Tag: fake dating

TSM Book Club Book #28: Practice Makes Perfect by Sarah Adams

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Started: July 7th
Finished: July 11th
TSM Rating: 5/5

This was such a lovely follow-up to When in Rome. Sweet Annie and Broody Will have such endearing chemistry right from the start that it was hard to put this book down.

Basic backgrounds, Annie is the youngest sister of Noah Walker, our hero from When In Rome, and Will Amelia’s favorite bodyguard. Thus when our story starts, they meet again on what happens to be a mortifying moment for our heroine. Her date is in the process of ditching her when Will walks in with a date of his own.

From the beginning, it is clear to everyone — except Annie and Will, of course — that they are in love with each other. So much so that the town starts a petition to end the non-existent relationship, which forces them into a fake relationship. And feelings bloom.

Annie is on a journey to come out of her shell and be seen by her family and everyone else in town as a one-dimensional, happy-go-lucky girl. Will just wants to do his job — protect Amelia in the month leading up to her and Noah’s wedding — and get out of this very close-knit, incredibly nosy town.

I love the way these two fall in love. Knowing Will allows Annie to find the confidence to stand up for herself. Sometimes it only takes one person really seeing you to help you see yourself.

I was looking for the perfect person with the perfect traits and the perfect timing, when really all my heart actually wants is to be filly known and loved. Someone to share the quiet moments with — someone to turn to when everything is good or everything is bad. Someone who wouldn’t be mad if I snuck in to see him before the wedding and ruined traditions — but who’d be just as eager to be with me as I’d be with him. Someone like…Will

Annie, Practice Makes Perfect, pg. 317

Coming into this, Will was the anti-relationship guy…until he met a girl who helped him see that not all relationships have to be as volatile as his parents.

Last night as I listened to Annie talk about the kind of future she wanted, I felt that relentless tug in my chest again. Not because I want the harvest-parties and soccer-games life she mentioned, but because I want the ability to dream a life with someone like Annie where my immediate thought isn’t: But how is it going to fail?

Will, Practice Makes Perfect, pg. 107

This book is as much about facing the past as looking toward the future. Both Annie and Will have to overcome traumatic childhoods to become who they need to be for each other. I loved this one more than When in Rome. There was so much more charm with Will and Annie. So much more sweetness. Definitely a must-read!

TSM Book Club Book #26: Love, Theoretically by Ali Hazelwood

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Started: June 25th
Finished: June 29th
TSM Rating: 5/5

I feel smarter when I read Ali Hazelwood’s books. And also dumber.😂 Hazelwood has he PhD in neuroscience so naturally all her characters are women and men of STEM. She infuses science into her books and when her protagonists get together they nerd out on all their combined science knowledge. Makes me which my brain understood it all better because I actually do love science.

In Love, Theoretically, we meet Elsie who uses her natural instinct to make herself anything anyone wants her to be to make extra cash as a fake girlfriend, while working at several different universities around Boston as an adjunct professor. When our story starts she is attending the family party of her fake boyfriend, Greg. Now, this isn’t your typical fake dating scenario where the two people involved are secretly hot for each other. Nope. In this case, the object of Elsie curiosity is Greg’s brother, Jack.

When her fake dating world and her very real academic profession collide during the biggest interview of her career, Elsie has do everything she can to keep it from falling apart. On the evening of her meet and greet dinner with several members of the MIT hiring committee, Elsie runs into Jack, who also happens to be, she finds out, he academic nemesis. She stuck between a rock and a hard place because the Elsie he knows is very different from who she actually is, and she can’t tell him the whole truth without betraying Greg’s confidence.

I know it sounds crazy and a bit complicated. That’s because it is and all the best romance novels kind of are. As the two spend more time together, however, the more Elsie realizes that she doesn’t have to be something specific for Jack. She can just be her without fear of judgement, although its a very hard thing for her to believe. It’s the beautiful thing about their relationship.

It’s like he’s trying to puzzle me out without changing me — and that’s impossible. That’s not how people are, not with me.

Elsie, page 13

“…Except I don’t care much about other people, but I can’t stop paying attention to you.” He shrugs. There is something so utterly, disarmingly honest about him. “So I look.”

Jack & Elsie, page 245

While Hazelwood’s books have very explicit sex scenes — I recently learned the phrase open door vs. closed door and she is VERY open door — all of her characters tend to skew more towards the asexual end of the spectrum until they meet that one person who awakens their desires.

While Jack and Elsie start spending time together fairy early in the boo,, it takes them awhile to build the trust needed to get to that point. The way Hazelwood allows their relationship to unfold and progress with stops and starts adds an element of realism to their story that doesn’t exist in most romances. The stops happen because they are getting to know each other, because they are struggling to take it slow and fighting their basest instincts.

“…And I need you to keep us in check. I need you to pace us, because wherever it is we’re going…I’m here. I’m already right here.”

Jack, page 377

Ah! She’s so good. Her male protagonists are so deeply emotionally behind the hyper intelligence and masculinity. If only all men had that level of emotional intelligence…

Read it. And read everything Ali Hazelwood writes. Because, like Tessa Bailey, her writing is perfection.