Jamie Wesley

A reality star and a cupcake-baking football player pretend to be a couple in order to save his bakery in this sweet and sexy romance from Jamie Wesley, Fake It Till You Bake It.

Jada Townsend-Matthews is the most reviled woman in America after turning down a proposal on a reality dating show. When she comes home to lick her wounds, Jada finds herself working at San Diego's newest cupcake bakery, Sugar Blitz, alongside the uptight owner and professional football player Donovan Dell.

When a reporter mistakenly believes Jada and Donovan are an item, they realize they can use the misunderstanding to their advantage to help the struggling bakery and rehabilitate Jada's image. Faking a relationship should be simple, but sometimes love is the most unexpected ingredient.

Fake it Till You Bake It is a sweet confection of a novel, the perfect story to curl up with and enjoy with a cupcake on the side.

A Novel

Fake It Till You Bake It

Charlsy Sekyere

** spoiler alert **
           ⭐️2-2.5

Is there ever going to come a time when authors stop making couples rivals/enemies/nemeses after one bad encounter or first impression? In every romance book, why must there be nemesis-to-lovers or enemies-to-lovers? It's usually unneeded, poorly executed, or both. Eventually, the trope becomes laughable and loses its appeal. 

Let's move on to the book itself. I cannot describe how painfully and excruciatingly mediocre this book is. There were several times when I zoned out, and I thought a couple of chapters could have been cut out after they started dating. As soon as they started dating, the book could have ended. 

There were moments when Donovan's banter with Jada was corny and cheesy, reminiscent of Emily Henry's and Ali Hazelwood's writing styles. While Donovan was okay, he also had a tendency to be stiff and awkward at times. At times, Jada was quite dramatic and I personally didn't like that she repeatedly described herself as impulsive. Eventually, it became exhausting. She is a grown woman. Her constant description of herself as impulsive makes no sense. When will you become less impulsive and start thinking before acting? In the end, it just wasn't cute and if I had to have a friend like Jada, I would be exhausted because she sometimes acted insufferable. With the exception of Donovan's football friends (August and Nicolas) and Jada's grandmother, most of the side characters were unmemorable.

The fake dating trope? Passable, but not particularly impressive. Despite this, I found the transition between Donovan and Jada fake-dating to real dating to be way too fast, which made me question whether the fake-dating trope was actually necessary. Typically, fake-dating tropes feature a couple going on dates and having fun together, but in this book, there was hardly any fun, or rather, next to no cute moments, as most interactions felt stale, stilted and uninteresting.

Lila's blackmail scene was hilarious as well as frustrating to read since Donovan and Jada were already together, so what could she possibly do to ruin Jada's reputation? Throughout that storyline, this was my constant thought. The whole thing seemed unrealistic and nonsensical to me. In fact, Lila and John being the supposed 'villains' was merely bizarre and ridiculous.

I wasn't satisfied with the pacing of the book, and the smut did nothing to make me like this book or improve it in any way.

Overall, it wasn't an enjoyable read for me. Several tropes that I really enjoyed and hold dear to me (fake-dating, enemies-to-lovers, forced proximity, workplace romance) were thrown in the book, and they weren't executed well, so they became unnecessary and didn't contribute to the book as a whole. I can only think of one positive thing about this book: the cover, which is simply stunning.

Vajas Johanna 

Jaila Esterline

Thank you to NetGalley for an e-arc of this story. 

This book was not bad, but if I had bought it myself, I would’ve dnf-ed it around the 30%. The pacing in this book is extremely odd, the couple doesn’t really have a ton of interaction in the first third, which was disappointing. The love interests best friends seemed to be more developed and strong characters, whereas the love interest was somewhat flat throughout the whole thing. The middle of the story is what saved it for me, but the beginning and end were sub-par. I think this is more of an editing and revising issue. Cute premise, but lacking some important aspects.

sydney

I loved every part about this book, it was so cute!!! I am always a fan of fake dating and this book did not disappoint. It did seem as though Jada and Donovan fell in love pretty fast but it worked. He was just always there for her and stood up for her and it made my heart so warm and fuy.

I received an arc through netgalley.

Nikki

this book is one of my anticipated reads this 2022 and it really [mj rodriguez voice] DELIVERED! i loved the writing and the chemistry between jada and donovan was just chef's kiss. definitely pick this book up if you enjoy fake dating trope because it's done so so so well!

this book has:

- black leads!
- delicious banter (that gets even more delicious after they got together)
- grumpy-sunshine fake dating
- hot makeout in a supply closet (and even hotter smut)
- super good character development
- dyslexia rep



thank you to netgalley and st. martin's press for providing the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Fake It Till You Bake It A Novel

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