Screen Play

Title: SCREEN PLAY
Author: Chris Coppernoll
Publisher: David C. Cook
January 2009
ISBN: 978-1-4347-6482-9
Genre: Inspirational/contemporary

Sometimes the person farthest away from you is the one who’s closest to your heart. (from the back cover)

Harper Gray is thirty years old, and she has just hit rock bottom. Her best friend moved away, her boyfriend left her, and she’s lost her job. Now, after a year of floundering, Harper has gotten a call to be an understudy in a stage production. Harper is an aspiring actress, dreaming of the big time, but the producer is upfront. He doesn’t guarantee any stage time, but the law requires an understudy be present.

With nothing left to her name except two black bags full of stuff, Harper hops a plane from Chicago to New York to be an understudy for the biggest diva, and she hopes that maybe this means that everything is getting ready to change for the better.

Harper hopes to find more than a career in New York City, but she’s also hoping to find love. Thinking that an on-line match-making site might help—but the only possibility is a man who lives on the opposite side of the country. How can Harper possibly make a relationship with this man work when he isn’t even a member of her universe?

SCREEN PLAY is the first book I’ve read by author Chris Coppernoll, but I’m sure it won’t be the last. Mr. Coppernoll is a very talented author, able to write in a very tight, concise manner, and still get all the emotions, settings, speech, and situation described in a vivid style.

I enjoyed getting to know Harper through the pages of this book – and even though her universe is light years away from my universe, I was still able to care for her. I couldn’t wait to see how this story would pan out. Don’t miss SCREEN PLAY, I especially enjoyed the “Afterwords” section of the book which includes an interview with the author, as well as an essay written by him. $14.99. 342 pages.

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Screen Play (David C. Cook 2010), the third novel from author Chris Coppernoll is an inspiring story of friendship and faith set amidst the complexities of Hollywood and cleverly combined with an uplifting love story reminiscent of Sleepless in Seattle.

At thirty, Harper fears her chances for a thriving acting career and finding true love are both fading fast. After a devastating year of unemployment and isolation in Chicago, Harper is offered an unexpected role in a Broadway play—as understudy to New York’s biggest diva––and everything in Harper's world changes.

Harper also hopes to find love in NYC, but when it doesn't happen, she reluctantly signs up to an online matchmaking site. Frustration mounts when the only match Harper is even remotely interested in lives in a remote territory on the opposite coast, thousands of miles away. A faith conversation during her year in Chicago shapes how Harper sees everything. She wants to see God at work in her life, but His ways are mysterious, and she's faced with challenges in the secular world of Broadway. Harper feels like an actress who doesn’t act and a woman in love with someone she's never even seen, but God's about to change all that.

Linked through the contemporary, text message world of internet dating, Harper learns it's possible to care for someone outside her own universe, even when that someone can't be touched, and ultimately how to love. She reaches out through the impersonal world of cyberspace and becomes more aware than ever of God reaching out to her. Sometimes the person farthest away from you, she discovers, is the one who's closest to your heart.

“Screen Play is a story about believing that God can do great things, even when we’re at our weakest,” say Coppernoll. “I hope readers will be swept up in Harper’s story instantly and that their excitement won’t let up until the very last page.”

Romantic Times Online Magazine has given Screen Play 4 ½ stars and selected the novel as a “Top Pick”.

Author Bio

Chris Coppernoll is the author of six books including Screen Play, A Beautiful Fall and Providence. A national speaker to singles, Chris is also the founder of Soul2Soul, a syndicated radio program airing on 800 outlets in 20 countries. Chris holds a Masters degree from Rockbridge Seminary and is deeply in love with his wife, novelist Christa Parrish.

Screen Play by Chris Coppernoll
David C Cook/January 1, 2010
ISBN: 978-1-4347-6482-9/342 pages/softcover/$14.99
www.davidccook.com