ARC Review: The Billionaire’s Fake Fiancée by Annika Martin

“This book is a pure delight. It’s a fun romp with a lot of heart.”
~ Under the Covers

There’s only one thing standing in the way of Rex getting The Account. The Account will prove he has made it in a way that his billions of dollar value doesn’t. Standing in his way? His fiancee. Or rather his lack of one. So, what’s a billionaire in a pickle to do? Hire a fiancee of course. He needs someone he couldn’t possibly be attracted to, someone who is his complete opposite. Someone who likes sparkly things, bright colours, soap operas and makes songs about her pet hamster. Someone like his bubbly hairdresser Tabitha. The only person he knows who is completely unfazed by his grumpy manners, the only person who dares smile when he’s being rude. Nope, he couldn’t possibly be attracted to her.

This book. Wow. Annika Martin has gathered up a fistful of tropes and thrown them at the page: we have opposites attract, fake relationship, forced proximity, billionaire hero and grumpy/sunshine heroine pairing. And, you know what? It totally works. This book is a pure delight. It’s a fun romp with a lot of heart paired with Martin’s intense writing style. I raced through it.

I am a big fan of the grumpy hero, all by themselves, but pair this with a sunny heroine and it is Suzanne cat-nip. In this book it worked particularly well as Martin does a great job of drawing Rex and Tabitha’s characters. We see that, although Rex is a grump, he’s also a workaholic who comes from a humble background and feels like he has to prove himself to everyone. With Tabitha, we see she uses her natural cheerfulness and sense of fun to keep people at arms-length. I really liked that this book went more than skin deep and added a richness to this that you might not expect from a fun summer read.

And fun this book definitely was. Set mostly on a megayacht, Rex and Tabitha have to show off their fictional relationship. Only, as time goes on it begins to seem less fiction and more like it could be real. And, what brings them together? Tabitha’s love of soap operas. Well kind of. Tabitha spots someone who is acting shifty and comes up with an outrageous explanation, straight out of her favourite soap operas to explain it. Only, as time goes by, Rex realises that perhaps Tabitha’s idea isn’t so preposterous. It’s a really great set up, which shows Rex’s weary cynicism and Tabitha’s sunny yet perceptive personality brilliantly.

This was such a great read. It was funny, really sexy and it will make perfect summer reading. This is also part of a “series” of standalones, so you can read it without having read any of the other books; but if you fancy some more billionaire/quirky girl mix ups, you can check out the other standalones.

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[about-author author=”Annika Martin”]

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