FINAL MASQUERADE – Cindy Davis
The Wild Rose Press
ISBN: 1-60154-230-5
May 2008
Romantic Suspense

Across the United States, California to Vermont – Present Day

Paige Carmichael counts traveling as an excellent way to spend time – and money, since it should involve shopping – but a mad dash out of California is not her idea of fun. Witnessing a murder at the hands of her fiancé, Stefano Santangelo, Paige is terrified. Days later, she has the temerity to steal over $200,000 and a precious gold coin before she takes to the road. She’s known that Stefano’s “career” probably wasn’t Ivy League or totally above the law, but she didn’t expect that he would be capable of shooting a man in cold blood. Now there’s no telling what he will do to her if he gets his hands on her.

Paige’s mad dash takes her to a side of life she’s never known: truck stops, supercenter stores, cheap hotels, and mom-and-pop diners. But it seems as if wherever she runs, Stefano and his gang are able to track her. Finally, in Barstow, Paige meets Chris Beauchamps, a truck driver with a history as murky as her own. Not trusting just any man who says he wants to help her, Paige reluctantly places her faith in Chris’s hands. Really, what choice does she have? She needs to get out of California, possibly the country, fast, and hiding in plain sight in a place they would least expect to find her makes a sort of sick sense. The old Paige Carmichael would never set foot inside a semi-truck, let alone a truck stop.

As Paige (now known as Tracy Wilson) and Chris navigate the highways and map-dot towns, Stefano’s hand looms in the background, just waiting to snatch her back to California. Paige becomes so scared and paranoid that she’s forced to lose Chris and abandon his help to go it alone. She fears that any contact with her spells a certain death for anyone willing to help her, and rightfully so. Already, one person has died in the quest to get her to safety. Clearly, becoming involved with Stefano was a big, BIG mistake. Just what will Paige Carmichael have to do to cope with her less-than-smart decisions in life?

I’ll be honest; when I read that FINAL MASQUERADE had a mob bad guy in it, I was so there. And when I started out reading it, I wasn’t too sure I was going to like Paige. In fact, any character who claims to have fired her gardener for allowing a weed to grow in her garden is just not heroine material for me. But I stuck with it and actually found myself cheering this woman on till the last pages. She is miraculously transformed as she encounters various people in the many towns she lands in. They all aid in building her up, making her realize what’s important in life and finally seeing that she is more than arm candy on some thug’s arm. In Kansas City, she falls in love with the idea of hand quilting and collecting books. In Minneapolis, Paige puts her hand and heart into making a mint out of a mildew-encrusted bookstore. And at the center of it all, she mentally sees Chris in every good-looking man she encounters. None of them can compete, even though she had to lose him a while ago for his own safety.

Yes, FINAL MASQUERADE is a road romance, and typically not one of my favorite themes in romance. But as Paige starts a new life in each town she comes to, it was hard not to really want to see this woman set down roots and make something of herself. To be frank, Chris seems almost superfluous as a hero. I think Ms. Davis still would have had a page-turner on her hands if she hadn’t written him into the book. The true story lies in Paige and just what she becomes as she does some growing, and more running, on her own.

Good things really do come in small packages, and at less than 300 pages, FINAL MASQUERADE is neatly wrapped up in a pretty bow. I love when an author changes my initial impression of her characters by putting an honest, heartfelt spin on them, and Cindy Davis did just that. Make sure you get the chance to enjoy this book.

Amy Cunningham