It's the Carnevale of 1750 and Venice's ballrooms, theatres, palazzos and squares are filled with delicious gossip, devilish fun and dangerous games. In this glittering masked world, everyone has a secret...

Set in an age of decadence made famous by Casanova, Masquerade uncovers the secrets of seven teens, from the highest aristocrat to the lowest servant – their dreams, desires, loves, loyalties ... and betrayals.

All the world's a stage. Let the show begin.

Orelia travels to Venice in search for answers about her mother who recently passed away. She is welcomed by her uncle who is part of a well known aristocratic family and has two daughters, Veronica and Angelique. Soon enough Orelia is just another sister and is quickly swept up into the life of fancy dresses, masks and secrets.

As much as I hate to say it, the first thing that drew me to this novel was the brilliant cover. It's been a dream of mine since I was young to attend a masquerade ball and lets just say this novel is the closest thing to it. From the first page I could tell so much research had gone into writing this novel and it paid off. The imagery was flawless! Prior to reading this novel I got to meet and talk to the author, Kylie Fornasier. She is the most loveliest person and it was clear she was passionate about her novel.

Masquerade is filled with deceit, betrayal, loyalty and romance. Every character had their own secret that was bound to be let out in one way or another. The one thing I loved about this novel was that it was so easy to immerse yourself into the world of venice. Kylie Fornasier puts these tidbits of Italian in it that was easy to follow along with. Also in the back of the book there's this glossary so if you get totally lost you don't have to resort to the internet. You could tell a lot of research was put into this novel because it was so easy to imagine yourself as part of the Venetians.

Orelia was a great protagonist but I feel like her story isn't finished yet. A lot of the novel was focused on her interactions with the characters around her and not enough on her backstory. The premise was based on Orelia finding herself in the city of masks and that was great but for some reason I wanted to know more about her past. I liked her character though, her uniqueness and naivety to the world of Carnevale made it feel like I was seeing everything from her eyes. At the start of the novel I was so confused as to how everything worked but as the story progressed I felt like I was accustomed to the Venetian way of life just like Orelia.

I thought the romance was going to be incredibly cliche but it was the exact opposite. Usually I like a little cliche in stories like these but the ending came to me as a shock and it took me a while to process what happened. I absolutely love it when authors surprise me because then it completely smashes my expectations.

I extremely enjoyed Masquerade and I hope there will be a sequel. Apparently it's not a definite and I think I might die if I didn't know how the story properly finished. Ill miss Venice and the interesting characters in it and if you haven't read it I hope you do because you know you want to! Even if you're not a historical fiction fan, Masquerade is a perfect novel to ease you into it.