05/24/2026
Thank you to Hambright PR and NetGalley for the opportunity to review this book!
This was a super adorable book with extremely lovable characters, great small town vibes, neurodivergence rep, and lots of great banter. I loved all the nods to the local Asheville, NC area (where I live!) and the neurotic dog was the icing on the cake.
There are so many great characters! Our FMC, Nora is an independent, loyal, and proud woman who unfortunately doesn’t see how deserving she is of the love she is offered. Our MMC, Cormac enters the picture as the son of her mother’s new husband. Yup. Her step brother 🤭 while they’ve known each other a long time they haven’t been what you’d call friendly. However, that doesn’t stop them from entering into a fake relationship to try and save Nora’s business partner from his crazy girlfriend!
Along with these two there are so many secondary characters that absolutely made this book. Shout outs to Dottie, Ann, and Nathaniel. They are the real MVP’s!
There was amazing ND rep in this book that was really well written. So often in books autistic characters are stereotyped and given very little heart and are often the butt of the joke but not in this book. Cormac who is not diagnosed autistic but has many of the markers for it doesn’t always know how to exist in social settings or how to react or respond “normally” and this author did such a good job of showing how isolating that can be for someone especially when trying to navigate the complexities of an intimate relationship. Nora only sees his traits as endearing and helps guide him when they are in social settings and never makes him feel like he is different.
This book reminded me a lot of Lucy Score and her small town style of writing. The characters were unique and while I don’t usually love fake dating, this one was so well done I actually enjoyed seeing them navigate it while trying (and failing) to keep it a secret. There’s also some opposites attract, he falls first, high school enemies to lover, and a corgi named Cookie. What else could you want?
