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.

Not my usual genre but definitely a laugh out loud book

What a delight

Thanks for the opportunity to review