Absolutely delightful!! Okay maybe not the Rich White male country club bunch, but the others!! It definitely shows your heart can take a whole lot more than we give it credit for!!! And ELI!!! HOT, HOT, HOT!!! Hugh is pretty nice too. Fall into love with this one!!

Mayra Cuevas and Marie Marquardt do a fantastic job in retelling the My Fair Lady, it was written in a way that worked as something unique and create a strong story that uses that element in a unique way. It was everything that I was looking for and was glad it was written so well and enjoyed the overall package.

Let me start off by saying that I do think there are people that would find this story to be enjoyable.
It just didn't turn out to be my personal cup of tea.

Luisa and Holly have both been wronged by the same man.
Griggs Johnson is a corrupt southern high-society aristocrat, who has been doing shady business and stepping on the people that are “under him”.
After Luisa loses her journalism job while developing a story about him stealing land from a local family, she goes to his country club to try and learn more.
There she meets Holly. A country club employee and a single mom, who has been threatened and assaulted by this man.
Together, they develop a scheme to turn someone into the perfect southern gentleman- who will be able to infiltrate Griggs’ private circle, uncover out the truth, and take him down.

To start off with the positives:
This story has themes of romance, friendship and found family. It also includes strong, independent female main characters, who have taken on a very brave and important task. They are fighting a corrupt system, and corrupt people- which I think is something special and unique that I don’t often read in books.

I also liked Luisa and Holly’s individual stories. Both women overcame very serious, traumatic experiences- and didn’t let anything hold them back from what they believed in. Another very important and inspiring message!

The dual point-of view is a nice writing style for a story like this one. I liked being able to read from each of the women’s perspectives. It also allowed room for each of them to have developments in their romantic and family relationships- without things getting confusing or cluttered.

Unfortunate, there were just a few ways the story fell a bit short for me.
I was really struggling to connect to the characters. Luisa, Holly, Eli, or Hugh- I just did not really develop an attachment to any of them. I also did not feel that they had much of a connection between themselves either.
The friendships and the romantic relationships felt somewhat empty. Perhaps more development past just trying to accomplish their goal would have made things a bit better for me.

This story also didn’t read very easily.
At a short 288 pages, I’d expected this to be very quick and easy. However, I kept having to reread passages several times to understand what was going on. It just didn’t always flow smoothly and that made it feel longer.
I also felt that some of the language used here was a bit complex for the average, casual reader.

Overall, I would not say that this book is unenjoyable. It certainly has some good qualities, that I think could make it a lovely read for some- even though I personally didn’t connect with it that much.

Thank you to Netgalley, Atria Books/Artia Primero Sueno Press and authors Mayra Cuevas & Marie Marquardt, for providing me with the eARC of “How to Fake a Southern Gentleman”, in exchange for my honest review!
Publication date: April 7th, 2026
*I will be posting this review closer to the title’s official publication date, as requested by the publisher. I have included the link to my goodreads rating, which will be updated to include the review at that time!