i listened to this as an audiobook and really enjoyed it overall. i liked emerson a lot and the relationship was nicely built up and sweet. i did feel like the end was a little... idk, resolved a bit quickly/oddly? but not necessarily in a terrible or totally unbelievable way. a nice wlw romance if you're looking for one ( )

Celebrity-Commoner is a favourite fantasy. But it is a fairly difficult theme to make believable, simply because the celebrity of the star eclipses everything else. Author Fiona Riley takes this difficult coupling and creates a lovely romance out of it.

Read full review @https://www.bestlesficreviews.com/2019/01/media-darling-by-fiona-riley.html ( )

Emerson Sterling had been a child actor and had paid her dues. Now she stands at the pinnacle of her profession and an ex, Rachel Blanche, is threatening to expose personal information that could destroy Emerson’s career. Hayley Carpenter is a tabloid journalist with dreams of being a top-tier screenwriter. When Hayley is given the assignment of attending an awards gala, she’s less than happy. However, when she meets Emerson, she changes her mind. There is an irresistible attraction between the two that leads Emerson to give Hayley the chance to tell Emerson’s side of a feud between her and Rachel that is being fueled by Rachel in the tabloids. The more Emerson and Rachel see of each other, the more the attraction deepens. When Emerson finally tells Hayley what the secret is that Rachel is about to tell the world, Hayley doesn’t handle it or the ensuing publicity very well.

This story started out strong and will suck the reader into the lives of the two main characters. Riley carefully crafts their stories while building the tension of when Rachel will expose Emerson to the world. There are flashes of humor throughout the book that will have readers smiling. The run in between Emerson and Stan the moose should have readers laughing out loud.

Somewhere around halfway through the book, however, Riley begins to lose her way by trying to maintain the feud between the stars overly long. The story of Rachel’s perfidy is stretched to the breaking point. It is with a sigh of relief when Riley tells us that the deadline for the article Hayley is writing is only a couple of days off. Unfortunately, for Riley and her readers, the deadline becomes a moving target. There isn’t enough to sustain the tension and the story simply limps along until Emerson tells Hayley her secret and says she can use it in the article she’s writing. There is a false note toward the end of the book that simply doesn’t ring true involving Hayley’s reaction to Rachel's exposé – it seems out of character with how Riley has portrayed Hayley from the beginning of the book.

The writing is generally very good (with the exception of the flagging tension), the characters are likable, funny, intelligent, and pretty self-aware. The minor characters are well-drawn, too. Even Stan the Moose has his merits despite his wooden personality.

I wanted the story to maintain the pace to the conclusion every reader knows is coming, but instead, the air is let out of the balloon and rather being a race, we have a ramble. In spite of that disappointment, though, this is a good read and any lover of LesFic should enjoy it. ( )