ARC Review: Fake-ish by Winter Renshaw

Briar has found herself in a pickle. She agreed to be her boss’s fake-fiancé for eight weeks while visiting his family’s private island. No big deal, right? If she and Burke pull it off, she walks away a million dollars richer and her boss’s dad gets to spend his last days thinking his son is happily in love.

There’s just one little problem…Dorian, the man Briar met at a wedding a year ago, the man who stole her heart and asked her to wait for him for two years while he took care of some business, is on the island. She can’t tell him her relationship is fake. She can’t tell him she was waiting for him, too. She can only watch as he drifts further and further away while she pretends to be a doting fiancé to a man she can barely stand.

“I would’ve waited for you,” I tell her. “And I was. I was waiting for you.”

Once I started reading Fake-ish, there was no putting it down. I was exhausted after dealing with a sick baby and still stayed up until after 2:00 AM to read this book. It was that addictive. It switches back and forth between a year ago and present day from both Briar and Dorian’s perspectives. Their chemistry grew stronger with every trip into the past, and you were forced to watch them have to pretend to not know each other in the future while both their hearts were breaking. I’m glad that the events from a year ago were woven into the story rather than occurring all during the beginning because it allowed you to see just how much the current events were affecting Briar and Dorian.

There are a few twists that leave the reader wondering how deep the story is going to go. Burke’s motivations for bringing Briar to his family’s island are questioned as is Dorian’s relationship with his brother and his brother’s former fiancé. There were a few times when I wondered – and hoped – the NDA would be made null-and-void so Briar could tell Dorian what was going on, but that would have ruined the epic pining going on.

And the pining was epic. One of the reasons I love dual POV is that you get to see exactly what both parties are going through. Dorian’s struggles with seeing the woman he loved with his brother had me clutching my chest on more than one occasion.

If you like mild-angst, intricate family dynamics, dashes of steam, and instant chemistry, then Fake-ish is for you.

Thank you, Winter Renshaw and NetGalley, for the opportunity to read this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

Book Stats:

• ASIN ‏ : ‎ B0C6V41H5V
• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Montlake (December 5, 2023)
• Language ‏ : ‎ English
• Paperback ‏ : ‎ 264 pages
• ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1662513429

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