TEST
Gigi Garrett’s novella Her Fake Engagement plays with the enemies-to-lovers trope, built on the principle that opposites often attract. Lottie, our heroine, has rules for everything so that she can control her perfectly ordered real estate empire. When out on her (faux) bachelorette party (more on that later), she runs into Tyler, a man who finds her obsession with order silly and injects some chaos into her world. The problem is, he thinks she’s engaged. How they overcome this mess is a fun and quirky romp.
Lottie Langerman has rules for nearly every aspect of her life. (She seems like the kind of gal who would have rules for every aspect, but the author doesn’t delve into retirement plans, for example, so I don’t want to assume.) She certainly has rules for how she does her job – selling real estate in New York City and being damn good at it – and about whom she dates. She knows the exact requirements for her future husband and is loath to stray from them. He shall be English, fastidious, calm yet strong, intelligent, and ambitious. No others need apply.
Her friends, by the way, think she’s nuts, especially her best friend Elsa May, who got pregnant and married far too young (according to Elsa May) and her single-life-in-the-city shenanigans were cut short. While she’s quick to make clear that she loves her child, she admits that a life full of cartoons and shit covered in spit up was not the way she had envisioned her life turning out when she was in her twenties. This is especially true for the rituals surrounding engagements and weddings and she’s determined to reclaim them. She comes up with the idea of throwing bachelorette parties for their circle – even though none of them are bachelorettes – a night of fun and frivolity where a little deception will lead to a lifetime of memories.
As an aside here, my engagement and wedding process was dictated more by immigration procedures in the U.K. than by our romantic timeline, so I feel some of Elsa May’s pain. That’s another story for another time, but for anyone who thinks she’s being a little bit insane, she may be. However, it’s insanity that I feel, too. We can have the conversation about the social conventions of all of these things and how it shouldn’t matter, but for some people it does and when circumstances mean they can’t enjoy pieces of the dream they were counting on, it can be frustrating or even mournful. For Elsa May, it’s certainly the latter and so therefore, she is taking matters into her own hands.
The first bachelorette up is Lottie and what a night Elsa May has planned for her. There are a lot of things that happen in this story Because Reasons or Because Plot, as this is not one of those stories that would stand up to too much scrutiny. For example, they get to borrow engagement rings from a high end jewelry store to sell the whole conceit. My eyebrow raised quickly, but I made the decision to go with it and see where Ms. Garrett was headed.
On Lottie’s bachelorette party, she meets Tyler, who crawls directly under her skin and bugs the living hell out of her. She can’t even contemplate acting on the clear attraction between the two of them – not just because she’s ‘engaged’ – but because he ticks none of the required boxes. He’s not English (he’s a very American jewelry designer living in Brooklyn), he’s not calm but strong (instead, he’s laid back and witty), and he’s certainly not fastidious. However, she can’t seem to get him out of her head or her life, as he keeps appearing at other events in her life, even hiring her to find him a new apartment.
As the faux bachelorette parties cycle their way through the group, Lottie begins to feel more and more out of control. Her neatly ordered psyche is having some cognitive dissonance thrown into it and once she considers that she may have been wrong about one thing (a man she dates in the middle of this who we know has an expiration date even though he’s perfectly The One), what else is she wrong about? As she tumbles her way through a new darkness, she finds a new certainly on the other side and she and Tyler build a happily ever after that is adorable.
While this is not a story that’s going to stick with me, I was surprised by how much I enjoyed the premise and some of the female relationships present within it. Lottie’s confusion is not just male-centric, but also affects her relationship with the women she holds dear and her resolution of that conflict  is swoony and perfect.
As Her Fake Engagement is a novella, you’re in and out quickly, but the story is well-paced and enjoyable overall. There’s a lot of fun to be had here for fans of contemporary romance with opposites attract stories at their core.
Buy Now: A/BN/iB/K
Grade: B
Book Type: Contemporary Romance
Sensuality: Warm
Review Date: 30/08/17
Publication Date: 08/2017
Voracious reader, with a preference for sassy romances and happily ever afters. In a relationship with coffee, seeing whiskey on the side.
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Recent Comments …
Yep
This sounds delightful! I’m grabbing it, thanks
excellent book: interesting, funny dialogs, deep understanding of each character, interesting secondary characters, and also sexy.
I don’t think anyone expects you to post UK prices – it’s just a shame that such a great sale…
I’m sorry about that. We don’t have any way to post British prices as an American based site.
I have several of her books on my TBR and after reading this am moving them up the pile.