Introducing Elizabeth Sharland's new novel:
In this sequel to Elizabeth's first novel, The Best Actress, a group of British actors go to stay at Noel Coward's house in Jamaica on holiday, where dramatic events happen. The Oscar winning actress Nicole Bennett struggles with the dilemma of having to decide between her love for the theatre and the love in her private life. The story continues when they return to London.
ISBN 978-0-595-45284-2
From the reviews of Best Actress:
"Balancing the demands of private life with a full-time acting career has exercised the minds of actresses from Ellen Terry to Judi Dench. Each had to work out her own solution, and very few have found it easy. This book tells the story of one such dilemma."
-JOHN MILLER. biographer of Judi Dench, John Gielgud, Ralph Richardson,and Peter Ustinov
"A fascinating look at life behind the curtain... career versus love. A passionate and emotional tale of turmoil."
-DAVID BROWN, film producer of Jaws, The Sting, Driving Miss Daisy, and Chocolat
Available on Amazon.com |
Review in Tide Water Times, December 2007:
Blue Harbor Revisited, A Gift From Noel Coward, by Elizabeth Sharland.
165 pages.
ISBN: 978-0-595-45284-2.
The author calls this a theatre novel, centering around the late playwright, songwriter, bon vivant and wit Noel Coward and his influences on a fictional bunch of actors and playwrights. The narrator, an aging actress, is mourning the death of her fiancé in an automobile accident.
The theme of the story, aside from the Noel Coward connection, is the close bond among actors. Their profession is so time-consuming that their fellow thespians are often their closest “families.”
Still numbed by grief, the narrator meets an old acquaintance, an actress who is retiring from the stage to follow her alcoholic husband to a new job in Australia. The friend, Joan, is lagging behind for the task of moving her 80-ish mother, a famous actress in Noel Coward’s day, to an assisted living home for aged actors and actresses.
While awaiting the move to be finalized, Joan invites the narrator to join her mother, daughter and herself on a trip to Jamaica to stay at Coward’s home, Blue Harbor, before it’s sold. Its furniture is exactly as it was in Cowards lifetime when it was a happy spot for all his theater friends to holiday as his guests.
Who could resist? The narrator has won an Oscar the previous year for her starring role in a movie and has turned down lesser roles her agent proffers. A vacation in the sun is welcome. Off the four women, spanning three generations, fly from London’s wet, cold and dreary winter to Jamaica.
Time-out here while I introduce more of the characters. There are so many you can’t tell the score without a playbill. The narrator finally (way into the book) gets a name - she’s Nicole. You’ll also meet Joan, her mother Edith and daughter Charlotte, a drama school student, and later in the book, Brian, his sister Beryl, his fiancée Jane, the hunky Nigel, Diane, a cruise ship entrepreneur, Nicole’s old friend Ellen and her fiancé, rich as Croesus Ian. And these are only the main players.
But Noel Coward’s house in Jamaica! Heaven! Bliss! In a single week in the tropics, Nicole meets an old acquaintance, a failed actor and playwright, Brian, who’s seriously depressed that all his plays have been rejected. He takes his own life after Nicole tries to console him, but she dashes off for a tryst with Nigel. Uh-oh. More grief and guilt for Nicole for not realizing the depth of Brian’s depression.
Meanwhile, the reader gets a tour of the great man’s house, his guest cottages and his final simple house atop the cliff. Palm trees rustle, the surf booms without ceasing, multiple drinks are consumed and lazy days pass at Coward’s pool or on the beach below the cliff with languid swims in the turquoise sea.
Back in London, grey and dank as ever, the dramatic events pile up.
We see how resourceful and neurotic actors are in real life as well as behind the footlights. Petty quarrels, jealousy and great tales of theater history get told. The reader is left with a big question - how do these mostly unemployed prima donnas afford hopping to New York on a whim or financing a trip to the font of it all, Blue Harbor Revisited?
It’s all make believe, of course, but a good, juicy daydream for a snowy night.
- Anne Stinson