LynneC’s review of The Man Behind the Mask by Maggie Cox
Contemporary Romance published by Harlequin 11 Jan 11
I first read this one as a Mills and Boon Modern, Brazilian Boss, Virgin Housekeeper, and although I didn’t check it word for word, I don’t think they’ve changed much except the spelling in this version for Harlequin Presents. I really dislike it when they use different titles, as within a couple of pages I realised I was reading the same book with a different title.
Recently there have been some signs that HMB are changing it up a bit. The drive for brand new, fresh authors is cheering, and the new covers signaled a new approach. ( Having had some time to get used to the new covers, I can now say that I like the designs, but I still don’t like the photos very much. The people look a bit vacant to me. This book doesn’t have a new cover, but it does have a slightly different approach).
Back to the Maggie Cox story. Eduardo, a half Brazilian, has come to his English home to recover from a car accident that left him with a shattered leg and a dead wife. He meets Marianne when she is busking on the street. He gives her money but it’s not money she wants. She’s trying to regain her confidence and her life after her much older, but much loved, husband died of cancer, six months after they meet.
It’s not long before Marianne moves in with Eduardo as his housekeeper, but it takes a time before they end up in bed together. I did enjoy that Eduardo was careful not to push Marianne into anything, although he makes his desire clear. And he’s a blond. I do have a weakness for blond men. The hero on the cover doesn’t look awfully blond to me, though.
Both characters have a journey to make, and in a way they help each other, but I felt that their journey was more physical than mental. I wasn’t convinced that they wouldn’t have got there anyway, without the other person, and this made the book a little less intense than many Moderns. But this is a Modern Extra, which is now being given its own line in Riva, so there are slight differences. Less intensity, and the hero is often less forcefully alpha, and this leads to less drama and sometimes more depth of character.
But I felt a certain lack of tension in this story. It flowed, and the depiction of the wintry countryside of England is really well done. With the ice and snow outside my window as I write, I can sympathise with Eduardo’s shivers.
Although the story is mainly in Marianne’s POV, I found it harder to get to know her. Some of her decisions, I thought were cowardly, for instance, (mild spoiler alert) when she gives the house her husband had left to her back to his adult children. I felt that part didn’t really serve any purpose, and the cowardice came when she goes against what he obviously wanted to do. The children were planning to take her to court, which is their privilege, but it’s an off-the-page moment and doesn’t seem to serve any purpose in the story, except to annoy me mildly. Perhaps if he’d left her the house for a few years, until she found her feet it might have been less intrusive as a plot device. And at the beginning of the story, she wants to get back into music, but she abandons that idea when she starts to work for Eduardo. She is more a plot device than a person at times, but I enjoyed her sweetness.
A good read for a winter afternoon, pleasant and undemanding.
And Maggie – update your web page!
Grade: B-
Summary:
The scars he bears are the only visible reminder of the life Eduardo de Souza left behind in Brazil. He prefers to live in solitude. He doesn’t want anybody’s pity.
However, when Eduardo sees innocent, pretty Marianne Lockwood literally singing for her supper, he impulsively offers her a job as his live-in housekeeper. Marianne is drawn by her handsome, brooding boss and is soon willingly taken between his sheets. But Eduardo is holding back the darkness of the past, and when he whisks Marianne away to Rio, it’s only a matter of time before she finds out the truth….
Read an excerpt.
