An amiable, trope-y rom com that's special for the Toronto setting and, oddly, the references to food. Emily is 33 and her mother wants to see her married - married to Mark Chan. She's not the least bit interested (he wears sweater vests) but he agrees when she impulsively suggests they fake date to get her mom off her back. Emily is a writer who, although she's published a book, is working as a barista (this has interesting commentary on being an author). The fake dates turn to a friendship and then, well, you know what (but there's not really steam here). If I have a quibble (and to be honest, it's a big one) it's that Mark is a cipher- I felt like I knew more about his cat than about him. Regardless, I enjoyed this for the family dynamics, the friendships, the food, and so on. Thanks to the publisher for the ARC. It's a good read.

If there's one thing I can count on with a Jackie Lau book it's that the grumpy/sunshine trope will usually feature in the story, there will be explorations of Toronto neighborhoods, and there will be lots of wonderful food descriptions to salivate over. Love, Lies, and Cherry Pie did not disappoint any of my expectations and i came away from it as a very happy reader.

As is often the case in her books the grumpy (or in this case, just somewhat cranky) one in the relationship is the FMC, Emily, a single, mid-30's aspiring writer/barista. Her four sisters not only have successful science based careers, but are also now all married, so the pressure from her immigrant parents to find a guy, "settle down", and get a "real" job is all focused on her and she's pretty sick of it.

Her mother's latest attempt, Mark, a seemingly stodgy engineer, the son of one of her friends and totally not Emily's type, is at her sister's wedding. Her mom engineers a meeting, but Emily, who is pretty sick of hearing about this paragon of virtue, rather rudely rejects him out of hand. Her mom then engineers another meeting, assuring Mark that Emily was just nervous being around so many people at the wedding. This leads Emily to come up with a fake dating plan to finally get her mom off her back.

The only problem is that her mom seemingly knows everyone in the city, people keep reporting back to her about Emily and Mark's progress, and the fake dates start to turn into the real thing as both Emily and Mark discover more and more things to like about each other. Unlike her family, Mark admires her drive to make a career out of her writing, and that she's willing to break out of her family's mold. Emily finds that underneath the sweater vests, he's sweet, supportive, and paints in his spare time to relax.

I appreciated that the book is pretty low conflict and angst with no big misunderstanding or third act breakup. Emily's fear of disappointing her parents seemed a bit overblown, but not that farfetched given the dynamics of her immigrant family, and there's a nice scene at the end with her mom in which she gains some new and surprising insight into the reason for her mom's matchmaking. My thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for an advance copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions in this review are my own.

I didn't realize this was a Pride and Prejudice retelling, but I was so excited when I did. Jackie continues to write great characters, as well as giving life to Toronto. As usual, all the food descriptions made me very hungry. This book was great, I highly recommend.

A little bit too long, a little bit too millennial. Emily is a difficult character to like at first, and being only in her head makes the pacing drag. I wasn't really invested in this, but I'll never say no to fake dating or enemies to lovers.

3.5/5
Love, Lies, and Cherry Pie by Jackie Lau is a delightful rom com full of fake dating, near misses, and a meddling mama. The lively Hung family (mother, father, and five daughters) lives in Toronto. After her baby sister Hannah's wedding, Emily is feeling the pressure to "get her life together" and find a man. She's a single, published writer, working two jobs, while working on her next book. She's okay being single, but now that she's the last daughter who isn't married, Emily's mother has made it her mission to find Emily a husband.

Enter the perfect Mark Chan. And just like Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth Bennett, Emily finds Mark pompous and hard to talk to. So of course, she decides to fake a relationship. What won't we do to keep our mothers happy and out of our business? And what do we do when we discover that maybe mother actually knows best? At least in this case anyway.

Love, Lies, and Cherry Pie is an entertaining read, perfect for a day by the pool or at the beach!

Read if you like:
• Opposites attract
• Fake dating
• Miscommunication
• Diverse romance reads

Format: Kindle (ARC)
⭐⭐⭐ 3.5 Enjoyed, would recommend
🌶️ Rating: 1

You might not know, but Pride and Prejudice is my favorite trope…is it a trope? If not, it should be.

Fake dating, friends to lovers, Pride and Prejudice vibes? Yes, yes and yes please!

You’ll fall in love with Emily as she tries to navigate her life by accepting to (fake) date Mark. Who isn’t as bad as she thinks…

Quick read, fun, witty. I really enjoyed reading my first Jackie Lau book.

I love me a story with a fake-dating trope and some slow burn. This book definitely had all of that, but I didn't get a good sense of the tension or usual conflicting feelings that come with those tropes. The story kind of just floated by without gripping me or pulling me in one way or the other. Good for a quick palate cleanse, but I don't think this story will stay with me for too long.

"Love, Lies, and Cherry Pie" is a hilariously romantic story of fake dating with a Pride and Prejudice spin. Lau always nails the family dynamics and her characters are so endearing. The romances always fall together so perfectly and Emily and Mark are no different. Jackie Lau is an auto read, auto buy, auto everything.

Thank you to NetGalley and Atria Books for the eARC in exchange for an honest review.

Emily Hung is a writer who's sick of her mother trying to set her up with eligible men, particularly stuffy-seeming Mark Chan. So after getting set up together a few too many times, they decide to pretend to date so they can get matchmaking parents off their backs. We know what genre this is, of course they become something more than fake dates. I enjoyed the fun take on the fake-dating premise and really came to feel for all the characters, especially after everyone was able to talk through their conflicts. I thought it was kind of fun to read about a writer talking about what they didn't like happening in books, so at a crucial plot point, they intentionally didn't do that thing. With how much I came to love these characters, I would absolutely read more from Jackie Lau.

I was able to read this as an ARC through NetGalley.

Love, Lies, and Cherry Pie by Jackie Lau was charming, unputdownable and such a pleasure to devour.
The novel was enjoyable in general. It was well written with easy to connect with characters.
It was funny and sweet, beautifully written, with thoughtful characters. These characters are extremely lovable and highly entertaining.
Overall, this was so charming and a lot of fun.

Thank You NetGalley and Publisher for your generosity and gifting me a copy of this amazing eARC!

If Lau’s book doesn’t make you hungry, I don’t think we read the same book. Lau deftly weaves fake dating, friends to lovers, and Pride and Prejudice into the perfect mix. Emily’s conversation with her mother towards the end had me in tears. A must read.
4.5 stars

3.5*

If you enjoy reading about over-zealous, interfering mothers and their adult children who care too much about their opinions and expectations, this book is for you. Children of immigrants (in this case, from China to Toronto, Canada) often have immense pressure put on them by parents who moved for a better life. Emily and Mark are two such offspring, forced together by her meddling mother who fancies herself a matchmaker. Although Emily is a published author with second and third books in progress, she has to work two other jobs and share an apartment with her best friend to afford living in such an expensive city. Compared with her four successful, married sisters, she is satisfactorily single at age 33. So, she’s not eager to meet Mark, who has been hand-picked by her mother. When they finally meet at her sister’s wedding, Emily’s pre-conceived negative opinions guarantee there will be no future for them. It isn’t until her mother tricks them into a follow-up date that Emily proposes the idea that they fake date to get her off their backs. As with all other relationships in this genre, real feelings grow, but will Emily be able to handle it if and when the truth comes out?

Although no new ground is broken in this story, it’s still a fun, albeit at times frustrating, take on the enemies-to-lovers, opposites attract, fake relationship tropes. Emily’s insecurities about their secret coming out and her older sister’s aggravating, callous superiority are minor roadblocks to a happily-ever-after, but neither heavily weigh down the narrative. Mark is a kind, caring, supportive book boyfriend, which is always a bonus. This is a great beach read.

I received a complimentary ARC of this book from Atria/Emily Bestler Books through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Opinions expressed are completely my own.

I love me some Jackie Lau. Longtime readers of this site know she excels at rivals-to-lovers romances, and Love, Lies and Cherry Pie is no exception to the rule. The dialogue crackles, the interpersonal relationships sparkle and the romance is typically fantastic.

Emily Hung is a barista who (barely) has time to write. Her mother wants her to get married, and she hopes the practically-perfect son of their friends will fill that role. But Emily is not attracted to Mark Chan when her mother finally shoves them together.

Mark is everything a good son should be; the engineer makes good money, he’s a loyal guy, he’s kind to his friends and parents – why wouldn’t Emily want to be with him? Well, Emily takes the seed her mother plants and decides to grow her own proverbial garden with it – she asks Mark to pretend they’re dating to get her mother off her back. One thing leads to another, but might Emily have found true love with the guy who’s been staring her in the face all along?

Love, Lies and Cherry Pie is another of Lau’s lovely zingers. It sweeps along beautifully, giving us lovable characters and a romance with a lot of spirit and personality.

Emily is in an understandable place – caught between her harried sister (who’s having a tough time balancing motherhood and her own life) and her newlywed sister. Emily is in that relatable midpoint; her career’s going nowhere, she likes her cups maybe a little too much, and her dream writing career just keeps stalling. I liked her tremendously.

Mark is a nice, steady guy with a really interesting, sharp personality that grew on me; I kind of liked that he’s as nerdy as he is.

The romance slowly slides from enemies to friends to lovers; a burn that’s slow but very enjoyable. I liked all of the supporting characters and how the book tries to address Asian stereotypes, but Emily’s mom was just grating enough to knock the grade down to an A-.

But an A- is still a DIK, and Love, Lies and Cherry Pie is absolutely worth It.

In this sweet, funny rom com, free-spirited singleton Emily appeases her mother's matchmaking fervor by pretending to fall for staid but sweet Mark. I loved the Bridget Jones callbacks, attention to character and detail, and addictive prose.

The book has two parts. The first is devoted to the fake dating trope, with plenty of banter and slow-burn tension, while the second part goes deeper into Emily and Mark's relationship and explores Emily's relationship with her Asian-Canadian family. At first I was a little taken aback by this switch - and the introduction, in the second half, of Mark's point of view - but I quickly grew to enjoy it.

Emily's budding career as a novelist is an important part of her identity as well as a major source of insecurity and conflict with her family. Emily's relative poverty (she supplements her income with barista work and lives with a roommate) and her perception of the publishing industry's unfairness are recurring sources of humor - but also quite a lot of resentment, especially toward anyone with a more "boring" and well-paying career, which felt unjustified and adolescent to me. In the novel's second half, the focus turned more toward how Emily's career affected her relationships with her mother and other family members, which was a welcome change, and both Emily's career and her family relationships showed growth. (Unfortunately, not quite to the point of Emily respecting other people's choices.)

4.5 stars. Would have been 5 stars if Emily had spent less time complaining about other people earning more money and/or less time avoiding work via the internet.

*I received a free ARC of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review*

I liked this book, I thought the plot was cute and I enjoyed the characters. Where it fell flat for me was in the sudden switch to dual POV in the middle of the book. The 'spicy' scenes were also not well written, which was a bummer considering I thought the rest of the book was pretty well done.

Overall enjoyable, but had a few issues that kept me from getting immersed in the overall book.

Fake dating plot to get a meddlesome mother off her back. After her youngest sister’s wedding, Emily is the only one left unmarried and seemingly failing to meet her parents’ expectations. After too much nagging about being set up with the oh-so-proper Mark, Emily asks Mark to agree to fake dating to ease up on the parental pressure. While they start off with lying about their dates, it seems that Emily’s mom knows way too many people in Toronto that question their story. Now Emily and Mark need to real fake date and she realizes that there’s a lot more to him that what her mother had described. While this was a fun set up and premise, it seemed like it took too long for Emily and Mark to spend any time together on page, and Emily’s overbearing mother activated my own brand of anxiety and I didn’t like that as much.

This was a cute, fun read! The fake dating was really well done. Emily and Mark get set up by her mom, so of course she thinks she won’t like him. I love how in part 2 of the book we get Marks’ view of their relationship. Will definitely be recommending.

Love, Lies, and Cherry Pie by Jackie Lau is an enjoyable story, full of drama, family expectations, humor, fake dating, and romance. Emily Hung, writer and barista, has been hearing a lot about Mark Chan. As the only unmarried daughter left in her Asian Canadian family, Emily is used to her mother matchmaking ways, but when her mother starts her matchmaking ways at her sister's wedding, things hit a new low. Mark is single, comes from a good family, has a good job, and just happens to be seated next to Emily at her sister's wedding. From their first meeting, there was an instant dislike between Emily and Mark. Her mother, however, is determined they'll get married which leads to fake dating starts; which surprisingly Mark goes along with it.

From fake cake decorating classes, to visiting tea boba shops, to dinners out, they seem to always run into family or friends who they must convince this is the real thing; that’s when the kissing starts. Only this fake affection starts turning into real feelings, attraction, and a strong chemistry. Family drama, fun, laughs, cherry pies, and an adorable cat named Ms. Margaret Muffins make this an enjoyable story that should not be missed.

I voluntarily reviewed a complimentary copy of this book.
#NetGalley #Atria

I make a habit of reading Jackie Lau books when I can, and being able to read Love, Lies, & Cherry Pie as an ARC was something I just couldn’t pass up, particularly when the logline for the book is a Pride and Prejudice retelling having a good time with some tropes (Lau tends to always have more than one in her work). The tropes in question are fake dating, forced proximity, and enemies to lovers, and I think Lau did a good job with them.

Our fake daters are Emily Hung and Mark Chan. Emily’s mom has been chatting up Mark non-stop so when they finally meet at Emily’s youngest sister’s wedding she is immediately closed off to him and what he represents to her as the perfect Asian boyfriend and comes away with the impression that he thinks he’s too good for her, since she’s an author who works part time at a coffee shop to make ends meet and he’s an engineer. At their next meet cute – which Emily’s mother tricks her into – Emily suggests they get their parents off their backs by fake dating. As the kids used to say, hijinks ensue.

Fake dating has its pros and cons, but I really enjoyed Lau’s spin that her leads have to ‘real’ fake date to keep everyone believing that they are dating, and it is this forced proximity that gets Emily to reevaluate her position on just who Mark actually is. The emotional beats of the story lean hard into the characters senses of self-worth and ways in which our assumptions about others are a form of self-sabotage. The first half of the book is told exclusively from Emily’s point of view which worked well (although the end of the first half did drag a bit for me) because in a romance we care about who the characters are and why they (think) they cannot be together, Emily had lots and lots of reasons. I was excited to get Mark’s POV because as is often the case in my favorite fake dating books, he was the half of the equation who agreed to the shenanigans because he thought there was something there with Emily from the beginning.

This is a Lau book, so the Toronto and food details are excellent. As was the publishing meta commentary of Emily dealing with industry issues. Lau also name drops my favorite children’s book that I swear no one else has ever read, All-of-a-kind Family so bonus points there.

Another very cute story from Jackie Lau, a beloved Canadian author. I’ve read several of her books now and I’m never disappointed! She writes well and always tells a great tale.

I really enjoyed the story of a 30-something Chinese Canadian girl, middle of 5 sisters and the only one unmarried. Emily’s mother keeps trying to play matchmaker, including at her sister’s wedding, where the book begins… and we meet Mark - the latest pick and complete opposite of Emily. Neither is very interested in the mother set-up, but decide to play along, pretending to date and tell their mothers they’re seeing each other to appease all.

As the farce goes on and friends and family spoil the plot by telling their moms they’re being spotted out with other people and in other locations than expected, they decide to go with actual fake dating for a short term… but we all know how this always works out!

A very sweet little fake dating storyline, which is my favourite trope, and a perfect read for Asian Heritage Month here in Canada!! Definitely one you don’t want to miss.

I received an advance copy from NetGalley and Atria Books (Emily Bestler Books), and this is my honest feedback.