Tracy Wolff | What does LOVEGAME's Veronica and Heath Ledger have in Common?

Hi Everyone :-) I’m so excited to be here today with a sneak peek of my June 7^th release, LOVEGAME. It’s been a long process to get this book from idea to reality, but now that release day is right around the corner, I can’t believe how fast these last few months have gone. The excerpt I’m posting today was actually inspired by what I know of the time before Heath Ledger’s death. Ledger had a difficult time after playing the Joker, one of the most diabolical, damaged and sociopathic characters in film today. He struggled with nightmares and numerous other problems for months, traumatized by the character he’d immersed himself in, until he finally died of a drug overdose. In LOVEGAME, my character, Veronica Romero, has also just played a sociopathic monster for film and now that the movie is about to come out—and she’s having to do the press and photo shoots for it, press and photo shoots that take her right back into the heart of the darkness she had to confront—she’s terrified of losing herself to the woman she spent so many months portraying. I hope you enjoy the excerpt and can’t wait to hear what you think. And to celebrate LOVEGAME’s imminent release, I thought I’d do a giveaway of PLAY ME! All you have to do to be entered to win is leave me a comment letting me know what you think of LOVEGAME. xoxo

“Lovegame is a true masterpiece, with thrilling suspense, crazy hot sex, and writing so truly beautiful that it stays with you long after you put the book down. It’s my favorite read of the year by far.”—Sawyer Bennett, New York Times bestselling author of Sugar Daddy

“Tracy Wolff is at the top of my auto-buy list, and Lovegame is the perfect example why. From the very first page, Wolff sucked me in with a story that crackles with sensual energy and characters that are scarred, sexy and wonderfully compelling. Go one-click Tracy Wolff’s Lovegame right now—you can thank me later.” –J. Kenner, New York Times bestselling author of Release Me.

“I loved Lovegame! It’s a hot, sexy thriller of a book, with so many twists and turns I never saw coming!”—M. O’Keefe, author of Everything I Left Unsaid

Reviewers Are Saying!:

“Tracy Wolff is one of those authors that needs to be on everyone's 'auto-click' shelf.” –IscreamBooks

“Lovegame is a steamy, psychological thriller that will have you on the edge of your seat all the way through.” –Bookangelbooktopia

“This is the second time so far in 2016 that I have been blown away by an unexpected release from one of my favorites. Tracy Wolff is one of many authors that I adore - I have read and reread her Ethan Frost series and I loved Accelerate, which came out last year. Lovegame is completely different from anything that I have read by Tracy Wolff, which was surprising and refreshing ... Lovegame was a fresh read that surprised me in so many ways. I hope that you'll give it a chance because it's one of the best books of 2016.” – Garden of Reden

“Lovegame had me breathless, sticking with me for days after I read it.”—Sarah Robinson, author of the Kavanagh Legends series

Excerpt:

I take picture after picture, with a vintage champagne glass in my hand or my face buried in a huge bouquet of dahlias. Toward the end, Marc has the stylist and his assistant wrap me up in a long string of artificial belladonna since the real stuff can cause problems if it touches the skin. Then they heap my gloved hands with a mountain of the poisonous black berries and Marc has me hold my hands out to the camera in a deadly macabre offering.

Again and again Marc shoots me like that, taking pictures from every possible
angle. On his knees in front of me, looking up. From a ladder above me, looking
down. Beside me. Behind me. Across the room. Up close. Again and again he points
and clicks. Again and again, I smile and pout and make every other expression he
asks for. I even take his suggestion to tilt my head back with my mouth open
wide and hold one of the berries between my thumb and index finger as I pretend
to be about to drop it in. As I do, I close my eyes and pretend not to be
totally icked out.

When I open them two minutes and twenty shots later, the first person I see is
Ian. He’s leaning back against one of the mirrored walls and for once his
omnipresent notebook is nowhere to be seen. Instead he’s staring straight at me,
a half-snarl on his normally calm face and his eyes burning with a mixture of
contempt and desire.

It’s the first time I’ve seen anything but pleasant or puzzled interest from him
and it has the tiny hairs on the back of my neck standing up. Has ice skating
down my spine and a desert taking up residence in my mouth. Because, in that
moment, as our eyes lock and his turn impossibly darker, impossibly blacker, I
don’t know who he sees. Can’t tell who he wants.

Me or her?

Actress or murderer?

Sentient being or a character he helped create?

It’s just more fuel to add to the fire of my earlier doubts and in that one
tense and electric moment, it comes to me. What the cover shot should be.

What I need it to be.

Marc backs off a little, has his assistant come forward with a trash bag for me
to throw away the last of the berries and the gloves I’ve been wearing. As she
pauses to tie up the bag in front of me, I ask her for a couple wipes.

She quickly returns with a box of baby wipes and I smile my thanks even as Marc
instructs me back against the mirror for what he calls “the last series of shots.”

I do as he instructs, but as he’s fiddling with the lighting, I turn toward the
mirror and swipe the wipe over the right half of my face.

“What are you doing?” my makeup artist squawks as he comes racing across the
room at me.

“Trust me, Dalton,” I tell him as I continue to scrub.

“Stop doing that!” he orders as he grabs on to the end of the wipe and actually
tries to wrestle it away from me.

“Just wait,” I instruct, refusing to let go no matter how hard he tugs.

“But—”

“What are you up to, Veronica?” Marc asks. He sounds more intrigued than annoyed.

“I’ll show you,” I tell him, pushing gently at Dalton’s hand until he finally
lets go with a whimper.

And then, with the whole room—including Ian—watching me intently, I wipe the
entire half side of my face clean of any and all makeup. I do it carefully,
making sure that the line that runs down the center of my face is exact so that
both sides are completely symmetrical.

When I’m done, I reach up and take off my right earring and hand it to Dalton
who still looks slightly shell-shocked. Then I step back and stare at this new
reflection of myself in the mirror.

Half me at my most natural, half her at her most armored, it’s a devastating
look. Made even more so by the elaborate fifties makeup Dalton has me in—all red
lips and thick black liner and long, long lashes.

There is a difference, I tell myself fiercely as I study myself. I am not her. I
will never be her, no matter what it felt like four months ago.

In the background I’m aware of Marc cursing softly, of him snapping picture
after picture. I don’t turn around, instead continuing to give him my back so
that he gets both me and my reflection in each shot.

“Turn around,” he breathes after he’s taken at least three dozen pictures.

Reluctantly, I do as he requests, then follow his impatient gesture for me to
move away from the mirror. I step forward and then the camera starts again,
clicking away to get the shot from this angle as well.

At that moment, Ian moves and I make the mistake of glancing his way. Our gazes
lock and heat slams through me at the look he’s giving me, has my eyes widening
and my lips parting on a gasp as I struggle to draw air into lungs that have
abruptly forgotten how to work.

“Fuck,” Marc breathes from where he’s narrowing in on my face. “That’s it.
That’s the money shot.”

I drag my eyes away from Ian, but it’s too late. For the first time in a very, very long time, I feel vulnerable. And I hate every second of it.