I’m on the blog tour today for Production Values by Liv Bartlet and I have a guest post to share.
Production values is available to buy now in ebook and paperback now. The ebook is currently only £1.47! You can purchase a copy of bothhere.
Before I share my guest post with you, here is a little about the book.
Book synopsis:
At the age of 28, Kat Porter has become the it-girl of British TV Production. Gut, gumption, and artistry have carried her through a dozen impossible scenarios to arrive at her first run as Executive Producer, and now all three muses point to Ian Graham’s star power as the key to Los Angeles and golden statues. But disaster looms as Ian twists Kat into a chameleon fit for success. Ian’s young daughter is thrown into the spotlight and Kat must face the consequences of her neverending quest for acclaim. Production Values takes a biting but fun look at Hollywood—from the way we interpret female ambition to the influence of the paparazzi on how TV shows and stars fail or succeed.
Guest Post:
A Tour of Kat and Bea’s London Apartments:
This apartment building is a converted hotel, and it’s old. Not historically-significant old, but slightly-dilapidated, 60s-floral-wallpaper-and-shag-carpet-in-the-hallways kind of old. The connecting door between their apartments lets Kat and Bea feel more like roommates than neighbors. It felt good, that connecting door, when they were apartment (correction: flat) hunting as newly-graduated 20-something expats in London, like keeping a piece of who they were in college.
And the price fit their tiny budgets. That was the most important feature, really.
Each living room is big — or small, it’s a matter of perspective — enough for a couch, a TV, and a shelf or two. Maybe a table that doubles as a dining space and a desk. The bedrooms are just as small, limited to a bed, a dresser, and a miniscule closet. The bathrooms feel barely worth mentioning, with their standing-room-only showers and the way you can hit your elbows against two walls when you turn just so from the sink. The galley kitchens seem like an afterthought, but how much kitchen do you need for regular meals of ramen, anyway?
Blessedly, the walls inside the apartments are painted white, granting a greater sense of space.
The first thing you see on Bea’s side of the door is a black-and-white Kitty-Cat clock with skeptical eyes and an ever-moving tail. The couch is functional, the TV is old, but the table is where it’s at. Bea’s laptop, emblazoned with an “I Want To Believe” sticker, is open on the table, surrounded by binders, notes, colored pens, and a fizzing can of Diet Coke.
The refrigerator is stocked with enough Diet Coke for a year (or a week, if you’re Bea), a half-used carton of eggs, two anemic pieces of fruit, and a molding rind of cheese that could be bad or simply aging.
The bedroom isn’t a bedroom at all — there’s no bed! Bars and shelves from wall to wall display a dizzying splendor of designer clothes and shoes, mostly stilettos — better selection than some shops. You look back at the couch and spy the neat stack of blankets topped with a pillow off to the side — the couch is Bea’s bed.
The difference from Bea’s to Kat’s apartment is almost shocking. Only at seeing almost every inch of white wall covered in some kind of movie or TV poster or pages from magazines in Kat’s apartment, do you realize Bea’s walls are almost entirely bare. Kat’s TV is a wall-mounted flat screen, and there are shelves below it with more sleek equipment than the usual DVD player and DVR. Sound equipment. A giant set of headphones is plugged into one of the units and a space is cleared on the floor where Kat sits regularly, listening.
The side tables and coffee table by the black couch are actually stacks of books and CDs, topped with coasters and notebooks. Some of the books jut out from their stacks, as if they are called upon as more than decoration. How often do these Jenga-style tables collapse?
Just like Bea, Kat’s laptop lives on the table by the kitchen, surrounded by notes. It seems to be the only similarity.
There’s real food in the fridge — peppers and onions alongside eggs and milk and a package of clearance-priced strip steak. A four-bottle wine rack takes up precious countertop space. Dirty dishes are stacked in the sink, more neatly than the book tables.
The bedroom is merely that — a bedroom. The closet reveals stacks of jeans and t-shirts, a pair of trainers, and one black dress stuffed in the corner.
The building is old. These tenants are young and ambitious.
We hope you enjoy Production Values.
— Liv Bartlet
Thanks so much Liv for this fabulous guest post!
About The Author:
Liv Bartlet is the pseudonym for writing partners Becca McCulloch and Sarah McKnight, who have been building worlds and telling stories together for more than a decade. They’ve logged hours of behind-the-scenes movie and TV footage and challenged each other in a friendly Oscar guessing game every year this millennium. Lifelong Anglophiles, their Monkey & Me world sprang to vivid life on a trip to London that included divine pastries, sublime art, and a spectacular pratfall in the British Museum.
Becca is a professor, a scientist, and a secret romantic who insisted their first order of business in London was a meandering five-mile walk to see Big Ben. She lives with her husband, children, and an ever-expanding roster of pets in Logan, Utah.
Sarah is an Army brat, an Excel geek, and has a lot of opinions on the differences between science fiction and fantasy. She lives with her cat, Sir Jack—who is featured prominently on Liv’s Instagram —just outside Salt Lake City.
Social Media Links –
https://www.livbartlet.com/
Over The Rainbow Blog 