SOLVED. Title is Players but can't remember author. Two actors, Paula and Isabel, unlikely friends, England. [s]

[Jessie]

As the title says, the book is called Players. I'm not sure when it was published, definitely 90s or earlier. The two main characters are named Paula and Isabel.
Paula runs away when she becomes pregnant, adopts the child out, moves to england and becomes obsessed with the theater.

Her and Isabel both get accepted to a prestigious acting school and become friends. They both fall in love with a man named Patrick who marries Issy. They have children together and Paula moves to America and becomes a successful actress. She marries a man named Vince who later dies during a trial for a drug ring as he is a key witness.

Paula moves back to England, hangs out with Richard, Issys brother who is a gay playwright who is later murdered in a hate crime. Paula and Issy act in a play together and Paula is about to commit suicide but changes her mind when she recieves a letter from her daughter. I remember most of the details but I can't find anything when I search for it!

[Kym]

Nina Lambert

[MaWhit]

Merely Players by Lucy Floyd?

[Jessie]

yes, thank you!! I see it has a different title than the paperback I used to own.

[MaWhit]

Oh, yay!

Solved?

[Kym]

Jessie,

Which book is it? They both have Paula & Isabel in the descriptions.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Players-Nina...

[Jessie]

sorry, it's the one by Nina Lambert! Thanks again, I just ordered a copy!

[Jessie]

They actually sound like exactly the same book. So odd!

[Jessie]

Sorry to update again but I just found merely players on kindle and bought it. Read the first chapter and can confirm that even though they have different titles and different authors, they are in fact the same book!

[Kris]

Book link - Players by Nina Lambert

[[deleted user]]

Jessie wrote: "... even though they have different titles and different authors, they are in fact the same book..."

wow. That's really weird.

[Kym]

And I thought this was an easy request to solve until I read Whitney's suggestion, which sounded spot on, except for the publication date. It is really weird.

[Kris]

Players (1993) by Nina Lambert looks closer based on the initial publication year and the description on www.amazon.co.uk/Players-Nina-Lambert...

[Melanti]

If you look on the copyright page of Merely Players, it says the original pub. date is 1993 by Random House.
That's the publisher for the 1993 edition for Players too.

Another title seems to match up too - Sisters and Strangers seems to have the same plot and character names as Almost Sisters, and the original pub date on the copyright page of the latter matches that of the former.

So, it' probably a pseudonym and title change, but it's really strange the original titles and author name aren't listed in on the copyright page, though, nor is a previous pseudonym mentioned in the book's "about the author" blurb.

[Kym]

Thanks Melanti. Poor Jessie will now have 2 books exactly the same.

[Jessie]

I don't mind, they were inexpensive and at least I will always have a copy now!

[Melanti]

Huh.
I have librarian rights and was trying to tidy up some of the book records and was trying to find the original editions of some of Lucy Floyd's other books...
Turns out that her The First Casualty was originally published as By truth divided as Teresa De Luca.
She must have had several pseudonyms.
Her bio says 11 novels published, but she only has 6 listed. Nina Lambert seems to have 4 more, so there must be at least one more pen name floating around.

[Sharon]

Okay, so the author Lucy Floyd has books listed on Amazon:

The First Casualty
Yesterday
Body Language
Baptism of Fire
Almost Sisters
Merely Players

The above books were previously published under the author names of Nina Lambert and Teresa De Luca.

Nina Lambert has also published:

A Place in the Sun
A Moment to Remember
A Rose by Any Other Name
Sophie's Story

Teresa De Luca also has a another book listed, 'A distant thunder' which seems to be the same book as 'By truth Divided' and 'The First Casualty'.

My guess is that Lucy Floyd is the author's name, and she has e-published previous novels when she regained publishing rights. She probably can't republish the four romance novels originally published by Piatkus because she hasn't regained the rights yet. One of the novels 'Sophie's Story' also crops up as 'Acid Test occasionally.

Would be very interested to discover what the eleventh novel is that might be floating around.

[Melanti]

Interesting.
Thanks for the info. I added in an edition called "Acid Test" to "Sophie's Story." Given the publication date, "Acid Test" was probably the original title.


I agree that Lucy Floyd is probably the author's real name, but I still find it a bit odd that she doesn't give the original titles or pen names either in her Bio or in the copyright page. I looked when this thread came up the first time and I didn't find any sort of website or blog for the author either.

[Melanti]

I took another stab at trying to find a web page and/or blog, and I think this Linked In profile is probably hers, but can't see it since I don't have an account: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lucy-floy...

And this is possibly her page on IMDB: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1085376/

Of all her books, Body Language has to have another edition, probably published in 1994, so looking for that might lead to the missing pseudonym, if anyone cares to dig a bit further.