Painted Faces 5 Star Review!
Dublin native Freda Wilson considers herself to be an acquired taste. She has a habit of making offensive jokes and speaking her mind too often. She doesn't have the best track record with first impressions, which is why she gets a surprise when her new neighbour Nicholas takes a shine to her.
Nicholas is darkly handsome, funny and magnetic, and Freda feels like her black and white existence is plunged into a rainbow of colour when she's around him. When he walks into a room he lights it up, with his quick wit and charisma. He is a travelling cabaret performer, but Freda doesn't know exactly what that entails until the curtains pull back on his opening night.
She is gob-smacked and entirely intrigued to see him take to the stage in drag. Later on, Nicholas asks her if she would like to become his show assistant. Excited by the idea, she jumps at the chance. Soon she finds herself immersed in a world of wigs, make-up and high heels, surrounded by pretty men and the temptation of falling for her incredibly beautiful employer.
In this story of passion and sexual discovery, Nicholas and Freda will contend with jealousy, emotional highs and lows, and the kind of love that only comes around once in a lifetime.
Review
I got this book as a Freebie on Amazon and it is so good I want to send the author money. I will be purchasing her backlist but I having a feeling that this romance may be just one of those magic love stories that is somehow just perfect and even through everything else this writer creates might be excellent this one will always shine the brightest.
I heard a great deal of buzz about this book. It made me wary. Also, I thought given the subject matter, it would be a much darker story than it is so even after I picked it up as Freebie, I didn't read it for a while.
Then, I read a review that assured me it was also funny. So, I took the risk and found one of my favorite couples of any book.
I love Nicholas for all the reasons Freda loves him. I love Freda for all the reasons Nicholas loves her. You can't write any better than that. Cosway lets us live in their love.
Nicholas and Freda are flawed like we all are but they are also magnificent like we all are.
They are in their mid and late twenties and some of the stuff they do just reeks of that age but in a good way. The conflicts here are all so real you can taste them.
The first person writing style is excellently done. It is not my favorite point of view but I adore being in Freda's head and wouldn't have it any other way. I love her humor, clear seeing of the self, and tangents. We get Nicholas' point of view in the opening and closing as well. (Okay, I wanted a longer Epilogue with babies but really what was there was grand)
The setting of Dublin is great. There are lots of little details in this book that are just exactly right.
This book most famously weaves in of gender roles and sexuality to the romance. However, this book is so much more and gender and sexuality are really central to any great love story but because of our hero's profession and his hetroexuality these elements of all erotic relationships are thrown in wonderful sharp relief.
Cosway pens a classic here. No doubt about it. It will make my lists forever. It is one that I will read again and again. The sexual tension is divine and the HEA is so well earned through delight, sorrow, and humor.
Read it.