly it. Your voice, however, is
above and beyond what we’re looking for. We’ve found a girl signed with a local
modeling agency, and she’s the perfect person to embody your voice.”
I wasn’t sure if I should be excited or
offended. I mean, yeah, he complimented my voice, but in the same breath, he
made every other part of me feel horrible.
“I think Holly and I are going to have to
talk this over at home, Mr. Salazar,” my mom said, coming to my rescue again.
“Is there a contract we can look over?”
“Yes, yes, of course. Check in with my
secretary, and she’ll see that you get the right paperwork.”
There was the usual exchanging of nice to meet you and hope to hear from you soon, but I
hightailed it out of there as quickly as I could. By the time we climbed back
into the limo, I was shaking. I couldn’t even open a can of cherry Coke.
“Holly, are you okay?” Mom asked.
“I don’t know,” I blurted, tears welling
in my eyes. I didn’t even know why I was crying; I couldn’t control it.
“Look, if you want to go home, that’s
okay.” Mom leaned in close to me, overwhelming me with the smell of hemp, and
gently scratched my back. That only made me cry more and not dainty, lady-like
tears—these were ugly, heaving sobs.
“I wish Dad were here,” I said through a
river of mucus. “He’d know what to do.”
“I wish he were here too. Honey, forget
everything he said that hurt your feelings and remember the good things. He
gave you a huge compliment; he wants your voice! Doesn’t that make you feel
good?”
I wiped my nose. “Kind of. But what’s the
point if I don’t get the credit?”
Mom sighed. The beads in her hair clinked
with the motion. “But would you really want to put yourself in the public eye
like that? If you didn’t like what Mr. Salazar had to say about you, can you
imagine what the magazines would be like?”
“That’s true,” I agreed. “Mom, you kind of
sound like you like the idea.”
“I do, a little bit.”
“But why? I’d be working for a big
corporation and giving some girl all of the credit for something I did. We’d
probably have to move out here, and you hate big cities. You’d have to leave
the university and work out here.”
Mom slowed the scratching on my back.
“Holly, you’ll be surprised to know that I don’t have the right answer to
everything. If this is something you want to do, then we’ll do it. It’s a great
opportunity for you.”
Now that I think about it, I don’t know
why I started to freak out so much. It’s not like I’m some vocal protégée who
has been preparing her whole life to step into the spotlight and become a star.
I’m not using my voice for anything.
Why not let this girl have it?
Mom gave me a tight hug. After she leaned
away, she handed me a tissue. “Just think about it. Let’s go home, look through
the contract, and talk, okay?”
Then Mom made the limo driver turn on the
reggae station, and she lip-synched to every song. Sometimes I really love my
mom.
About the Author
I'm the author of the upcoming YA series Holly Hearts Hollywood, coming September 2014 by Swoon Romance. I'm a twenty-something cat lady who lives in Phoenix, Arizona. When I'm not working my office day job or writing books, you can find me either singing and dancing or binge-watching TV shows on Netflix.
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