Author: Lena Hendrix
Series: The Sullivan Family Series Book #3
Category: Contemporary Romance
Rating: ⭐⭐⭐
Spice: 🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️
Annie has been in love with her best friend Lee forever and has somehow held it all together despite his one-night stands being flaunted in her face while she cleans up another one of his messy situations with other women. She has a secret she has been hiding from him, and while it was pretty obvious from early on in the book, it still gave some tension to the book because the shoe was bound to drop sometime or later.
"Fantastic. Yet another check mark in the Lee Did Stupid Shit and Annie Cleaned Up his Mess column" - Lee
Lee is a romantic at heart, but the epic love story the town won't let him forget wasn't the fairytale that time has turned it into. Instead, he swung the other way entirely and has been picking his way through any available woman that moves ever since. Lee is slowly maturing from his womanizing ways, realizing what he wants in life is the best friend who has never let him down. Though he is scared he will ruin the best thing he has, he is determined to go for what he wants and drag her along to his way of thinking.
My favorite part of this book was the actual regret and consequences of Lee's womanizing reputation. He constantly gets frustrated by the humiliating realization that no one in his small town or even his friends takes him seriously because of his past actions. Deciding you are ready to settle down because you haven't slept with someone in a few months isn't going to convince anyone you have changed your ways.
The charade of them picking out dates for each other was a nice twist on the fake dating trope, but still had the same effect of revealing feelings between themselves. I didn't love that Lee felt like he was winging their relationship instead of listening to her true hesitations.
"But I knew it was impossible, because nothing about Lee was permanent or serious." - Annie
Honestly, I found myself kind of bored with this story about halfway through and only finished so I could write this book review properly.
Friends to lovers in general may just not have enough dynamic or uncertain relationship tension for me. Especially when they are best friends, the only thing that changed was adding sex to the mix. And while those were surprisingly out of left field spicy, that was the extent of any chemistry. A so-so book overall.
Tropes and Themes: Contemporary Romance, Best Friends, Friends to Lovers, Womanizer, Best Friends Boyfriend, Military, Small Town.
Blurb
Fake dating my best friend? Total disaster.
With his cocky grin and devilish charm, firefighter Lee Sullivan makes every woman in our small town swoon. Every woman except for me.
Which is why I’m shocked when he steps in at the town’s Matchmaker’s Gala and outbids my crush during the charity auction, committing us to six prearranged dates.
Six dates where we, very publicly, pretend to be falling in love.
Despite my objections and our efforts to set each other up with other people, Lee is convinced pretending to date each other is the perfect opportunity to get the women in town off his back (and out of his bed), while also helping to nudge my non-committal crush in the jealousy department.
Stupidly, I agree.
After the disastrous blind dates he set me up on, what’s a few months of letting Lee worship the ground I walk on? He owes me.
Trouble is––every fake kiss, every lingering touch, every filthy word he whispers when no one is around––is starting to feel very, very real.
We know everything about each other––from my orphaned past to his irrational hatred of dolls. The only secret I have ever kept from Lee spans all the way back to his time in the Army and it’s the one thing that could ruin our friendship forever.
Because where Lee is concerned, I have learned to guard my heart. Suddenly, he’s asking for the opportunity to feel something real. He’s asking for the one thing he wouldn’t want if he ever knew the truth: one chance.
Comments