L.H. Cosway - Painted Faces

Author: L.H. Cosway

Title: Painted Faces (Painted Faces #1)

Language: English

Format: ebook

Rating: 2½ stars

Reading challenge: A book where the protagonist is fat (round, curvy)

No of pages: 355

Date read: 21.10.2017

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BLURB:

Come forth with an open mind, for an unconventional tale of love..

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.

How do I say it? I know I'm in the minority here, but ... I was not impressed. Maybe I've just outgrown the new adult genre in some aspects, but the truth remains that I simply was not impressed with this story about Freda and Nicholas. I admit that there was some good in there and that's also why I'm upping the rating by half a star to somewhere between OK and "I like it".

Hundreds, if not thousands of readers keep praising Nicholas and Freda for their unique relationship - a baker and a straight drag queen start off as friends and then really hit it off. But guess what? The idea of reading about yet another baker is starting to give me hives. Please, for the love any higher entity you may believe in, give your heroines more diverse professions! Enough with the bakers! Though, it was a plus that Nicholas (or Vivica Blue) had a rather unique profession, because let's be honest - how often can you read a MF romance novel where the hero is a drag queen?

Also, the friendship thing? It kind of was there, but on the other hand it was pretty obvious from the start that they were actually flirting with one another and it was just a matter of pages when they got round to playing hanky-panky. Cosway kept mentioning something about sexual tension and stuff, but I simply didn't see, let alone feel it. I admit, the sex scenes were kind of nice, but honestly? I don't care much for public sex scenes and they're off-putting for me personally. I care even less about random crabbing and constant mentioning of some characters' fascination with breasts. Also, where was the protection when Nicholas and Freda got round to doing it?! 

I quite liked their banter, but I didn't appreciate their idea of being honest with one another and the reason Nicholas was reluctant about getting into a real relationship with Freda? Lame! What a lame overused reason that I'm frankly sick and tired of reading about. I also didn't appreciate the fact that Nicholas openly slept with another woman while he was supposedly interested in Freda. That's just not the way things go in my world. If you're interested in one person, you don't go around sleeping with others.

All in all, it's a shame that I didn't like it more.