| Author: | K.K. Heuser |
| Genre(s): | ➡️Romance ➡️Contemporary |
| Series? | ❎ No (Not yet) |
| Goodreads Rating: | ⭐4.30 (Goodreads) (10 ratings; 4 reviews) |
| Personal Rating: | ⭐ 2 / 5 Overall 🌶️2 / 5 Spice |
| Trigger Warnings(s): | Mentions of rape (not in detail) Violence (not extreme and gory) A few sexual scenes (not too graphic) |
🛑 Spoiler Warning 🛑
I might be recounting events, characters, and themes so THIS MIGHT BE FULL OF SPOILERS.
If you’d like to read a review with the spoilers hidden, kindly scroll to the bottom to read my spoiler-free review or head to my Goodreads post. You don’t need an account to read it. 🙂
🖋️ PLOT (SPOILERS!) 🖋️
Trey Highland, a successful businessman, finds his old flame in New York at the request of the latter’s mother. He and his high school sweetheart Poppy Kingsley have not seen each other in 15 years after she cheated on him and fled their hometown. However, as they reunite in that bar where Poppy’s band was performing for the night, she finally tells Trey that she did not cheat. She was raped by the sheriff’s son, Josh Penix. As a result of that, Poppy got pregnant and fled. She soon gave birth to her daughter, Savannah, and kept her distance so Josh would not find out and fight for paternal rights. After learning this, Trey is determined to earn her forgiveness by providing her a solution. Her mom wanted her home because of her father’s declining health and she wanted to do the same without risking her daughter being taken from her. So, Trey proposes to enter into a quick, fake marriage and pretend that he’s Savannah’s biological father when they go back to their hometown. They agreed to end the marriage in a few months. However, they started to rekindle their feelings until it didn’t feel like it was going to be a fake marriage after all.
🌟Review (2/5) 🌟
‘The Masquerade’ reminds me of a Mexican telenovela. I can pick any one I’ve watched and there’s a 90% chance (just my estimate) that I’ll find all the plot points of this book in that show. You have a damsel in distress struck by a tragedy, a self-made rich male protagonist, a reunion of a childhood romance, the plot driving a strong point that they only loved each other and nobody else, a secret pregnancy, a misunderstanding that caused their rift, an obsessed abusive male interest, a kidnapping, a rich female kontrabida (villain) who plays dirty to try and get the male protagonist, and a happy ever after.
Now, that’s not necessarily a bad thing. There’s a reason there’s a dedicated audience for these shows. The drama, the suspense, the vindication, and the romance make them a staple. However, the book ‘The Masquerade’ unfortunately also has the negative aspects of a telenovela that can sometimes make it boring, and unfortunately that overpowered the good parts. The characters are black and white and are not complicated at all, the side characters can more often feel like plot devices than actual people, some of the decisions the characters make don’t make sense, and the outcome is predictable and doesn’t feel earned. Let me elaborate.
Characters
The characters are sadly one-dimensional. The distinction between good guys and bad guys is so clearly drawn in the sand that they don’t seem to act based on any motivation other than what the plot demands. Let’s start with the main cast:
- Trey Highland is supposed to be this perfect gentleman who grew up to be a self-made rich guy. Unfortunately, he was just too perfect so nothing about him was interesting and deep. I didn’t feel his struggle with anything other than the inconvenience that he couldn’t have sex with Poppy as she sorted out her issues in therapy.
He didn’t sweat when his house burned down; he snapped a finger and remodeled Poppy’s family diner to make way for their band’s performances; he didn’t need to earn Savannah’s trust to become her father; two other women who are supposed to be the conflict in romance are obsessed with him; the women of the rich circle pine for him; the villain of the novel is jealous of him; he was the perfect son; and the perfect ex-boyfriend throughout his separated years from Poppy. I mean not even a formidable ex-girlfriend to heat up some competition with Poppy so he can get some depth and actually emotionally struggle. Do you know what he does after a tragedy strikes in his hometown? He’s been one of the major volunteers for restoration since he was young. Yeah, he was sickeningly perfect.
Even his reunion with Poppy didn’t strike as an emotionally complicated situation for him. He apologized, he did not need to earn it because Poppy forgave him less than 12 hours of seeing him again, Savannah started calling him daddy and allowed him to hug her and kiss her so quickly (less than a week!) despite her being introduced as a semi-rebellious, tough child, and these four men who are supposed to be Poppy’s found family that are ‘protective of her’ warmed up to him so fast (less than 24 hours!). He just merged as Poppy’s provider, security guard, lover, etc. Basically, anything Poppy needed in the scenes, he became that. - Poppy Kingsley was initially portrayed as this strong mother who needed to grow up tough because of her violent past. She taught her daughter to be tough and now sings in a band with four other men – who are also her housemates – who served as Savannah’s paternal stand-ins. A very badass character, if you will. Sadly, she just embodied this characteristic so rare. She followed whatever Trey wanted; accepted whatever Trey showered her with; attended this social function even though she didn’t want to; didn’t have any parenting activity with Savannah other than to encourage her to wear a bikini and talk to some random guys; not even a convincing parental conversation about uprooting their lives and bringing Savannah to a family she’s never seen before. In fact, she acted like a child at a party giving Trey the cold shoulder because of what some girls said to her in the bathroom. She was more childish than a strong adult throughout the entire thing.
Her decisions seem to be questionable because she didn’t have a strong motivation as a character either. If she was trying to keep Savannah’s existence under wraps until she was 18 to not risk the parental legal struggle that might happen, even with the protection of marriage, I don’t understand why she wouldn’t at least lay low to lessen the risk of anyone looking into her past especially when she gets back home. Instead, the first time she sees Tiffany again (her rapist’s sister that she’s trying to hide her daughter from), she was so happy to have Savannah call Trey ‘dad’ to her face even though Tiffany has been hitting on Trey for YEARS and only recently learned that he got married a few days ago. If I was in Tiffany’s shoes, the quick marriage is already such a weird thing on its own. She could’ve used her father’s sheriff connections to blow this whole marriage up or dig a little deeper. This whole scene is just to make her jealous and I don’t get it. A truly fearful mom would ensure her daughter’s safety first and not risk it for something so petty. In another instance, they left Savannah alone in the house developing into this whole housefire dilemma. The main reason the bandmates moved with them was supposed to be to protect them. Couldn’t have they left Savannah with the band and not alone in a house where his abuser knows the location of because they told every single person they’ve come across that she’s married to one of the richest guys in town? I don’t know. It doesn’t make sense.
Lastly, I’ll just lump all the other side characters with the same observation. They seemed to be plot tools more than characters. I thought I’d get to know the bandmates more and get to see this family dynamic but it really wasn’t highlighted nor important later in the story. Trey’s and Poppy’s parents might as well have blended together because they acted and treated both of them the same way. Considering this whole thing started because of Poppy’s father’s declining health, you’d think it’ll be a big plot point but no. Savannah was just a child to strengthen this whole fake marriage arc and get an additional sense of gratification for the readers that Trey is bonding with his stepchild like his real daughter. I mean she’s 14 years old and she warms up so quickly to Trey and throwing ‘I love you’s randomly. She was also a plot device to get a final confrontation with the villain. I thought Trey’s secretary who was supposed to be a really close friend would have a bigger role to play other than being a witness to Trey and Poppy’s stares and become captain obvious by pointing out they love each other. I thought Trey’s two friends who were introduced as safe people to share the secret with would have bigger roles to play too. The villains had no relatable or redeemable quality, nor any complex motivations on why they were being so evil. Overall, they all just feel like they are accessories to the plot.
Writing Style
One of the main reasons I didn’t get invested in the characters was the way they were described and the way they behaved. I noticed that to establish a character’s personality, the narration sounds so matter-of-fact. It tells me the way I should feel about somebody instead of making them act like that and makes me guess or decide what a character’s personality is. For example, this is how the rapist’s father (the sheriff) was described to reason out the plot development:
He was cruel and corrupt and used his position to terrorize his neighbors into submission. As a result, they gave his children a wide berth. Their crimes were ignored by the authorities or went unreported out of fear. This was why Poppy had not reported her rape or Josh’s stalking and why her parents hand’t reported the break-in at their home. No one would have done anything, and the harassment wold have worsened.
– page 118
There’s nothing inherently wrong with it but for such a serious topic or intense personality, I wish they either did a flashback or just not mention that this was the reason why Poppy didn’t say anything and let the readers fill that gap. That’s usually fine within the first – I’d say – 25% of the book since we’re establishing the plot foundation. But it didn’t feel right to consistently introduce characters this way throughout the book.
Also, instead of telling me what to feel, show some character behavior or physical reaction to subtly hint to me, the reader, what the mood is. For example, when Trey was weighing the consequences of his proposal to enter into a fake marriage, this was the paragraph about adopting a stepdaughter:
After all was said and done, Savannah would legally be his child, and his life would be forever changed. Everything he did and every decision he made would have just as much impact on her life as it did on his.
– page 46
I mean yeah, that’s a fact. I feel like it could’ve either been worded more emotionally or just shown in other ways. To me, it just feels like ‘Hey, I’m telling you that this is a big decision for Trey, okay?’
Plot
I love multiple tropes in this book but I unfortunately felt like they were underdelivered. I’ll keep this review limited to the main plot point – the ‘fake’ marriage.
Look, I eat that trope up! But in this book, it felt weak. Part of the allure of a fake marriage trope is the secrecy. The emotional turmoil of pretending to be a lovey-dovey couple while reminding yourself that it’s fake and you can’t sense whether the other partner in that relationship is just acting well or is acting sincerely. Well, first of all, they had told about the planned divorce to every friend and family in the vicinity! I mean, the risk management on this was so poor. Trey’s assistant didn’t even need to try so hard to squeeze that secret out of them. The emotional turmoil was light because they were already acting romantically whether someone was looking or not. There’s no emotional tug-o-war going on. Even when they are, bet that there’s a side character there to tell them ‘oh you look at each other like you love each other.’ That’s… that’s it.
Minor side note: Even if the fake marriage gave protection to Savannah, you would think someone as traumatized as Poppy would still try to keep a low profile to fend off the attention as long as possible for the risk of a background check. But no, just a few days back she and her band made noise with a bar-packed performance and full-blown marketing efforts from Trey with Poppy and Savannah’s face in the poster. It’s just… it doesn’t feel right.
Spice
🌶️ 2 out of 5 spice rating. There are about two steamy scenes with mention of the breasts but that’s pretty much as extreme as it goes. The other ones are more flirting than actual intercourse. This did not affect my review at all. Everyone has different tastes in spice level so I thought it’d be worth setting a different rating for it.
Final Thoughts
Personally, this didn’t work for me but I’m happy for everyone who enjoyed it. A book just needs to be appreciated by its intended audience. If you’re looking for a quick, romance read and tropes like childhood lovers, romantic reunions, and fake marriages, then there’s a chance you’ll like this one. This is most especially true if you’re not in the mood to deal with too many negative emotions, convoluted plot points, and watching characters in their low points. This one has its main characters ride a sequence of wins.
Check out the book from Amazon! It’s free to read with Kindle Unlimited.
FAVORITE QUOTE(S)
“Poppy Rose Kingsley. Your initials are written in permanent ink in every project completed by my company or me. They are on the underside of the fifth board on your parent’s porch, the underside of the top tread of the steps to the Mill’s stage. I wrote them on a steel beam inside the wall of a sports arena in Sydney, and this steel beam inside the wall of a luxury condo building in Tel Aviv. And just recently, they were written on a wooden stud in the east wall of the master bedroom of our house. “
— page 204
The Stray Reader 
Leave a comment