Review: 4.5 Stars
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 01 8, 2014
Masquerade, book three in Nyrae Dawn's extremely intense Games series, was a powerful story of love, loss, guilt and acceptance.  Maddox & Bee have both suffered through horrible losses and are left with the unimaginable pain and guilt as a result.We first meet Maddox in Facade as Laney's brother.  He was dark, protective, mysterious and ridden with guilt over a past that he feels he is partially responsible for.  I was immediately intrigued by his character and couldn't wait to know more about him.  What I learned almost succeeded in breaking my heart.  Maddox's has such a palpable sense of loss and emptiness; his visceral fear and constant pain serving as daily reminders of all that he has lost .  His misplaced feelings of guilt threaten to break him and in order to function, he shuts down, choosing to feel nothing at all.We meet Bee who we learn, early in the book, was kidnapped when she was a very young child.  After quite a few years she is found and returned to her family.  However, all is not as it seems because contrary to popular belief, she was not harmed or mistreated and, since she was taken at such a young age, was basically ripped from the only family that she has ever known.  She has a hard time reconciling with whom she was before she was kidnapped, the person she became while living with her abductors and finally, the person she that she is today.  She constantly struggles with her feelings of inadequacy, her guilt for feelings that she has towards her real parents, the love that she still feels for her other parents (abductors), and the pain of not really knowing who she is since most of her life was a lie.The title of Masquerade is so incredibly poignant and fitting for this couple.  They both choose to hide behind their masks, refusing to let anyone see inside.  They are scared to let anyone past that mask for fear of the hurt and devastation that, they believe, would be inevitable.  Watching these two finally give in and open themselves to the other, was absolutely breathtaking.Although I loved Masquerade, it did start out a little slow for me, at times finding it hard to connect with the characters.  However, the pace did pick up and kept me fascinated until the very end.  This is a phenomenal New Adult genre series and definitely one that should be on your must read list!  With every new book released, Nyrae Dawn continues to prove that her passionate and intense writing voice is one that everyone should hear.