68. The Pretending Plot by Lauren Blakely

listened on Audible Escape
narrated by Joe Arden and Vanessa Edwin
Unabridged audio (4:33)
2020 Little Dog Press
202 pgs.
Adult romance
Finished 4/25/20
Goodreads rating:  3.91 - 422 ratings
My rating:  3

First line/s:  "The handcuffs snapped closed."

My comments:  I do enjoy these fake fiance/boyfriend/girlfriend/mail order bride tomes, no matter how bad they are, and most of them are pretty bad....  This was apparently one of Lauren Blakely's first, originally a novella, and she has recently rewritten and added to.  It's still pretty short.  I was put off by the female narrator.  I think perhaps she's American trying to speak with a British accent, but it just didn't work for me at all.  And there was was too much about her stupid chihuahua that she called The Artful Dodger. Glad it was a quick read because I don't think I would have finished it if it had been much longer than four hours.  Also hard to believe that a 28-year-old woman would be in the casting director position of authority as was Sutton.  Sutton and Reeve...a little pretentious much?

Goodreads synopsis:  A delicious and all new reimagining of Lauren Blakely's original fake fiancé romance!  All preorder proceeds go to Australian fire relief!
          I don't mean to just blurt it out. "Why, yes I'm engaged!"
          But once I say it to a potential client, there's only one logical thing to do -- cast the role of my fake fiancé.
          Easy enough. As a casting director, my job is to find the most talented players for every part, so I choose dreamy, edgy, sexy, sarcastic Reeve.And I sign him up for one week in the role of mine.
          It's not as if I'll fall for him in five nights even if we get a little cozy one night at theater. It's not as if I'll want more even after a scorching afternoon in the stacks of the New York Public Library.
        I can't let myself fall because on Friday at midnight the curtain drops on our fake romance . . .

The Pretending Plot is a reimagining of the 2013 story Pretending He's Mine (no longer available for sale). The Pretending Plot has been rewritten in first person and expanded from a novella to novel length!

11. Fiance for Hire by Nina Strych

read on my iPhone (Kindle Unlimited)
2016 self published?
183 pgs.
Adult romance
Finished 1/25/2019
Goodreads rating: 3.79 - only 42 ratings so far
My rating: 2.5 (Sizzle factor 3/4)
Setting: Contemporary Washington, DC

First line/s: "Gianna's phone buzzed with the ring-tone that belonged only to her mother."

My comments:  Ha ha - I love that the end of the Goodreads summary it says that these Escort books are "a series of stand-alone contemporary romances, each featuring a new woman and her escort as they take their unique path toward love."  Crack me up!  Unique path towards love!  You've read one, you've read them all...but I keep on reading them, lol, for light, humorous pleasure! (It WAS free, after all...)

Goodreads synopsis:  Gianna’s family has almost driven her to insanity. On her thirtieth birthday, things went too far when her mother wore black and cried over Gianna’s single state. Her career in bustling Washington, D.C. is all she wants to focus on for the moment, so she develops a plan that should stop all the pressure for good. If they want her to marry, she’ll get that fiancé they crave for her...and won’t they be sorry she did.
           As a fake fiancé, Logan is ideal. Handsome, bright, funny, and up for the game. The only problem? He’s too handsome, bright, funny, and a match for every game Gianna can devise. As he quickly escalates from escort to co-conspirator, Gianna finds herself far too eager for every appointment. Whether at dinner with the parents or swimming in the sea, every glance or touch sends her body into overdrive. As the game intensifies, so does the electricity between them…and Logan might be just the live wire she’s been waiting her whole life to touch.