When Amelia Tate is cast to play the Audrey Hepburn role in a remake of Roman Holiday, she feels as if all her dreams have come true. She has a handsome boyfriend, is portraying her idol in a major motion picture, and gets to live in beautiful Rome for the next two months.
Once there, she befriends a young woman named Sophie with whom she begins to explore the city. Together, they discover all the amazing riches that Rome has to offer. But when Amelia's boyfriend breaks up with her over her acting career, her perfect world begins to crumble.
While moping in her hotel suite, Amelia discovers a stack of letters written by Audrey Hepburn that start to put her own life into perspective. Then, she meets Philip, a handsome journalist who is under the impression that she is a hotel maid, and it appears as if things are finally looking up. The problem is she can never find the right time to tell Philip her true identity. Not to mention that Philip has a few secrets of his own. Can Amelia finally have both the career and love that she's always wanted, or will she be forced to choose again?
With her sensory descriptions of the beautiful sites, decadent food, and high fashion of Rome, Hughes draws readers into this fast-paced and superbly written novel. Rome in Love will capture the hearts of readers everywhere.
Read an excerpt!
chapter one
Amelia stood on the balcony of the Hassler Hotel and gazed at the twinkling lights of the Spanish Steps. She could see the dome of Saint Peter’s Basilica and the dim outline of the Vatican. She took a deep breath, inhaling exhaust fumes from the endless stream of yellow taxis, and tried to remind herself she was in Rome.
Amelia smoothed the folds of her pink satin Balenciaga evening gown and checked that the borrowed Harry Winston diamond clip still held back her hair. She stroked the white silk gloves and fingered the diamond and sapphire choker around her neck. It was all a fairy tale: the ivory Bentley that picked her up from Rome Airport, the elegant suite at the Hassler with its black-and-white marble floors, the Spanish Steps at her feet and all the places she read about in guidebooks: the Sistine Chapel with its intricate frescoes, the Via Condotti with its string of elegant boutiques, the Colosseum and the Pantheon and the museums with long, flowery names.
Amelia tried to recapture the thrill when the concierge welcomed her with a bouquet of two dozen yellow roses and her own personal butler. She tried to remember the first glimpse of her suite: the silver ice bucket, the gold tray of chocolate truffles and petit fours, the mahogany four-poster bed. But her legs were shaky from jet lag, her head throbbed from too much champagne and not enough food, and her mouth was frozen in a permanent smile.
For the last two hours she stood in the grand ballroom, her large brown eyes coated with thick mascara, her cheeks powdered, her lips painted with pink lipstick, and answered the journalists’ questions.
“How does it feel to go from being a complete unknown to being nominated for a Spirit Award for best supporting actress for your first role to starring in the remake of Roman Holiday? Warner Brothers invested a hundred million dollars in this picture, do you feel the pressure with your name above the title?”
Amelia had tilted her head and answered in the way Sheldon Rose, her producer, taught her.
“Why, Mr. Winters”—squinting so she could read the reporter’s name tag and then waiting so the journalists focused on her white shoulders and creamy skin instead of her words—“when you put the question like that, I don’t feel any pressure at all.”
The room erupted into polite laughter but the questions kept coming.
“Variety quoted you as saying ‘Audrey Hepburn is my idol and I can’t imagine ever hearing my name in the same sentence.’ Are you nervous about playing the role that made her famous?”
“Is it true you were premed at USC and Spike Jonze discovered you when you drove a friend to an audition?”
“Are you and Whit breaking up? Does he really wish you’d give up acting and pursue a career in medicine?”
Amelia paused again, longer so that she didn’t say what she was thinking: it’s none of your business how Whit feels, I could never give up acting, we’re madly in love, he bought me these gorgeous teardrop earrings before I left for Rome. Instead, she touched her earrings gently, smoothed the folds of her gown and smiled.
“There’s a reason why they call it one’s ‘private life,’ Mr. Gould”—again reading his name tag, trying to look him in the eye so he wouldn’t fire off some scathing article that she refused to answer personal questions, and finally a slow genuine smile—“because it’s best to keep it private.”
Then more champagne plucked from the trays that floated past carrying crystal champagne flutes and silver goblets filled with plump prawns and slices of melon. She smelled tomato sauce and garlic and longed to sit down to a plate of steaming ravioli and thick bread dipped in olive oil. But her dress was so tight it was almost spray-painted to her hips, and it was impossible to answer questions with a mouth full of pasta, so she guzzled champagne and waited for Sheldon to say, “Thank you all for coming, Miss Tate cherishes each and every one of you, but if she doesn’t get her rest she’ll miss her six A.M. call.”
But Sheldon seemed to have disappeared and Macy Smith, editor of Vogue, came gunning down the Oriental runner. Amelia remembered her vicious critique of her choice in Oscar dresses and desperately needed some air. She ran out of the ballroom, down one flight of marble stairs and onto the balcony. Now she stood, wishing she had grabbed a puffed pastry or at least a stone wheat cracker, and gazed at the ancient, glittering city.
Amelia had always been fascinated by Rome: the elegant restaurants opposite cramped trattorias, the modern stores flanked by stone arches, the women wearing sleek dresses and smooth pageboys and large gold earrings. She had only been once, on a school chorus trip in the eighth grade, but she loved the creamy fettuccine and sweet gelato and the boys wearing leather jackets and driving Vespas. She remembered standing in the middle of the Via Appia and a boy with curly brown hair driving around her in circles and never wanting to leave.
Now Rome was her home for two glorious months. They were shooting the whole movie on location, at the Trevi Fountain and the Piazza Navona and the Castel Sant’Angelo. Sheldon had given her the Villa Medici suite—the same hotel room where Audrey Hepburn stayed more than fifty years ago. Amelia remembered standing in front of the gilt mirror in the pink marble bathroom and picturing Audrey Hepburn brushing her hair and fixing her lipstick and slipping on a floral dress with a tiny waist and full flared skirt.
Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Rome-Love-Novel-Anita-Hughes/dp/1250064139
B&N: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/rome-in-love-anita-hughes/1120204938
Indiebound: http://www.indiebound.org/book/9781250064134
ANITA
HUGHES
is the author of Lake Como, Market Street, and Monarch Beach. She
attended UC Berkeley’s Masters in Creative Writing Program, and has taught
Creative Writing at The Branson School in Ross, California. Hughes lives in
Dana Point, California, where she is at work on her next novel.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment