Customer Reviews

Leading Lady (Tales of London Series #3)

5 star:		(6)
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I really enjoyed this new story by Lawana Blackwell. Set in the theatre world of London in the late 1890s, she creates a plot and subplots of lively characters onstage and backstage. Bethia Rayborn is the new wardrobe mistress of London's Royal Court Theatre. She accepts a seemingly innocent invitation for a tea outing with her cousin Jewel's cousin Douglas Pearce after the departure of her intended fiance, Guy Russell. That cup of tea turns into a persistant and relentless pursuit as Douglas begins stalking her after she repeatedly refuses his attentions. In the heat of anger as he continues to persist, Bethia writes him a scathing letter, sending Douglas off on a wild chase which results his death. Douglas's sister, Muriel decides to take her revenge on Bethia by becoming the new leading lady in the Royal Court with the intent of sabotaging Bethia's job and eventually steals Guy away from her. This story includes a handsome new actor named Noah Carey from York with a past of his own. I am loving all of Lawana's books and am looking forward to her upcoming release "A Table by the Window".

"Leading Lady" was my first Lawana Blackwell book, and I was very impressed. I love the theatre, so I was drawn to the plot immediately, since it is set around the London theatre, just near the turn of the century. The characters are warm and inviting, taking you into their webs of love, deception, happiness, and anguish. Though predicable and stereotypical, the characters were very alive, and will make you forget that you probably already know how everything will end. The antagonist gets their comeuppance, and the protagonist lives happily ever after. My complaint is that the main characters kept shifting, and I couldn't keep track of how people were related to one another. It didn't hinder me from understanding situations eventually, but it was perplexing. I immensely enjoyed reading about classic London theatre and the gossip that revolved around it. If you love reading about life in the late 1800s, and enjoy the theatre, then this book is a must. I recommend.

This was a perfect ending to a wonderfully written series! I enjoyed the plot line very much. Bethia was a character that was easy to relate to and enjoy. I had never read a story about the London theater so I found the descriptions of the acting, wardrobe, and backstage drama very interesting. Lawana Backwell is an author who takes the time in weaving her tales. I am looking forward to reading more of her books in the future!

I love Lawana Blackwell's story telling. I first discovered her 'Gresham Chronicles' series and have snatched up anything else she has written. Her stories are full of characters that have depth and lives that are interesting but not weighed down by unrealistic drama. It makes her characters, even though from a different era, easy to relate to. The way she designs her stories enhance the characters' hearts and the motivations that we all struggle with. The pages turn easily as you feel like you get to know the people you are reading about and get 'into' their world. I also love the Victorian era, the facts about life in that time period are easily woven in so that picturing the action is easy to do. The Leading Lady has lots of interesting aspects of the theatre that, as a theatre arts student of years ago, I appreciated. I could almost smell the greasepaint and hear the audience applause. Great book! I've even re-read it twice.

Lawana Blackwell has, just this past year, become one of my favorite authors. This is the sixth book of hers that I have read, and I enjoyed it very much.

If you've not read the first two books in the Tales of London series, then I do believe you must do so before reading this one, which is the third. If I hadn't read those other two, I think I would have been confused a lot of the time and had a difficulty with keeping characters straight---I also would not have liked the book as much.

I'd actually give this book 4-1/2 stars, because the ending wasn't QUITE there. I was thrilled that I spent most of the book not exactly sure how it was going to turn out---for me, it wasn't totally predictable, which was a nice change from so many novels of the genre. However, the ending, once it did arrive, seemed to be rushed. To use a theater term (appropriate for the subject of this book), the "denouement" left something to be desired. This author has a tendency to do this in many of her books---you race to the end because it's such a great read, and then BAM! it's over all at once, leaving you going, "That's it?" So that was kind of disappointing.

Still, I love Lawana Blackwell's stories. She does such a great job of showing the passing of time, and you get to know her characters to the point where it feels like they are your own good friends. Even the antagonists in her stories are likeable in their own ways. I look forward to reading more of her novels in the future.

I thoroughly enjoy Lawana Blackwell's books set in England. She is very knowledgable of the locations and period settings of her stories. Being married to a Brit and having been an Anglophile since age 7 years, I appreciate her accuracy. Her characters are very realistic and interesting and I like the Christian concepts and moral lessons of her writing.