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© 2006, Mardi
Ballou Reviews For BETWEEN THE SHEETS by Mardi Ballou 4 ANGELS: Readers will love this story, and yes will
want more from Mardi Ballou. ...a story about growing up and moving on from what
used to be. I enjoyed this book because it was different and unusual
in a way that I have never read before. Sample Chapter For BETWEEN THE SHEETS by Mardi Ballou In the cramped office of hotshot new producer for La Fiesta Music, Roy Emberling, two men sat in silence. One appeared tentatively pleased; the other looked around for a quick means of escape. Very much in the foreground, the dying strains of the latest CD Roy was producing faded away. “So what do you think?” Roy asked his friend Dylan McLean. Dylan fervently wished he hadn’t let Roy coerce him into giving an opinion he felt unqualified to give. Dylan considered himself highly qualified to express his opinion about movies, which he did several times weekly as the new film critic for the San Francisco Trib. But when it came to music, especially the songs of a pop icon like Courtney Clayton, Dylan’s thoughts had no more value than any other guy off the street. Which he tried to tell Roy. “But that’s exactly what I’m after,” Roy protested. “Courtney’s fan base is entirely made up of guys off the street.” “More like their mothers, aunts, and sisters for her singing,” Dylan pointed out. “The guys were more interested in her on that TV show.” Roy nodded his head in agreement. “That was true before Courtney took a four year hiatus to go to Harvard. Now that she’s graduated, she wants to restart her career in a whole new direction. Our girl’s grown up.” “Doesn’t sound like she has,” Dylan muttered. “Grown up, that is.” Roy reached into a bowl of M&Ms—his substitute for the cigarettes California had all but outlawed. “What do you mean?” He inhaled a handful of the candies and crunched them. There was no getting around telling Roy the truth, so Dylan carefully chose his words. “Roy, she sounds like a little girl trying to play grown-up. You know, like she’s tripping around in her mother’s high heels. Her voice doesn’t have the, I don’t know, the battered quality or maybe it’s the maturity to sing ballads of love and loss. Send in the Clowns, The Way We Were, A Certain Smile. Someone gave her really bad advice. She has a great voice, and she’ll probably do a wonderful job on those songs when she’s had some…some experience with living.” Roy furrowed his brow. “Courtney personally picked each song on this CD to enhance her new career strategy. She’s put a lot of heart and soul into it. But now, if I get your drift, you’re saying she sounds too young to sing the songs on this CD?” Dylan nodded vigorously. “Exactly. She takes sophisticated lyrics and makes them sound like Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm. Makes me want to tell her to go out and get a life. Come back and sing these songs when she’s grown up enough to know what the words mean. Say, five to ten years. In the meantime, there’s nothing wrong with being America’s prom queen.” He started to rise to leave but Roy motioned him to stay where he was while he wrote some notes. Just then the door to Roy’s office flew open, and the subject of Dylan’s tirade flounced in, glaring at both men. “Who are you?” she barked at Dylan. “And what gives you the right to pronounce judgment on my work?” Dylan sprang to his feet. “I’m Dylan McLean.” He extended his hand to the shapely blonde with ocean-blue eyes. She was even more gorgeous in person than on TV, if that was possible. She looked down at his hand with contempt, and he lowered it to his side. “The movie critic for the San Francisco Trib, right?” she asked. He was impressed. He was new in the city and didn’t think many people knew his name yet. “You’re a movie critic. What gives you the right to mouth off about my song selections on the CD?” Dylan looked at Roy with an I-told-you-so expression. “Exactly, I’m a movie critic. That’s what I told Roy, an old buddy who guilt-tripped me into coming to listen and give my, as you say, worthless opinion.” He frowned at Roy and added, “We’re even now, bud. I don’t owe you anything more for that favor.” “Yeah, we’re even.” Roy came over to the two of them and put up his hands. “Uncomfortable as it is to hear, Courtney, we’ve gotta listen to Dylan. His opinion is probably typical of most of your fans.” She crossed her arms. “Oh, and what is it Mr. Typical Fan wants to hear?” She narrowed her eyes. “If you made another Christmas album, I and probably every other guy out there would buy it for his mom this year.” Dylan referred to the last CD she released before heading off to Harvard. The CD continued to smash sales records each holiday season, and music company executives hounded her for more of the same. She shook her head. “Everyone thinks I’m still the kid who made the Christmas album. I’m a grown-up now, a new person. I want to open a new phase of my career, one that shows where I am now, not where I was.” Dylan couldn’t see what all the fuss was about. She could have done worse than continue to produce mega hits. “Come on. Is it that bad having a blueprint for success? A lot of people still love that CD. Heck, I bought copies for my mother, my grandmother, and my Aunt Louise.” Her face crumpled. “How would you feel if someone made posters of your baby pictures and plastered every building you went into with them?” He tried to look sympathetic. “I guess it doesn’t help that you were head cheerleader and Howie’s dream date on High School Days.” Courtney Clayton’s intermittent appearances on the popular sitcom while she was in high school had deepened her aura of being sweet and unreachable though amazingly beautiful. She rolled her eyes. “I hated that show. And I never was that person, but that stupid image still haunts me.” She stood up and began pacing, giving him a view of her shapely butt that helped convince him she had indeed grown up. She whirled back to face him, waving her well-toned arms. “That’s why I chose to sing these romantic songs for my new CD. I chose. Not some adviser who wants me to stay fifteen years old till I’m collecting Social Security, but me.” She folded her arms in front of her pert breasts and jutted out her bottom lip. “I stand behind my choices.” This tirade was way more than he’d bargained for. Heck, after today, Roy would owe him. Dylan looked at his watch. He really needed to go. “Pleasant as it is to chat with you, I do have another appointment I need to get to. With my editor.” Dylan left before either Roy or Courtney could do anything else to detain him. |