In this witty, lighthearted story, sparks fly between the main characters who are both fake dating other people! The Great Dating Fake Off had me laughing at its witty banter, big wedding, and spicy scenes. 

Nora is managing her best friend’s bookstore when Sebastian stops in to ask if his Boys and Girls Club could use the bookstore as a meeting place for their mentor and mentees. They eye each other up and are liking what they see when Benji, the owner of the bookstore and Nora’s friend, bursts into the store, with his mother and sister hot on his heels. While Benji’s family is hounding him about finding a date for his sister’s big wedding, Sebastian slips out the door. Nora takes pity on Benji and tells his family she’s his girlfriend so they will ease off. She feels like she owes him–Nora’s mother is her only family and growing up they moved every year. It was hard for her to make friends and she was lonely until she met Benji and got her job at his bookstore.

Sebastian is getting ready to attend his friend Enzo’s wedding when Alessia, his best friend (and Enzo’s sister) asks him to pretend to be her boyfriend because she doesn’t want her father to know she has a girlfriend. Sebastian has returned to his home town, so he can help his grandmother (who is a hoot) with home repairs. He’s taking a year off from his regular job, opening chapters of Boys and Girls Clubs across the country, and is currently painting houses and volunteering with the local Boys and Girls club.

A week later, Nora and Benji are arriving at the resort for the wedding in the beautiful Adirondacks. Nora is there pretending to be Benji’s girlfriend while Sebastian is pretending to be Alessia’s boyfriend and to add to the fun, both big Italian families of the bride and groom have drama and are feuding. It was hilarious. Nora and Sebastian keep running into each other – first in the hotel check in line, then in the steam room, at pickleball, swimming in the lake and at the local tavern for the bachelor/bachelorette party. They heat up the room whenever they are together and soon they are comparing tattoos and having some spicy scenes – there’s one that’s particularly memorable in a photo booth that gets pretty steamy.

After the wedding Sebastian, is worried about getting too close to Nora because he’ll be leaving soon to go back to his traveling job and Nora, who grew up moving every year, really likes her home and doesn’t want to leave. They wonder how they can make it all work out. This part of the story was more serious and I wondered how they would handle it.

The hardest part for me was keeping track of who all the family members were. Also, the pace slowed down after the wedding, but these are minor quibbles – the humor kept me smiling the whole way through and I loved rooting for Nora, so full of sunshine and Sebastian, who wants to help kids in need with the Boys and Girls Club.

I think this story would make a great beach read. Her last book, Some Kind of Blunderful, was one of my favorite books of 2023 and this one is just as good!