The Heiress Masquerade by Maddison Michaels
Tracy’s Rating: 4 of 5 stars
Series: Dollar Princess, #2
Release Date: August 20, 2024
Aimee Thornton-Jones, the only child of American shipping magnate Thomas Thornton-Jones, wants nothing more than to be allowed to work in her father’s company, to prove to him that she one day she should inherit and run his business, unfortunately her parents have a different plan for her. They expect her to marry and become a proper wife and mother. To achieve that goal, they have planned a trip to England for Aimee and her cousin/companion Evie, Aimee will participate in the London season and Evie will train as a secretary in her father’s London office. But weeks before their trip, Aimee’s mother breaks her leg, which means she will not be able to accompany the girls to England, but rather than cancel the trip, her mother decides that her cousin Evie is an adequate chaperone for the sea journey. Which gives Aimee the perfect opportunity to implement her scheme, she will switch places with her cousin and train at her father’s business while Evie will pretend to be her in society. Aimee will learn the business and be able to prove to her father that she is capable of running his company one day. She has planned for everything except for her unwanted attraction to her father’s protégée and operations manager for his London offices, Harrison Stone.
Harrison Stone is a self-made man, who has but one goal in life and that is to prove to his father’s family that he doesn’t need them to succeed. And after years of hard work, he is one deal away from making all his dreams come true, everything is going as planned until his boss’s niece shows up and affects him like no woman ever has. But Evie is nothing like the woman Thomas described, and it isn’t long before he figures out the truth. She is a distraction he doesn’t want or need, and he would love to ship her back to New York, but he needs her help to save his deal from falling through. He just needs to keep his hands (and other bits) to himself and keep his eye on the prize, because love is not for him. But even the disciplined Harrison Stone is not immune to love and decides that marriage to Aimee is the perfect solution, too bad Aimee isn’t willing to play by his terms.
This was a well-written, fast paced story with likable characters that is its own story and not simply a different POV retelling of the first book despite the parallel timeline. Aimee and Harrison are both stubborn, intelligent, alpha types who are both resistant to love and whose headbutting is only exceeded by their shared passion. This story has a decent mystery, great secondary characters, espionage, hidden identities, secrets, steamyish love scenes, some surprises, some twists, and turns before the HEA. Overall, I enjoyed the book even though I was not a huge fan of the ending, but I did like the epilogue and hope that the teaser contained therein means that this series is not over! This is the second book in the series, but it could easily be read as a standalone title or out of order, as the two books run parallel but barely intersect.
*I am voluntarily leaving a review for an eARC that I requested and was provided to me by the publisher. All opinions in this review are my own. *
