Masquerade

by Sierra St James

When Clarissa takes a much needed job under slightly false pretenses, she doesn't think it will be such a big deal. She may have told her movie-star boss that she was married, but that shouldn't matter. After all, she doesn't want anything to do with men for a long, long time. 

It's hard for a woman to keep up the masquerade when her boss is as handsome as Slade Jacobson and the job takes her to Hawaii with him. In between handling his whirlwind four-year-old daughter and dealing with a whole cast of Hollywood personalities, Clarissa has to keep a tight hold on her heart.

• Publish Date: 1 November 2012 (first published 1 January 2001)
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: US
• Imprint: Bookcraft
• Format: eBook (US Trade)
• Pages: 258
• Language: English

Reviews

[phyllish]

Janette Rallison has a way with words and is fantastic at romantic comedy.  Masquerade does not disappoint at all.  The story is well paced with a great sense of comedic timing.

There are so many things to love about this book.  The job interview that Slade gave Clarissa under the dining room table while their children were playing spies was so cute and sweet.  The mix between the comedic moments and the more serious problems related to how to get out of the misunderstanding to how to avoid the pesky reporter who was determined to get all the dirt on Clarissa and Slade that she could was well done and felt natural.

Having read both well written and badly written romance stories and just about every kind in between, I especially appreciated the excellent way that the author showed how the attraction between the main characters was based not only on the physical but also on the various facets of their personalities.  I can't tell you how many books I've read where the author has said that the attraction was not only physical, but didn't show it anywhere in the story.  To quote Eliza Dolittle (My Fair Lady), "Don't talk of love...  Show me".  The attraction built in a believable way so she didn't need to tell me that it wasn't just a shallow thing.

This was my second reading of the story.  The first time around, I gave it 4 stars, I think because it could use some help in the editing department.  But I really did enjoy it a lot this time around and found myself looking anxiously forward to what was going to happen next, so I decided to give it an extra half star.

Without further ado, here is the first line:

Opportunity didn't knock for Slade Jacobson - it rang his cell phone at 10:34 pm while he was putting his daughter to bed for the third time.

 This review was originally posted on Among the Reads

[ladygrey]

I like [a:Janette Rallison|184987|Janette Rallison|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1408003574p2/184987.jpg]'s writing and this is a cute little romance. I know it's one of her early works so I don't really want to critique it because I'm sure she's more than aware of its flaws. But you can see the early hints of what her writing would become - those turns of phrases that are so fantastic and are why I like her so much aren't quite in this story but the promise of them is.

The one actual criticism that made me almost want to give it two stars was the Hollywood aspect of it. I don't know Rallison's past or what she knows of the industry but it was all kinda of contrived and naive and that was annoying just because I do know the industry and I know that's not how it works. But I also think most romance novels are probably contrived. So as annoying as it was its not as much of a flaw if its to be expected in the genre.

But the story ends well and it's always good if the annoyance's in a story are early on and by the end it's all fun and I remember more if what I liked than anything else.