It was okay. Not the most riveting story but a good pallette cleanser. The 2 main characters were just okay. Grumpy Vs sunshine but with a twist.

Strong Ted Lasso vibes here! A cosy little grumpy x sunshine romance. The characters felt like real, relatable people and I think everyone who has read this wants/will want a Beck in their life. Defo recommend

Thank you so much to Pan Macmillan and NetGalley for giving me an ARC to review!

3 stars!

The first thing I liked about this was how much as a softie/cinnamon roll Beck was. He was nice, had some lil cheekiness to him but was a delight to read. The book started off a little slow? I'm not sure if that is the right way but I wasn't invested. Probably because how Beck spoke, which to me just made me laugh but also took me out because I just couldn't get in to it the way I hoped. Then I was. Goddamn. But then I slowly began to lose some interest towards the end BUT I did enjoy Beck and Connie/Hazel together and their dynamic. Even when things got serious.

Clearly not the strongest hit for me, but it's a hit among others! Twas very cute!

Fresh from finishing a novel about serial killers, I was looking to read something lighter and along came My Big Fat Fake Marriage. I’ll be honest, a couple of chapters in, I wasn’t sure the book was for me - the grumpy x sunshine plot line felt like it was laid on a bit thick with the “nice guys don’t exist” perspective. I wasn’t convinced that as reader, I could lust for a man that says “Golly” in a non ironic way.
But boy, am I glad I carried on reading and proved completely wrong too. Almost immediately, those thoughts were brushed aside as I was swept along with the plot and I binge read the book in a day. I loved the fake marriage storyline and loved the spicy scenes even more. I was totally won over and rooting for the characters.

If Grumpy vs Sunshine, forced proximity and fake dating are your go to romance tropes, you need to add this to your TBR list right away. It’s the perfect lighthearted but steamy read.

Thanks to the author, publisher and NetGalley for a chance to review an advanced copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.

I loved this! Does a Beck actually exist?! He was so awkwardly adorable. Hazel was a great character and I loved her loyalty and protective nature. It was nice seeing Mabel and Alfie from When Grumpy Met Sunshine (which I enjoyed even more than this one). My only issue was that it all happened really quickly. I would’ve liked to have had a bit of time at the writers retreat and then the bulk of it spread over a longer period of time in their usual day to day lives.

Charlotte Stein is an absolute star! She's taken Ted Lasso, uh, I mean Henry Beckett and turned him into a romance hero to die for. This book is definitely NOT for the faint of heart, Stein is a queen of romance, but also a deft hand at absolutely filthy talk. But despite the humour, the spice, the laughter and joy, this is definitely a book to make you cry as well. I would recommend it to anyone!

Love reading anything by Charlotte as it’s so impulsive and just like having a chat with your best friend - except maybe with more explicit sex scenes!

Defo alll the Ted Lasso vibes!

Oh, Charlotte Stein, I feel I need to read your entire back catalogue!

This book was just adorable in every way.
Connie lives next door to the nicest man on the planet, but due to her past relationships, is certain Henry Samuel Beckett AKA Beck must be a fraud. There is absolutely no way someone can genuinely be that nice - or can they?
There's obviously only one way to find out, pretend to be his fake wife on a writers retreat...

I loved, and I mean LOVED, that this book has characters that are not six packed, pretty boys, and petite glossy haired pin-ups. Instead, we get characters that feel closer to the reality of many of us mere mortals, and personally, a big hairy slab of a man is far more my thing. And a bow-tie? Count me in.

Filled with witty banter, Quantum Leap (iykyk), Star Wars, some decent spice, and the underlying message that it is perfectly acceptable to just be yourself in this world, this book will fill your soul.

Just to add that this book is the second in a series, which I wasn't aware of. However, you do not need to have read the first book, and this can be read as a standalone.


Thank you to the publisher for allowing me to read an advance copy of this book via Netgalley.

DNF at 28%. I tried this from 25/01/25 to 26/01/25. I really wanted to like this ARC but this book just made no sense to me and I don’t want to continue reading this and end up giving it 1 or 2 stars. The book just isn’t making sense to me, it’s making me cringe and I’m just not into it. I can see fans of this author enjoying this as it seems similar to her other works but this just wasn’t for me and I don’t want to finish it.

Hazel is a tad cynical about men, having dealt with a few too many Nice Guys(TM). So she's very cynical about her neighbour, Beck, who seems like an actual nice guy.
After a particularly painful encounter in the building elevator, it turns out he's been pretending to have a wife at work to shut up a mean colleague (he's American and she's allegedly still in the US while he lives and works in the UK.) Long story short: Hazel, who has absolutely 0 impulse control in the face of bullies, ends up being his pretend-wife at a writing retreat. And then develops real feelings, because this is a romance novel.

Beck is sweet and awkward and incredibly over the top wholesome. It's completely unrealistic, but a nice change from most romance novel heroes. Hazel has massive walls up because of a painful childhood and slowly lets them down. The book is written from Hazel's POV, and the entirety of it is just her interacting with and thinking about Beck. I couldn't tell you much about their backstory, their lives, or any of the barely there side characters: the whole book is literally just straight romance between two very awkward people who are pretty good for each other while also very horny. About 2/3rds in, it changes from mostly wholesomely awkwardly bumbling into explicit spice, and goes full steam ahead until the end (pun intended).

So here's the deal. This book isn't perfect, but it is exactly the silly, fluffy, wholesome feel-good I needed to cheer me up after a bad week!


Many thanks for Pan Macmillan for sending me an ARC through Netgalley. All opinions are of course my own.

If I had started reading this book without the intention to review it. I would never have finished it. I wouldn’t have actively DNF’d it. I would have put it down and immediately forgotten about its existence because the first 30 or so % of the book is rambling and forgettable.

Connie/Hazel and her “actually a nice guy” neighbor Beck decide to be fake married for some reason. It’s hard to fully remember because the way in which this book is written makes it hard to follow the “plot”. 70% of the narrative is internal dialogue interspersed with snippets of dialogue between characters. Being subjected to Connie’s frankly inane internal ramblings is incredibly distracting but to be honest hearing the things Beck says often make me want to tear my hair out.

i understand that the premise is that he’s not like other “nice guys” and that he’s genuinely sweet and kind etc etc but the way he talks is so incredibly cringey paired with his self depreciating nature. At one point his energy is referred to as “good dad energy” in relation to being a turn on. NO we want *daddy energy* not dad!It was a huge turn off for me. Give me a direct dick out man any day of the week over this bumbling pastry of a man.

You would suspect that perhaps Connie/Hazel would be the self confident one. Ready to bring Beck out of his shell? Nope. Equally self deprecating to a point of actual stupidity. Every other sentence Beck speaks is telling her how wonderful she is and yet somehow her brain tells her he thinks she’s a horrifying troll. This endless cycle of them circling around each other like pre pubescent teens rather than grown adults in their 30’s lasts for over 75% of the book.

i don’t mind a slow burn or a little bit of vulnerability in characters but you need at least one of them to have the ability to say what they mean instead of weirdly avoiding it over and over again.

it feels cruel that the author can write such good smutty scenes with such mind numbingly boring characters.

Even when they are absolutely going at it like rabbits (pretty much the entire final 20% of the book) she’s convincing herself he doesn’t like her. At this point I don’t care.

One last major issue I have with the way this book is written is events seem to happen that aren’t explicitly explained but we as the reader are meant to understand. Doug suddenly seems to know they have been planning to fake divorce even though they are currently humping each other into oblivion but there’s never a point that we see Doug being told they are heading towards divorce.

The only reason I finished this book is because I am stubborn and had to see it out to the end.

Thank you to NetGalley and Pan Macmillan for the advanced copy

A big thank you to NetGalley for granting me access to an eARC of this book. Here’s my honest review. To start, this book is the second in a series (following When Grumpy Met Sunshine). While Connie and Beck, the leads in this installment, were introduced in that first book—and Alfie and Mabel even make a cameo here—this story can stand on its own. That said, I’d still recommend picking up the first book because it’s a fantastic read.

Connie, our heroine, has been burned in the past by so-called "Nice Guys" who turned out to be anything but. This has left her understandably wary of trusting Beck, her genuinely nice-guy neighbor, when he enters the picture. The setup is simple yet fun: Beck has told a fib at work about being married, and he ropes Connie into pretending to be his wife during a two-week writing retreat he’s overseeing—one that Connie was already planning to attend. The big question is: Can they convincingly pull off the charade, especially under the watchful eye of Beck’s unpleasant colleague? And, more importantly, can they both emerge from the experience without breaking their hearts?

Beck is a delightful mix of earnestness and geeky charm, with a personality that radiates pure goodness. Imagine an American version of Henry Cavill (mustache included) with a love for nerdy hobbies and a penchant for bow ties. On the other hand, Connie hides her inner geek behind the polished veneer of the "cool girl" persona she’s perfected as a defense mechanism. The story is told entirely from Connie’s first-person perspective, and the author excels at using her inner monologue to reveal layers of character and interactions. While the writing leans into a bit of drama, it does so in a way that’s both entertaining and engaging.

What stood out to me most is how Connie approaches the idea of testing the waters with someone as sweet as Beck. On the one hand, it’s refreshing; on the other, it’s heartbreaking that she doesn’t believe she’s worthy of a real, healthy relationship. My one frustration with these kinds of stories is the classic “I don’t deserve you” trope that creates unnecessary miscommunication and tension. I get that it’s meant to build suspense, but what I really love is the moment when the characters realize they were wrong—and that they absolutely deserve the happiness they’ve found in each other.

If you enjoy introspective, humorous, and sometimes over-the-top internal monologues paired with plenty of heat, this book will likely hit the mark for you. Stein has a knack for writing relatable, witty female leads whose thoughts effortlessly bring the scenes to life, even when not much is actively happening. One final note: like her other works, this book is quite steamy. So if you plan on listening to the audiobook, maybe be mindful of your surroundings! Look out for this one—it’s set to release on March 11, 2025.

After reading and enjoying When Grumpy Met Sunshine, I really wanted to read this book as I like how Charlotte writes her plus-size characters, and I enjoyed the style of writing.

A fake marriage between an unlucky in love Hazel and the mountain of a cinnamon roll Beck.

Beck was so polite and sweet, and the way Hazel, who was confident, also had a not so confident side where she couldn't believe she deserved Beck.

Loved the writers retreat setting, and it was spicy, but not all about the spice as we had the romance as well.

I hate that I keep giving Charlotte Stein books bad ratings. I absolutely love her book Never Sweeter, she totally kills at writing spice, and I do like her writing style in general. I didn't enjoy When Grumpy Met Sunshine and hoped that it would be a one of, because a lot of her books are completely up my alley.
Unfortunately this book fell short for me. The premise: great. The character set-up: great. The spice: also great! Not so great: how the characters are actually brought to the page and their journey as a couple. There were so many opportunities to flesh them out and make them work as full characters. Instead, we only get glimpses and there is basically zero backstory and or explanation of the MMC. He curses like a naive priest and essentially seems to have been teleported into the 21st century from the 50s. Why? We don't know! I think it's great to have an unexperienced hero that isn't super confident when it comes to women. But you still need to make him someone beyond a caricature.
Similarly, the heroine obviously has some trauma and her mother sounds emotionally abusive, but it's actually never explained. So in essence we have two characters with issues to work through and some backstory, but neither is actually really discussed. As a consequence, the "conflict" or reasons they don't just straight up date can't carry the story. The book is full length, but from the actual content it could just as well have been 90 pages. I don't understand it at all.
I'm really hoping that this is an editing issue and I'll enjoy the author's future books again, because I do love the spice and character setup.

I received and advanced copy of this book from NetGalley, which I voluntarily read and reviewed. All opinions are my own.

ARC REVIEW- MY BIG FAT FAKE MARRIAGE

Stars: ⭐️⭐️⭐️.5
Spice: 🌶️🌶️🌶️

Tropes:
🌟Fake Dating/Marriage
🌟Curvy FMC
🌟American MMC
🌟Slow Burn
🌟Forced Proximity
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Thanks to NetGalley, St Martin’s Press and Charlotte Stein for the ARC! I received an advance copy of the book and am leaving an honest review. All opinions are my own.
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This is the follow up to When Grumpy Met Sunshine…which I absolutely ADORED. This one has Connie and Beck, who we met in the first book, as our intrepid couple. I was excited to see what Charlotte Stein had up her sleeve for this one and I’m always a sucker for a fake dating/fake marriage story.

Connie is super distrustful of “Nice Guys.” You know the type, the ones who appear nice at first and make you lower your guard but the minute you say you’re not interested, completely blow up. Well Connie takes it a step further and feels like NO ONE is nice. So much that when she meets Beck, huge American geek with a penchant for wearing bow ties, she feels he must have an ulterior motive or is a secret serial unaliver. When Beck comes to her and needs Connie to pretend to be his wife (that’s he’s completely made up for work) at a writing retreat, she’s suspicious but ultimately agrees. Forced proximity and only one bed hijinks ensue.

Beck is the biggest cinnamon roll to cinnamon roll. So much that there is no way a human being like this exists in real life. And I don’t know if Charlotte has ever encountered an American nerd/geek before, but it nearly took me out of the story on how he talked. Like, there is no way a nearly 40 year old man who lives in 2024 speaks like freaking Ned Flanders. I get she was trying to go for endearing and wholesome, maybe? But it was kinda weird. And not all that believable. That being said, he has to be the kindest person with the purest soul. He’s so good to Connie and helps her realize that there is good in people.

I did enjoy this story and it definitely got spicy. But there were quite a few parts, in relation to Beck and how he talked and his general personality that I just don’t find all that believable. But he was sweet and I enjoyed whenever he was on page. I definitely don’t think this was as strong a story as When Grumpy Met Sunshine and I didn’t connect with the characters as much in this story.

A solid effort, an enjoyable read for an afternoon but not exactly my cup of tea. I probably won’t reread this one but I’m glad I read it.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publishers for this advanced reader's copy and the opportunity to this early. Review has been posted on Waterstones and Amazon.

If you’re looking for a complex book this isn’t it but it is a fun, humorous easy read.

Not enemies and not friends. Living in the same apartment building and knowing people in common makes Brett and hazel hard to ignore eachother.
Hazel has massive preconceptions that a nice person is hiding a massive character flaw. But Brett is exactly what he seems a kind, nice man who does not take himself to seriously. Apart from his romantic life he is successful, believing hazel is well out of his league.
Stepping up to defend Brett against a work colleague leads to a pretend relationship.
Will it become a real relationship? A bit racy that will speed up your pulse.