Summary

Frankie Carter lives and breathes PA work.
Becoming indispensable to a top exec is all he’s ever wanted, even if he is repeatedly overlooked in favour of other less well-qualified applicants.

The problem? 94% of executive PAs are women.

But resourcefulness comes with the territory. As does a pinstriped skirt, killer heels, and enough chutzpah to blag the interviews… conveniently passing as a woman instead of a gay man. Egged on by his friends, Frankie lands himself his dream job working for Lysander St. Cloud, a senior exec on the board of the family firm.

On the outside, his boss has it all. Or does he? Before long, Frankie discovers Lysander’s looks, money, and status mask a shyness and humiliating past he’d like to forget.

Lysander is straight, and he believes Frankie is a woman. A close bond develops between them. A bond increasingly in danger of slipping from professional into something else.
Frankie needs to come clean before he hurts not only Lysander but himself. Will he choose his career, his friendship, or his heart? Or is he brave enough to fight for them all?

Review

GUH, this book is so good! I fell immediately in love with Frankie (what can I say, I have a bit of a competence kink).

I’m a sucker for a mistaken identities book, and the number of romances with a woman disguised as a man I’ve read is, er, a LOT. I loved seeing this from another point of view, where Frankie passes as a woman in order to get a job in a female-dominated field. Along the way, he realizes that maybe his gender is not quite as binary as he’d previously thought. He also maybe, sort of falls for his cis-het male boss. Who thinks he is a woman. Oops! Shenanigans ensue.

I really love the power dynamic in this, where Lysander is technically the boss but it’s VERY clear that Frankie, his personal assistant (PA) is really the one who knows what’s going on. I love the way Frankie sees what Lysander needs and just quietly makes adaptions to make things more accessible to him, like laying out bullet-point lists for him to remember information. As someone who also has a processing disorder, I can so relate to Lysander’s struggles, and I really feel for him. It really felt like the representation in this book was spot on and done in such a caring way, I can’t wait to read more from Fearne Hill.

I voluntarily reviewed a complimentary copy of this book. All opinions are unbiased and my own.