I’m really enjoying the fake dating trope. I also enjoy steam and angst which this book delivered. I loved how the main characters bounced off each other in this book. It was predictable and fun in an entertaining way.

This book was cute, but really lacked substance. The FMC could come off as a little annoying and the MMC was definitely a little uptight. The only shining moments in the book were when the MMC's teammates were in a scene. I would gladly read a book just about August. This book just didn't do it for me, but I'm sure others will love it.

This book is *chefs kiss*

It took me a bit to pick it up as I'm a mood reader, but once I did, I immediately remembered why I had requested this arc in the first place!

The chemistry between the MCs was amazing and I just loved this story so much

BOOK REVIEW: Fake It Till You Bake It by Jamie Wesley
2022 Publication Date: June 21

⭐️⭐️⭐️️

T.I.M.E. Most Anticipated Books Of 2022

CONNECT WITH A BOOK | T.I.M.E. SIMPLE LIVING TIP
When you are looking for a mate, keep this in mind... If they can cook, you won't have too...

T.I.M.E. BOOK REVIEW:
Often a good chef will "style the plate" so the way the food looks will emulate what you are about to taste. With Fake It Till You Bake It, Jamie Wesley has also styled our plate perfectly for what we are about to read!

What is on the menu? A pro football star who runs a cupcake shop in the off-season — and who also bakes all the cupcakes too!... Paired with a "bougie" gal who has a real talent for tackling him body, mind and soul faster than any NFL defensive line.

Expect this cupcake of a story to arrive with lots of sweet entanglements... With a side of steamy, spicy romance that earns my T.I.M.E. Jalapeno Rating: 🌶🌶 (Medium Spicy).

Perfect for readers who want to take a break with a favorite cupcake and a book to match!...✨😎✨

Pages: 328
Genre: Contemporary Romance
Sub-Genre: Fake Relationship Romance | Steamy Romance
T.I.M.E. Jalapeno Rating:️ 🌶🌶 (Medium Spicy)
Time Period: Present Day
Location: San Diego (California)

IF YOU LIKE THIS BOOK THEN TRY…
Book: Here For The Drama by Kate Bromley
Movie: Green Card

BOOK SYNOPSIS:
Fresh off a public shaming as the "woman who turned down the perfect proposal" on a reality dating show, Jada Townsend-Matthews returns home to San Diego determined to lay low and lick her wounds.

But when she takes a job at the city's newest cupcake bakery, Sugar Blitz, she finds herself working alongside the uptight owner and professional football player Donovan Dell.

When a reporter mistakes Jada and Donovan for a couple, they decide to play along and pretend to be in a relationship.

The plan is simple. Keep up the ruse long enough to give Jada a chance to get past the fallout of disappointing the reality dating show's fans. And also help out Sugar Blitz as those same fans are eager to watch this new relationship blossom and grab a dozen cupcakes in the process!

But as they grow closer, Jada and Donovan start to wonder if their fake relationship might just be the real thing...

Fake It Till You Bake It is a perfect "cupcake of a story" to curl up with and enjoy. With its steamy romance and delicious bakery setting, this book is sure to satisfy anyone's sweet tooth!

BOOK CLUB DISCUSSION:
• Can a fake reality lead us to understand the truth?
• Sometimes the best relationships are the ones we least expect.
• Discuss the concept of finding love on a reality show... And why that seems to appeal to an audience

--------------------

All my book reviews can be seen at This Is My Everybody | Simple Living | Denise Wilbanks at thisismyeverybody.com/blog/what-book-should-i-read

♡ Thank you to NetGalley for this ARC. I voluntarily chose to review it and the opinions contained within are my own.

This is a cute fluffy romance about Donovan, a brawny football player who happens to own a struggling bakery and Jada, a reality tv star who is trying to figure out what do with her life. Despite a disastrous meet cute where Jada insults Donovan's cupcakes, a "what a small world!" coincidence results in Jada taking a job at Donovan's bakery at the insistence of her grandma who is the arbiter of her trust fund and ALSO the owner of the football team that Donovan plays for.

It's another fake dating turned real situation complete with a lot of steamy tension and angst (it's a bit of a slow burn but it does eventually get to the steam). I found the ending a little chaotic and both Donovan and Jada can get a little caricature-y at times but overall its a fun quick read for any romance lover!

Overall this was a super cute concept but the pacing was very off to me and the inevitable breakup scene before they found themselves again just didn’t work. Cute read but some problems.

Fake It Till You Bake It had the perfect ingredients to make an absolutely delectable romance: A cupcake shop, a fake dating trope with a dash of enemies-to-lovers, and a healthy pour of white hot chemistry. It all made for a delicious rom com that left me with a huge smile on my face.

Huge thank you to netgalley and Griffin for the eARC in exchange for an honest review.

After turning down a proposal on a reality dating show, Jada wants nothing more than to avoid the spotlight and prove to her grandmother that she can be a mature adult. However, when a reporter mistakes her and her new boss Donovan as being in a relationship, she’s thrust back into the spotlight to help Donovan rehabilitate his struggling bakery.

Fake It Till You Bake was a cute, lighthearted read. The bakery was the perfect setting for this story, which at its heart, was all about subverting expectations. Jada wanted to prove that she wasn’t just a reality TV star, and Donovan completely shucked the toxic masculinity often associated with athletes by owning a bakery and even reading a romance novel for Jada’s book club.

The whole cast was diverse and well developed, and the relationships were a delight to read. I especially loved Jada’s relationship with her grandmother.

My only complaint is that it was a little fast-paced, and the last-minute separation felt forced. However, the chemistry between Jada and Donovan was great, and the writing was a great combination of heartfelt and fun, which made for an overall good read.

Thank you, NetGalley and St. Martin’s Griffin, for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Sometimes I find it really challenging to review books that I wind up feeling very just okay about and this is honestly one of those times. This book was good, but it had the potential to be great and I think that's the part that left me off kilter. But for this book to have been great for me, it would have had an entirely different vibe so that's not really fair for me to say maybe. Essentially, what this boils down to is that Fake It Till You Bake It has a lot going on that, in my opinion, should have led to a book with a more angsty tone.

Essentially, Jada is hated by much of America after rejecting a proposal on national television in a Bachelor inspired reality show and we literally see it affect her in real life. (There are at least two encounters while in public where Jada is confronted about her actions.) Jada also has an extremely strained relationship with her parents and feels like they've never once thought she was good enough. And, certainly, it's totally fine to not really dwell on these things, but it almost feels like the book will but still with this super light tone that just created a lot of dissonance for me. Plus, after being cut off financially (aside from having a nice apartment situation provided for her), Jada gets essentially coerced by her grandma into working with Donovan at the cupcake shop. And maybe it's because of things going on in my own life, but the stress of financially supporting yourself is intense for me, so I found this whole set up to be anxiety inducing and then it never really goes anywhere. She's just presumably making enough money to continue living the life that she's accustomed to? I mean, good for her, but if I went from living off of credit cards my parents paid for to suddenly having to actually think about how much my groceries cost, I would have struggled a bit more.

Also, the fake dating with Donovan plot was definitely fine, but I really didn't love it. My favorite part of this book was the set up for the secondary characters and I hate when I wind up feeling that way. It's so aggravating. Let me feel invested in THIS storyline. And there were things I liked! I enjoyed Jada setting up these incredible events for other people and I wish we'd gotten to see more events, honestly. But overall, this book just really wasn't for me.

I really loved the cover of this one and I am so glad the story inside lived up to it! It was a really cute romance and loved how the story played out!

Thank you to netgalley and the publishers for providing me with an arc for an honest review!

Thank you to the publisher for a review copy! Any book is a precious little baby that hours and hours of love and time and energy were poured into, and I am honored to be trusted with anyone’s baby, but I would spartan kick this baby off a cliff. I didn’t like it at all. It was a slog to read through thanks to poor editing and very poor sentence structure, and the characters were clown cars for tropes. Russian nesting dolls of tropes. I tried explaining this book’s synopsis to a friend and ran out of breath explaining the effing tropes. It just keeps on going and going and going.

Overall not the worst book I’ve ever read but also, no thanks.

A wonderfully sweet romance that will leave you with an epic cupcake craving by the end!

This is a very fast-paced romance that I read quickly and overall enjoyed. I did have some difficulty relating to our main heroine, as at times I felt she was acting too brashly or like things were beneath her. Overall though, I thought this was fun quick read!

Ahh what a great mix of sexy and sweet! I loveedd the two main characters tension from the very beginning. The setting was great and such an enjoyable background for the relationships and friendships. I love all the tropes in this book, fake dating and enemies to lovers, and it was such a fun read. The character development was great. I'm so glad there was also a "love to hate" character in Jada's ex. Some of my favorite characters though have to be the background ones like Donovan's friends and Jada's family, they gave the heartwarming feel throughout the book. Overall this was cute and enjoyable!

I absolutely loved this book! I loved that there was so excitement, fun things in the book. I will definitely look for other books by this author. I also would definitely recommend this book!

I want to lead with this, this book really was not for me, so I don't want to say much about it. I think for other people, this would be a great book, I just didn't vibe with it, and that has nothing to do with the book itself.

Jada is a disgraced reality tv contestant who goes home to lick her wounds and Donnovan is a bakery owning, pro football player. When a reporter mistakenly believes that Jada and Donnovan are an item, they decide that a fake relationship just might be the thing that can fix both of their problems.

I think the premise is interesting and I love that Donnovan is a football player who also own a cupcake bakery. Points for originality there.

That being said, the beginning rubbed me the wrong way, just the dynamic that Jada and Donnovan established in the first couple interactions, and I just couldn't get that out of my head, and it colored my entire opinion of the book. Go read some other reviews, because I think this book wasn't bad. Just not for me.

This book had the set up for everything I love in a romance. A football player who was also sweet and liked to bake?! Faking dating and did I mention Black Love? This had the set up to be amazing and swoony but I kind of fell flat for me at the end, I will say the cover of this book is beautiful and I have no regrets purchasing it. This book was so good until the 3rd act breakup. I have said multiples I dislike 3rd act breakups/Conflicts. The miscommunication trope all together. With that being said this was still cute and I would read it if your looking for and open door, hallmarky, faking dating black romance that will give you the warm fuzzies. 3.75/5 stars.

A romance book with great chemistry! These two will leave you wanting more. This would be the perfect book for a sequel to continue there passion further! Loves this read!

This felt like playing Episode in the best, most fun way possible and delivered such a refreshing summer read! The romance seemed a bit rushed at the beginning, but ultimately I really enjoyed experiencing the budding relationship between Jada and Donovan. Cute, witty, steamy, and fresh--this was such a fun time!

A spoiled woman trying to make her own path in life. A footballer that owns a cupcake shop. A semi haters to lovers story. The insta love was a bit eye rolling.
I did enjoy this one. However, I get easily annoyed with the break up trope of when one of the main characters feels as if they aren't good enough for the other and breaks up with them. It's been way too overplayed

Donovan craves stability. He wants nothing but order and logic and he’s been successful both on and off the football field. But when his cupcake shop is floundering he’s left trying to figure out a way to boost sales numbers for the long term.

Jada doesn’t have a clue what she wants to do with her life. After a disastrous proposal rejection on NATIONAL television, chaos reigns in her choices and she rarely sticks to anything. Mostly because of her fear of failure and disappointing others, she knows she loves looking cute and that she can talk to people but other than that, no clue. When her Grams puts stipulations on how to earn her trust fund she finds herself in a sticky situation.

Donovan and Jada strike a deal: fake date to boost sales and keep Jada’s reality show “fame” from damaging her more. But can they keep it strictly business, or will the undeniable attraction win out?

This was so cute and I loved Jada and Donovan’s wit and humor together. They balance each other out well.