But when a mysterious SUV pulls up beside her, revealing Chinese cinema's golden couple Wei Fangli and Sam Yao, Gracie's world is turned on its head. The famous actress has a proposition: due to their uncanny resemblance, Fangli wants Gracie to be her stand-in. The catch? Gracie will have to be escorted by Sam, the most attractive—and infuriating—man Gracie's ever met.
If it means getting the money she needs for her mother, Gracie's in. Soon Gracie moves into a world of luxury she never knew existed. But resisting Sam, and playing the role of an elegant movie star, proves more difficult than she ever imagined—especially when she learns the real reason Fangli so desperately needs her help. In the end all the lists in the world won't be able to help Gracie keep up this elaborate ruse without losing herself...and her heart.
Comment: I got interested in this novel because it would feature a heroine down on her luck and the switch with a famous person. I was quite curious how the author would pull off this trope, although I felt a little let down when this wasn't in fact a switch of roles trope, but one where only the heroine takes the place of the other person.
Gracie Reed works at a company that pays well, good enough to allow her to support the cost of her ill mother's elderly home with the hopes of even placing her at a better home at some point. The problem is that her boss is harassing her but not even with the help of a lawyer is she able to find evidence that could be perceived by others. One day, she is finally fired and this doesn't help with her depression, which she is in control of but still battling. Things seem promising when Fangli, a famous Chinese actress ,seeks her and proposes her to take her place in a few events while she is in Toronto. She will play well and Gracie could save for her mother's home, while also having time to look for another job. The "but" comes in the form of Sam Yao, a very famous actor and a friend of Fangli, who accepts the physical similarities between them but apparently can't stand Gracie. The fact they will need to interact in the events can be simplified by practicing, but what about Gracie's feelings...?
Switching roles is a fun plot device and I've read a few stories featuring twins or siblings, which seems to give such plots a very acceptable credibility. Having doppelgangers in this situation might not seem as likely, but it is also very true people see what they want. I imagined that while Gracie took Fangli's place, she would take Gracie's, which would make for a very entertaining plot, but it turns out Fangli needs rest, for she is also dealing with what seems at first to be mental fatigue and what better to have someone who looks just like her do the part of the job that tires her the most?
I think the set up was different enough from any likely reality that I've felt captivated from the start. As the pages went by I also liked the writing more and more, although this is written in first person. Still, in this case, the premise is so out there that Gracie's voice while she was dealing with everything was unique enough to grab me and not to put me off, as so often happens in first person narration in romance. It also helped that Gracie was battling depression and that she saw several things in her life as serious as they demanded, and I liked her for her personality.
Having a likable but down to earth heroine made me root for her, even when she was placed in a situation that required me to suspend disbelief that she could put it off. At first, of course things weren't easy and I think the author did a good job in portraying the difficulties and how this affected Gracie's perception of herself without going into crazy or ridiculous levels. I actually found it more difficult to believe that Gracie's boss would be in the same circles as those of the people Fangli and Sam would interact with while they were in Toronto, but who am I to say...
As the story goes , it's not difficult to guess that Gracie and Sam learn to cooperate and that this would lead them to see one another as a better person than they imagined at first sight. I was quite taken by Gracie's thought processes, namely that she struggled to see how Sam could look at her in a romantic way. I think the author once again did a good job in developing the little things at a slow place, so that something as simple as the fact Sam also had problems as a young man and how controlled his life was from the beginning could be a way to counter Gracie's self esteem issues... after all, everyone has an inner side others might not know about.
I won't go into the whole Chinese mentality on what means to be a person portraying a role and how that has a direct link to the perception of the country (I only know the very basics about the culture of the famous in Asian countries) but there are subtle references to this, and the subject is also part of conversation between the characters. The fact Gracie is half-Chinese makes for most of the plot, but it's not the theme I'd say has the biggest focus or influence in what happens throughout the story.
As a matter of fact, the biggest issue comes later on, obviously, and it explains a few things I was thinking about but that also seemed to be such a simplistic and unrealistic possibility that I overlooked as too much imagination. Well, reading romance for years means readers do recognize things and I was proven right when what I suspected was the actual way things happened. It was.... possible, yes, but at the same time the explanation for the big secret was a bit of a let down, Or, perhaps I should say that the way things came to be wasn't executed in the way where the secret would really be a surprise.
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