The chemistry between D'vaughn and Kris is believable and sweet. I enjoyed every moment in this audiobook.

This one covers the reality show fake dating romance trope to a tee. It's queer, it's cute, it's funny, and all of the conflict is resolved easily. The sex was a bit spicy but not very graphic, whether any of that is good or bad depends on your preference. Honestly, I usually prefer more conflict, or just deeper story development. But I needed something cozy and simple right now, and this was the perfect balm for that.

A fresh, fun, and sexy LGBTQ+ romcom. The story was witty and full of things I didn't see coming, and I love a good surprise. It also deals with the difficult topic of coming out to family and the fear to be rejected, something I've experienced and felt the author took on with care. The chemistry between Kris and D’Vaughn was tangible, and I love how they supported one another throughout the book. Seeing their love grow was endearing and warmed my heart thoroughly. The book ended with a happily ever after, and that's all I wanted for D'Vaughn and Kris! Can't wait to check out more from Higgins.

Thank you to Netgalley for an ALC in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

This was so damn sweet and the ending made me cry several times. I love them so much.

This dual POV romance follows D'Vaughn and Kris who are paired on a reality tv show about planning an unexpected wedding in six weeks. Besides not knowing each other before the show, both of them have different reasons for coming on the show. D'Vaughn is closeted and hasn't been ready to be out, but she's going to use the show to tell her family, and mainly her mother that she is a lesbian. Kris on the other hand, is an out and proud stud. She has collected a following on social media, and it has always kept people at a distance. Kris wants to fall in love with someone and she's hoping to find the woman of her dreams on the show.

I loved both of these characters so much!! They are incredible and I really enjoyed their banter and chemistry together. We get to see these two fall in love. It is fast which is the nature of the show, but it still felt realistic. And that's coming from a demiromantic person. This two dive in and they dive in with each other. I loved getting to meet their families and see how their families reacted to the news of their marriage.

Then there's the ending! I cried so many happy tears. Honestly that's all you need to know. Go pick this book up right now.

Rep: Black Tejano lesbian cis female MC, fat Black lesbian cis female MC, Afro-latina lesbian cis female side character, side MLM couple, Tejano gay cis male side character, various Black and Tejano side characters, white pansexual cis female side character, Black femme lesbian cis female side character, white queer cis male side character, fat Black heterosexual trans female MC, nonbinary side character.

CWs: Sexual content, cursing. Moderate: pregnancy, racism, colorism, lesbophobia/lesbomisia, religious bigotry, alcohol consumption, emotional abuse, fatphobia. Minor: infidelity, transphobia/transmisia, outing.

Thank you so much for the advance audio book of this tittle! I always adore a queer romance and this one did not disappoint! I will eagerly look for new books by this author, thank you!!

This was a solid 3.5 stars for me so I'm rounding up here. There were a lot of things about this book that worked for me: the author's voice, the fake dating premise, the forced proximity, the shared objective, the tension and connection between the main characters and the characters themselves and the secondary characters. These were all great and made me happy to keep listening.

On the other hand: it was hard for me to believe D'Vaughn's reason for participating in the show, and while I liked that the show didn't take over the book - it was kind of opaque how it worked which made it feel like it was transparently/conveniently a device. I listened to the audio and I didn't love the narration - it was a bit flat outside of the dialogue (which was much better) and the two main characters were not very differentiated. While, again the author's voice did work for me, ultimately my biggest problem with the book was the amount of introspection and the extensive descriptions of mundane things.

I received a review copy of this book from the publisher through NetGalley for my honest review. The opinions expressed in this review are entirely my own.

This one was cute and I really enjoyed it. I'm excited to see more from this author. Will recommend this one.

D'Vaughn and Kris each have their own reasons for joining Instant I Do, where they'll spend 6 weeks convincing their families that they're marrying each other. I thought this was such a fun concept for a romance as D'Vaughn and Kris are trying to fool everyone into believing they have feelings for one another as they simultaneously develop feelings for one another. The ending felt a little rushed, but otherwise this was a very enjoyable read.

i loved the idea of a a game show crossed over with romance! i listened to the audiobook version of this novel and i was super into the narration! i thought the all the characters’ voices were perfect and helped the story move along. i was a bit hesitant about the idea of d’vaughn and kris having to lie to both sides of their families. but with the dynamic between this duo, i soon got over it because the love that they share for each other is all true! i especially loved how their families played an integral part on the game show and how they all got to know each other. i thought it was so special how they came together to share d’vaughn and kris’s love and how they got to add input to their wedding.

This book was a lot of fun! Although this was a little too insta-love for me, I loved the supportive relationship in the book. I've been enjoying the trend of LGBTQ+ romances set on reality TV shows and this one fits beautifully into that category. I'll definitely be keeping an eye out for this author in the future!

D'Vaughn and Kris are paired on a reality TV show and tasked with convincing their families that they are madly in
love. They have six weeks to sell their relationship and plan an extravagant wedding, all in the hopes of winning a
a serious chunk of change…or finding true love. There's only a few hiccups in the plan - Kris is a renowned flirt and
social media maven, 'Vaughn hasn't exactly told her family that she's a lesbian and all of this is going to be
recorded for national television.

D'Vaughn is a ball of anxious energy even my perpetually overthinking self was overwhelmed by, but I appreciated her drive and commitment to living as her full self regardless of outside opinions. Kris is a delight - from her sense of humor to her convictions about love and family, I really enjoyed hearing her perspective on the challenges. Collectively, they felt like a real couple I could imagine meeting on the street somewhere, and the suite of side characters in this are great. Their parents, siblings, and friends all get great cameos and moments of individual personality that adds to the sense of community around them.

At times, I did feel like D'Vaughn was overly critical of other people, perhaps overly prepared to be hurt or attacked based on her history. The chemistry between the two is instant and persistent, and mentioned probably more than is necessary during otherwise mundane interactions with other characters. I listened to this one and despite only being narrated by one person, I feel like the changes in her voice and tone gave me a sense of who each character was, which is hard to do with this many people cycling through - if you have the choice between the two, I would recommend the audio for sure. The book is laugh out loud funny, unreasonably sentimental, and it makes a great summer palate cleanser.

This was a very cute, reality TV-inspired contemporary romance between a fitness influencer and a school counselor who face challenges in their attraction to one another as the TV show that introduced them causes them to question what parts of their relationship are real vs. fake. D’Vaughn and Kris are both contestants on the first queer season of Instant I Do, a reality show where contestants are randomly paired together and have to convince their friends and families that they are getting married and planning a wedding in only 6 weeks, all while dodging hurdles from the producers. There’s instant attraction between the two of them, but D’Vaughn has auditioned primarily to win the monetary prize and secondarily to help come out to her family, while Kris joined the show in hopes of falling in love. The two leads had great chemistry, and I thought the premise was really fun and presented the right amount of challenges to their relationship; my issue with the story lay with the fact that both D’Vaughn and Kris were forced to lie to friends and family members that they were supposedly extremely close to, without much guilt or regret, throughout the book. I had assumed that revealing the truth to their families would be a significant source of conflict, but it was handled very anticlimactically, which for me really hurt the emotional resonance of the story. Overall, though, it was a cute, fun read with great audio narration.

I received an advance listener’s copy of D’Vaughn and Kris Plan a Wedding from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

This book had a few wins. I loved the diversity and different types of queer rep. I also really liked the dual POV. I always love when one character is questioning the other's feelings, and then it switches and the other person is just obsessed with the first character. I feel like the author did that really well.

I'm not sure if it's because I was listening to the audio book, but I didn't really understand the rules of the TV show Kris and D'Vaughn were on. I also felt like the characters motivations for going on the show were a little fuzzy. I'm not sure I completely bought into the whole premise.

The characters, individually were interesting, and I wish that we had dove more into their families and friends. Kris and D'Vaughn together just didn't work for me. I didn't feel as if they had any sort of spark or chemistry.

Overall, I enjoyed listening to this book. The narrator was fun and made the characters come to life, but the relationship and premise of the book were a little too unrealistic for me.

This was such a fun book! A reality show competition, some sneaky lies to family, a coming out, and a falling in love! So good!! I really enjoyed Kris and D'Vaughn's banter, they were such a fun pair. I wish I had read this after reading the two Courtney Summers books I read because those were downright depressing and this is a feel-good pick-me-up! Give me more of this! And the narrators were fabulous! A most enjoyable rom-com.

Yep. All the stars. All the feels.

D’Vaughn and Kris sign up to get fake married as strangers. D’Vaugn is using this as the final push to come out to her family; Kris is looking for the One. If they can successfully convince their families that they are in love and make it to the altar in 6 weeks, the couple can either get married or win $100k.

This was like a twist on Married at First Sight and I loved every second of it. The tension was high, the characters were hilarious, and the romance was swoony.

Insta-love usually isn’t a trope I enjoy, but wow - the writing is amazing. I loved the banter and flirtation between our MCs. I also enjoyed the fact that there was NO third-act breakup. Hallelujah! Also, while there is conflict between the MCs, there is also conflict between the leads and their families.

The only thing that I would have liked to have been different was dual narration. Sometimes I forgot which character POV the chapter was in. Also - I just wish there was more!!

Recommended if you love:
-weddings
-reality tv dating shows
-fake dating

Thanks to Netgalley for my ARC. D’Vaughn and Kris Plan a Wedding is out now!

I found this book to be fine, but not my favorite. This book sets up a reality tv show where people convince their friends and relatives that they are marrying a total stranger. The book comes off as pretty relentlessly positive. Everyone is incredibly attractive, very nice, charming and witty. I felt that I wasn’t getting to know the characters very well because they were all so perfect.

Fake dating, insta-love, and reality show romances are not tropes I typically like. They rarely work for me because I have to suspend my disbelief much more than for other romance tropes. But in the case of D'Vaughn and Kris, I feel I can make an exception.

This book is a masterclass in writing chemistry because the romantic tension was off the charts. I listened to this on audio (props to the narrator, she's great!) and found myself smiling frequently at all the banter and cutesy flirtation. It was honestly a little sickening at times (and I mean that in the best possible way). So even though these tropes I don't usually love are a part of the plot, I feel I could at least understand them in this book more than others because Higgins created such a genuinely loving relationship.

So yeah, I get why this book has been so popular in my bookish Internet circles. I loved the romance, I loved their families, I loved the cheesy atmosphere. This was just an all-around fun time.

Thank you, NetGalley for an eARC.

This was full of all the joy I needed! D'Vaughn and Kris Plan a Wedding is the perfect butch/femme romance packed with acceptance, genuine love, and body positivity. I'm an occasional romance reader and I always love settling in with one that I know will bring me nothing but easy happiness. This book was perfectly satisfying in that way. My only complaint was that the plot felt a little low stakes and this was certainly an insta-love story. However, that didn't take away from the tender relationship that was formed. Just something to keep in mind if that's not the kind of story you enjoy!

D’Vaughn and Kris are so cute. I loved this book so much. The premise is that the women sign up to do a reality show where they are paired with people with the goal to spend 6 weeks convincing their family and friends that they’re getting married. If they make it to the end, they win $100k in prize money.

Okay, so we’ve seen so many reality shows with similar ideas, but they are mostly drama-filled and the couples rarely make it. But, this book was light-hearted, intentional in its dialogue while showcasing both difficult and blossoming relationships between the characters and in their families. with introducing parents to a new partner, While this isn’t necessarily a coming out story, one character does face her fear of living out loud as her full self, with or without the approval of family.

Higgins takes care to present thoughtful and quirky characters who don’t fall to any stereotypes and cliches we might be used to in other romance stories, reality TV, queer relationships, or tragic/trauma bonded relationships.

Definitely recommend!