Mature MCs, celebrity romance…this one has some of our
favourite tropes so we picked it up with rather high expectations but were
really disappointed.
Tamsyn Harris is a 52-year-old, award-winning, plenty famous
actress who is in middle of all sorts of professional issues because of ageism.
Pushed too far by a bitchy co-actress and a godawful director, Tamsyn snaps on
set and throws a glass of orange juice on said director. This leads to the
taking some ‘time off’ while her team does damage control and she practises
self-control. Tucked away in the middle of nowhere, she has one neighbour, a
writer, 49-year-old Maggie Cooper, who is trying to conquer writer’s block. Tamsyn
has always remained in the closet so though Maggie (a die-hard Tamsyn fan) recognises
Tamsyn (of course), she has no clue about the actress’ sexuality. There is
insta-attraction between the two, they agree on a holiday fling, and over the course
of nine days, the attraction blooms to spill over into emotion too.
We found Maggie to be incredibly unloving, unsupportive, hypocritical
and rather humbug. She keeps pushing Tamsyn to come out because she doesn’t
want to be someone’s “dirty little secret”, yet she keeps her identity as a
lesfic author secret not only from everyone she knows but also within her own
house – which means she is her own “dirty little secret”. In fact, she doesn’t
even tell Tamsyn about her dual identities as a writer (she writes under two
pseudonyms – okay what’s with that? She is ashamed of herself as a writer also?).
Initially we did enjoy the sex and romance, but that didn’t last very long
because we disliked Maggie too much.
Tamsyn is a much nicer character. More open, honest and going
out on the limb. We actually felt bad for her throughout the book. The only
nice person in her life, who cared for her, seemed to be her agent.
There are way better celebrity, particularly actress
romances out there where there are more equal relationships written.
Definitely cannot recommend this one.
⭐☆
