Review: Almost like watching a great 1930's film
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 02 3, 2014
The allure of acting the independent working girl in London has faded quickly for Monica Trant, whose family was once quite wealthy.  A pretty dismal typist, she is sure she is about to be sacked when she is called to office of William Waters, the head of the Near Oriental Shipping Agency.  Instead, Mr. Waters offers Monica a proposal (literally):  pretend to be his fiancee for one year in exchange for five hundred pounds.  With a roommate who has broken her leg and lost her job as a "mannequin" and a brother who has wired for one hundred pounds or otherwise face some ethical charges in South Africa, Monica feels there really is no other choice but to take the offer of Still Waters (mockingly named thus by his typists), despite her resentment of the machine-like man and his offer.  And so begins what becomes a fairly contentious and awkward engagement.Comedy abounds in "His Official Engagement," as does romance.  When Monica drops her meek employee attitude and starts torturing "Billy" for not only putting her a position that may have lost her an actual fiancee, but also for the aggravation he caused her as his employee, a battle of wills begins between the two.  But as Monica meets his Billy's lovely family and sees him an entirely new context, she begins to realize that Still Waters is an entirely different man than she thought, while the readers can infer how desperately Still Waters wants her to like him or at a minimum, to stop making things so darn difficult!I massively enjoyed this book.  It was like watching an old, glamorous film filled with witty dialogue between the female and male leads with lots of fun settings:  lunches at the Savoy, a Wales beach vacation, and a dingy and bohemian ladies apartment.  The narrative was fun as well.  Monica isn't an entirely trustworthy narrator; as she does her utmost to impress upon the reader that she isn't the type to fall in love, we see how desperately she strives to keep herself together as she begins to lose her heart to Still Waters.  I have to subsequently disagree with the other reviewer's comments about Monica's behavior:  for a poor young woman, she really is put in an odd position with the engagement and she really has no way of knowing whether Billy seriously cares for her or not.  His kisses offend her not because she is a prude (though that's how she plays it), but because she doesn't think they mean anything to him and she doesn't even know his motivations for the engagement.  But more importantly, if you hated your boss and you now have an opportunity to harass him a little, why wouldn't you????  I really adored "Still Waters," as well and loved how easily Monica (who becomes Nancy mid-way in the novel due to Still Water's bungling of affairs) gets under his skin.  The two of them really do have some immature, but funny interactions because they quite simply can't figure out where they stand with one another and Monica is really hesitant to let down her defenses.  The secondary characters, from Billy's uncle and younger sister to Monica's obtuse roommate, are also pretty comical.I really cannot recommend this story more.  It feels both old-fashioned and modern at the same time and the narrative and dialogue were just so utterly satisfying.  I guarantee you that there are a couple of lines in His Official Fiancee that you will wish that you got to drop in real life!