DNF at 34%

I had a very hard time getting into the story and connecting with the characters. I love me a good grumpy billionaire too!

Some people have rave reviews some I am thinking this one just may not be my style.

Thank you to NetGalley for

LOVED IT. I love a Nicole Snow book. Lots of content, quick read, enjoyable...right up my alley. Wouldn't we all like to be "stuck" on a plane with Mr. Tall, Dark, and Handsome?! Clearly fictional characters have all the luck!!! This is a good one to bring to the beach, on a trip to the mountains, or on a plane ride while you try to steal the armrest from the unruly passenger you've been sidled with. Enjoy.

Eleanor Lark is flying cross-country to live with her grandmother and hopefully find herself a job as an illustrator. Upon embarking the plane, Eleanor realizes that her seat mate is a grumpy, taciturn, and unfortunately gorgeous man. Refusing to let him spoil her mood, Eleanor decides to just ignore him. Sadly, she finds it all too easy when she gets one of her killer migraines while on the flight. Arriving in Seattle airport, Eleanor succumbs to the pain and blackouts. When she comes to, she’s in the car of her gorgeous and grumpy seat mate.

August Marshall figures he’s done his good deed of the day when he catches his seat mate mid-faint and gives her a ride home. What he wasn’t prepared for, was paparazzi to get a video and publish it. Being a billionaire with a checkered romantic past has once again come to bite him. His solution? He proposes to Eleanor that they pretend an engagement to save their reputations. He’ll pay her for her time of course, and they will break off the engagement when the media storm has died down.

The only problem? This business arrangement of playing pretend feels an awful lot like the real thing…

-Grumpy x sunshine
-Open door: mild to mod detail
-Billionaire x freelance artist
-Chronic migraine and anemia rep
-A 10/10 meet cute
-Fake engagement

You know those books that you read the blurb and think, this could either be really good or be written like an adolescent fan fic novel. You know the ones I’m talking about. Well, I am SUPER HAPPY to say this book lives up to the expectation of the fabulous description. Well written, a good storyline, endearing characters, and a romance that you’ll just be begging to HURRY UP AND GET THERE.

I also thought it was a really nice touch to get an epilogue that time jumps a few times, so you can see a bit more of these characters lives. I love when authors give us those little snapshots. I never feel ready to let characters go, so to see where they end up is always satisfying.

As always, thank you to Netgalley and publishers for my ARC in exchange for my honest opinions. All opinions and words are my own and not affiliated with anyone in any way.

I had to DNF.

My #1 problem has to do with the language around migraine. I know it isn't widely known to refer to "migraines" as "migraine attacks" or to stop using "headaches," but this feels like a lack of research. I wanted to continue but it bugged me for the first few chapters and I couldn't continue.

My #2 problem is the writing style which I found to be off-putting.

A serendipitous meeting at the airport with fateful encounters and circumstances. This was a great read! Lots of emotions and growth in the characters, battling against their pasts and their turned up emotions. I loved the storyline and characters, a cute meeting and unbelievable linking coincidences.

So close to 5☆. What an amazing fake dating billionaire romance. If you liked Terms and Conditions, you'll love this. We meet loveable Elle, a children's illustrator who literally falls into the arms of grumpy billionaire, August when a severe migraine leads her to passing out at the airport. Misconstrued images of them both lead to a media scandal suggesting inappropriate behaviour....enter fake engagement to reverse scandal. But can walking sunshine Elle defrost troubled August in time?

Huge thanks to #NetGalley for the arc

Gruffykins and the Manic Pixie

This story was a lot of fun to read, with a very satisfying secondary romance that sneaks up on you in the final chapters. August and Elle really do play well off each other's complementary traits, and you can't help but fall in love with the brooding corporate suit she calls Jet Daddy.

The author always hits a home run with developing the emotional layers of her characters, and the pace is upbeat, flowing smoothly along as we go through all the various obstacles they have to overcome. The HEA is delightful, with plenty of love to go around for everyone - villains, too.

I'll admit I rolled my eyes a bit at Elle's "not like other girls" whimsical approach to life that just barely kept from dipping into childish, and I honestly lost track of the number of times August made mention of their size disparity, referring to her so many times as "slender," "fragile," "delicate," "girlish," and comparing her to either a bird, a puppy, or a kitten, depending on his mood. OK, we get it. She's tiny and cute. Move along.

I really appreciated the attention paid to Elle's debilitating migraines, how they were more of her day to day life and not just there to move the plot. I also understood the third-act breakup once we realized August was having a "Terrible, Horrible, No Good Very Bad Day," but still, he almost crossed over into unforgivable territory. Good thing our manic pixie is very forgiving.

So if you don't mind main characters that are full of tropes and maybe a tad stereotypical, you're going to love the non-stop adventure romance that this book easily delivers. Elle is truly the ying to his yang, and their HEA was everything I could hope for. I voluntarily reviewed an ARC of this book.

I've loved the billionaires Nicole has wrote before, but this one just wasn't for me. I thought it had some tropes I really like and knowing I have loved her other books that it would be a sure fire win for me, but I couldn't find myself loving and finishing it.

I'm usually a fan of this author's writing, so I couldn't wait to dive into this book when I heard about it. This book started off promising with a cute meet-cute and fun banter. As someone who suffers from migraines and has friends who suffer from them just as badly as Elle, I appreciate the migraine representation.

Unfortunately, this story was a miss for me and completely fell flat. It had so much potential, but I struggled to connect with the characters and their story.

if you enjoy Nicole Snow books you will enjoy this book.
The MMC is a grumpy billionaire whose act of chivalry towards the sunshine MFC leads to their eventual fake dating. Both main characters of the book had realistic past trauma and the MFC has chronic health conditions that remain present throughout the book. The support characters were not over the top and added to the story, one could even have her own book.
If you enjoy Grumpy/sunshine billionaire books you will like this one.

This is the first book I read by Nicole Snow. This book was cute and I like the banter of the characters. I also like that each chapter has a title but it kinda a spoiler sometimes. I had a mixed feelings about this book, this is not the kind of grumpy/sunshine trope for me because August is just too much. Overall this is an okay read for me.

Almost Pretend is a billionaire romance set in Seattle. Elle Lark meets billionaire August Marshall while on a flight to Seattle (it does take a little imagination that a billionaire would be on a commercial flight). This forced proximity romance is a fun quick read, and has some great supporting characters.

Stars: 3.75/5
Spice: 4/5

Thank you Netgalley and Nicole Snow for the chance to read this book in exchange for an honest review.

August is a billionaire businessman who meets a flighty artist, Elle, at the airport. They say “Opposites attract” and that’s exactly what happened in Almost Pretend.
The novel captured, and held, my attention. But I could’ve done without all the language and the ending that was the missing link of the case.

The story about Elenor and August is such a funny heartwarming sizzling read. I really enjoyed reading each page and seeing how the relationship develops between Elle and August. I loved the twists and surprises and that the story is not (in my oppinion) such a like like the previous ones.
I volunteered to review an ARC of this book for Netgelly

2,5 stars

The description of the book attracted me and I thought the book would be good and I would enjoy it. However, I was mistaken. I struggled with it for a month, I left it several times because I thought that I was the problem and that I was not in the mood to read. The book is boring, there is no chemistry between the main and secondary characters. I'm sorry that I wasted my time on this book and that my rating is the way it is.

Thanks to NetGalley and Nicole Snow for the ARC! I received an advanced copy of the book and am leaving an honest review 😊

I’ve been bingeing a lot of small town, cowboy-esque romances lately so it was fun to settle down with a billionaire romance! I’ve read Nicole Snow once before and I liked what I read, so I was excited to dive into this ARC for her latest, Almost Pretend!

This romance follows Elle, our intrepid sunshiny heroine who ends up fake engaged to the grumpiest of alpha holes, August. We have a not so meet cute when Elle meets August on a flight while she’s in the throws of a major migraine (me too girl!) and sits next to (I kid you not) JET DADDY. Like that’s literally what she calls him in her head and omg I love it so much 🤪 August ends up catching her when she faints after disembarking the plane with her killer migraine and the tabloids go wild. (I do want to know why it’s such a thing in romance novels that people care about what random billionaires do. 🤷🏻‍♀️)

I do love me some cold, alpha hole billionaire hero who softens and melts for the heroine. It does sometimes grate on me just how mean they get and occasionally I feel like the heroine is kind of a doormat and just takes him back. But as long as it makes sense for the character and within the story, I can accept that. I was in the mood for billionaire grumpy assholes, so this story hit the spot.

It was nice to have the dual POV because if not for August’s POV, he would come across so incredibly hot and cold, you’d get whiplash. But reading his internal struggle and dealing with the feelings of his past relationships, it did make it somewhat more believable how he was acting towards Elle.

I LOVED the chronic illness rep of migraines! As someone who deals with migraines herself, it was so refreshing to see just how accurate the depictions of how migraines affect not just your head with the pain, but the sensitivity to outside stimuli. I felt SEEN!

I did love the side characters, with Elle’s grandmother and August’s Aunt Clara. They were the sweetest and really rooting for our dear couple. But reminded Elle to not let August get away with being such a dick all the time!

It was a quick, fun, SPICY read and definitely check it out if you’re in the mood for a grumpy billionaire fake engagement!

Thank you to netgalley and the publishers for letting me review this advanced copy. It was a 3 star read that I really enjoyed. I was on a vacation cruise while reading it and it was wonderful. I hope people like it as much as I did!

Love this story. Cute “meet cute” with an instantly lovable female lead and a gorgeous gruff male lead. Pretend dating (obviously) that leads to a steamy, heart throb story. Definitely recommend.

2.5.

This book follows Elle, an illustrator and August a grumpy billionaire who proposes a fake engagement that apparently benefits both parties.. but does it ever???
I thought August was a frustrating character, he was inconsiderate and his communication skills were horrendous. I understand that he had his own internal issues but Elle had more of backbone than him in many ways. However, their banter between one another was one of the main perks of this book.
It was a decent read, nothing new or memorable but enjoyable.

Read this book for…
Grumpy x sunshine
Age gap
Fake dating/relationship/marriage
Billionaire MMC

We meet Elle and August in their chance meet-cute on the plane. Elle suffers from chronic debilitating migraines and she has an episode while in the air, falling literally into August’s arms. They get off the plane together and encounter the media. August then shows up at her doorstep asking if they could get married due to the publicity.

I will not lie -- I struggled immensely to finish this book and eventually gave up at about 30% into the read. August is portrayed as this stoic reserved character (whom we later learn about why he is so anti-relationship) and Elle a bright sunshine FMC but I found the nature of their relationship hard to finish. I think there’s a layer to the writing that makes August not as likable and their chemistry not as believable.

Nonetheless, I thank NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. All thoughts and opinions are my own.