Fake Flame
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5.0 • 1 Rating
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- $7.99
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- $7.99
Publisher Description
In this fun, fast-paced romantic comedy, a bookish firefighter who knows his Jane Austen suggests a little fake dating to fend off an ex. What’s a feminist English professor to do—except say yes…
You can’t fake heat like this…
To an observer, hauling a baby grand piano onto a college quad to publicly serenade an ex might seem like a romantic gesture. To literature professor Eva Campbell, it’s the latest manipulative move by a cheating jerk who won’t take a hint. Plus, she never liked that song anyway.
Setting the piano on fire might be an overreaction, but Eva’s at the end of her rope, at least until hot young firefighter Sean Hannigan talks her down. And that’s not all Sean does. Soon he’s offering to be Eva’s fake boyfriend to get her creepy ex off her back. Unexpected, maybe, but there’s something about Sean—beyond the angelic face and take-me-now body—that makes Eva say yes.
Sean battles infernos for a living, reads romance on the side and is a straight-up, family-loving good guy. Eva’s not sure she’s ready for the danger he poses to her jaded heart. Given their differences, a relationship can’t last, right? But the line between fake and real keeps blurring, daring her to take the biggest risk of all…
From showing up to glowing up, these characters are on the path to leading their best lives and finding sizzling romance along the way.
Don’t miss these other fun titles from Afterglow Books:
The (Fake) Dating Game by Timothy Janovsky
The Bookbinder’s Guide to Love by Katherine Garbera
The Devil in Blue Jeans by Stacey Kennedy
Frenemy Fix-Up by Yahrah St. John
The Boyfriend Subscription by Steven Salvatore
Manila Takes Manhattan by Carla de Guzman
Out of Office by A.H. Cunningham
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Buck (Fast Acting) brings the heat in this scorching rom-com. After professor Eva Campbell's ex, Darren, stages a ridiculous romantic gesture at her place of work to try to get her back, Eva snaps and tries to fend him off with an improvised flamethrower created from the combination of a cigarette lighter and a can of bug spray—and the fire department is called. Hunky firefighter Sean Hannigan, 36, is immediately attracted to Eva, 41, and when Darren tries to intimidate Eva in her office, Sean commits to being her fake boyfriend to keep him at bay. What starts as just pretend quickly becomes all too real and Buck makes it easy to see how perfect these two are for each other. Swoony Sean is an avid reader who isn't ashamed to love a romance novel, which endears Eva—a professor of literature and pop culture—to him immediately. When Eva witnesses him interacting with his numerous nieces and nephews, she realizes he'd be a great dad, but worries it's too late for her to give him that. The result is a refreshingly grounded conflict that Buck handles with a great deal of sensitivity. The steamy sex scenes are just a bonus. Readers will have no trouble rooting for the chivalrous firefighter and the plucky professor to get their happily ever after.
Customer Reviews
Well plotted, with believable characters
The crisis moment of the novel is not the usual one of not talking, just assuming, but rather of the hero being forced to decide what he really wants out of the relationship. It’s nice to read a romance in which the heroine is not some nubile 20-something year old, but rather an established 41; I wish there were more novels that have older main characters, with mature outlooks but not single due to reasons that make the heroine bitter. Eva in this story is a strong, unbroken woman who meets the sweet, thoughtful Sean, who happens to be 5 years younger — not a cougar fantasy, but two adults having a real relationship. Even if it does start off as fake.