Have snack on hand when reading, FAKE IT TILL YOU BAKE IT. I was drooling while reading about a cupcake-baking football player and a reality TV star who fake date while saving a cupcake bakery in this fabulously fun and refreshing, lusty story. Donovan Dell is a ruggedly handsome, tense football player who owns a cupcake bakery, Sugar Blitz. He encounters a ravishing reality TV star, Jada, when she comes into his bakery for a job after turning down a marriage proposal on a national TV. She comes back home to recoup her life. A reporter spies them together, and assumes they are dating. Heck, why not, especially since Donovan's business is hurting financially.

Donovan and Jada start fake dating and take advantage of the increase in customer sales to save Donovan's fledgling bakery. They sizzle together, but fire non-stop barbs at one another. Secretly they have crushes on one another. Donovan only has eyes for Jada and she is battling feelings of amore whenever she is with him. Do the two stubborn lovebirds untangle their feelings and realize it's love?

FAKE IT TILL YOU BAKE IT is a sassy and seductive story. Ms. Wesley's novel is smart, intriguing and sizzles from start to finish. A bombshell reality TV star, Jada, and a macho, football player, Donovan, clash heads and turn up the heat in a cupcake bakery in this sparkling tale. Infused with touches of seduction, brisk style, and steamy situations, you will savor this story from start to finish. A wonderful cast of characters along with a plausible plot, the author is on the winning track! Go ahead and indulge, FAKE IT TILL YOU BAKE IT is perfect afternoon entertainment!

I love a good enemies to lovers but also a good fake it story! These two were pure chemistry on the page and I literally bought cupcakes to eat while reading because my mouth was watering! I love their love story!!!

I really enjoyed the fake dating trope that actually seemed realistic between Jada and Donovan. Both had their flaws and were three-dimensional characters. Plus, the story featured some of my favorite things -- a reality dating show, dessert, and football. It mostly focused on dessert but it was a fun, light read and I can't wait for the next one in this series!

Fake It Till You Bake It is a fantastic fake relationship romcom with plenty of laughs throughout. While it started off a little bit slow for me I did end up enjoying it (especially towards the end). This is the first book I've read from the author but it won't be my last!

At the beginning of the book, I was not a fan of Jadas character. She seemed childish and immature but as the story went on, I started to love her and her relationship with Donovan. I love the fake dating trope and that is what initially drew me into this book but once I started reading, I couldn't stop. Donovan really helped Jada grow and brought her to her full potential which is what all partners in a relationship should do for each other. I would definitely recommend this book to friends when it comes out.

This was a pretty fun read! I can understand that Jada was struggling finding her place. Not everyone knows what they want to do with their lives. Not everyone knows exactly what they are good at or how to take what they are good at and turn it into a career. It was great to watch her to that and help Donovan come out of his shell in the process all while making a success of the cupcake shop.

I enjoyed the characters in this book and the relationship between them. The fact that while they had instant chemistry, they took some time to get to know each other before jumping into anything was appreciated. I also enjoyed how Jada was a strong character who spoke out and wasn't afraid to do so, but also liked to be treated nicely and, as with all human beings, had moments of doubt and insecurity that prevented her from being true to who she was. I also liked Donovan because he was a fully fleshed out person in the book and not just the hot guy. He has layers, like an onion or parfait, and he showed them to Jada as they got to know each other. The friends around them were also nice, and I am thinking that we'll get books for Donovan's two besties soon enough. Nicholas the baking bachelor feels the most well suited to a book 2.

The reason I didn't give this a 5 star is because I did feel like the momentum of the book kind of drifted towards the end. There didn't have to be quite the complication that came up with Lila and John, and I actually lost interest once the main characters got together fully. Which is totally odd, but that may also have been the mood I was in because the book I just read felt a little the same.

Fun read. And there were cupcakes!

This was my first read by this author. I was uncertain if I was going to like the book when the started reading it. The story was a slow burn and I often lost interest in it. As I continued I started to connect with the characters. Donovan and Jada had chemistry from the beginning but it took forever for it to come to life in the story. In the end they brought the best out of each other. The supporting characters were relatable and added life to the story. Thank you NetGalley and St. Martin Press for providing me with an ARC.

As a concept, this book could have been perfect for me as a reader. Everything about it sounded and looked so cute, and straight up my alley. A million tropes involved? Totally. But when well-executed, who cares how many tropes there are, right?? Right.

But that key part about being “well-executed”? It, unfortunately, did not play out here.

I really wanted to like this book. I really wanted to not feel like this was a Hallmark movie script gone wrong. I wanted to give Donovan and Jada a chance. But they crashed and burned for me despite my best efforts. Their “chemistry” felt forced. Their interactions seemed inauthentic to real life. In fact, the whole plot, the dialogue, the banter, the character dynamics, um, welllll, all of it…fell so short for me in terms of believability, I just had to smh. The pacing was also laggy, the romance was hard to get into, the dialogue was cringey, the characters felt dry and dull, I found Jada to be unrelatable and unlikeable, and the football guys running a bakery? Um, heh, let’s be real? That’s so contrived it hurts. 😅

But I will say this: all the talk of cupcakes definitely will make your mouth water. I just shouldn’t feel more for the cupcakes than I do for the romance! 😂

I think if I was younger (I’m in my early thirties) and was new to reading rom-coms, this would have been a different experience for me, more enjoyable. But, as it is, nothing about this story felt fresh or memorable, and that was disappointing.

Thank you to Netgalley and St. Martin’s Press for the opportunity to read this book as an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

I adore alpha possessive men in my romance books but in this I didn’t talk feel it. There were too many time jumps. I didn’t really get to enjoy the tension between character so was looking forward to especially while they fake dated. Sort of fell short of my expectations.

2.5 rounded down (I originally rounded up, but after writing this review, I found myself struggling to find pros with the book... oof sorry.)

tws: social media harassment, mention of gambling addiction

This was just an exceptionally mediocre book. It was overwhelmingly okay at best. The book didn't really flow or feel super cohesive to me, but rather like a collection of vignettes about Jada/Donovan. We jumped around and fast-forwarded through time without a clear timeline. Towards the end of the book, there was a 3-month time skip, but I genuinely thought that that scene was a day later than the previous one. The timeline felt off and it wasn't easily understood what was happening when. The epilogue takes place 8 months after the final chapter, and this wasn't clear to me until halfway through the epilogue. I still thought things were happening that same month.

This then brings me to my next point: this book was full of insta-love (maybe? IDK about this timeline, tbh, it just felt really fast). Jada and Donovan met, and then met again like a day later, and then maybe two days later they were fake dating and then like... a week? later Donovan was like wow I'm in love with you and I'm going to fistfight anyone who even talks to you. That said, no matter how fast this romance was, the first 50% of the book dragged on. It felt like nothing was happening.

My third point - Donovan's possessiveness. IDK if it's just because I'm a lesbian that the idea of a man being possessive gave me the worst ick imaginable, but I literally was getting uncomfortable with how possessive this man was. He knew Jada for literal days and was like growling at men who would try to talk to her. (This isn't an exaggeration, this man literally growled multiple times in this book.)

I truly didn't care about Jada or Donovan, which makes this book a big miss for me. Jada and Donovan were both so truly flawed and unlikable that it made me struggle to read about their whirlwind romance. I also felt like I was inundated with facts about them. Too much telling and not enough showing. I definitely do not think we needed both POVs in this book. It felt repetitive and redundant, and getting to hear both sides of their story left little to the imagination.

I'm normally such a sucker for fake dating AND mutual pining, but we had so much information about this relationship that it didn't feel like mutual pining, rather just two coworkers being annoyingly horny for each other on main and then refusing to do anything about it.

Also - the side characters felt so underwhelmingly flat. I could not tell you a single thing about them besides the fact that they existed. Also the drama was very flat. None of the struggles (/the "villain"'s actions) felt realistic or relatable. Maybe I just cannot relate to the granddaughter of a billionaire who was on a reality-TV show and is then blackmailed (albeit, really weakly blackmailed). Who is to say?

One of the major plot points in this book is that Jada's parents don't approve of anything she does- and they cut her off! But don't worry, because she has a trust fund that she can access in one year's time AND her parents own her condo, so she doesn't even have to pay rent! Also, Grams is still a billionaire. IDK if you can tell but I hated this plot point. It felt so facetious to me and honestly disrespectful.

One more thing, just as a note: there were a lot of little factual issues in the book. Jada baked cupcakes for 20 minutes, set like three alarms for them, and then missed the alarms going off by like a minute (maximum). At this point, we were supposed to understand that she burnt the cupcakes. Ma'am, respectfully, those cupcakes are still raw. Put them back in the oven. Also, Jada's event-planning adventure brought a book club to the cupcake shop, where she then served the book clubbers wine. Does this cupcake shop have a liquor license or are we calling the California Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control?

Also - as is standard in romance books, there was in fact a third-act breakup that was caused by literally nothing and then resolved in like two pages!!!

Because this entire review makes me look like a bitch - I'll write some positives of the book now. I enjoyed Jada's Grandma (even if she was a billionaire). I think August has a sick name. I enjoy cupcakes and this book made me want to go experiment with some cupcake flavors. I enjoy the fake-dating trope. I would like to live on the beach and learn to surf.

Unfortunately, this just was not the book for me. If you like contemporary romance, fake dating, and cupcakes (with a really healthy side of rich people being annoying), this is the book for you!

Not a bad premise (although I really am getting kind of tired of fake dating romances....👀) but the book itself just kind of read like a collection of scenes or ideas rather than a coherent, clear narrative. I felt like it was missing an emotional through-line to make us really care about what happened to the characters, and we don't really see much of a reason for either of them to change. The "spoiled heiress" gets knocked down a peg is an interesting concept, but Jada was not just spoiled, she was really unkind, and is basically encouraged to be that way by her friends and family because she was just "being herself and speaking her mind." I much preferred Piper in It Happened One Summer. Donovan was sweet, but honestly kind of boring....anyway, this one just didn't do it for me.

Thank you for early access.

I loved this book. It was adorable and such a quick read. Donavan and Jada are so great together.

This book was a nice read for the weekend. I enjoyed the bakery setting and the characters but the romance felt a little rushed. I could see this going into spinoff stories with the other characters in the book.

Fake It Till You Bake It by Jamie Wesley

This is an adult contemporary/romance novel, fake dating, enemies to lovers.

In this, we follow Donovan who is a professional football player, but also an avid baker, starting his own business, Sugar Blitz which specializes in yummy cupcakes. We also follow Jada, a reality star who is Americas most hated woman after turning down a wedding proposal on the reality show in which she starred.

The Pros:
- this was so much fun! the idea of a cupcake shop just gave me all the cozy vibes I needed
- I loved our M/C chemistry. It was very nice seeing them interact and grow as people

The Cons:
- The drama in here felt very juvenile and did not seem like anyone was acting like an adult
- The side characters had so much potential, but for the most part fell very flat

Overall:
- If you are not someone who enjoys very explicit sex scenes, this is a great option for you as I found it to be very PG.
- if you are looking for a cute, fun, quick read that will make you crave some sweet treats, this one is for you!

Thank you NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for providing me this arc!

When St. Martin ‘s Griffin invited me to read Fake It Till You Bake It I looked up the description and IMMEDIATELY added it to my shelf/kindle! I mean who doesn’t love a fake dating story?

The beginning was almost enemies to lovers, but I loved the banter and differences between Jada and Donovan. I really think they complemented each other’s strengths/weaknesses. I mean opposites do attract! Jada and Donovan had instant chemistry, but I will say it was almost too instalove for me. I wanted them to get to know each other a little better while they were fake dating.

Overall, cute story and it seems like it’s set up for a series! I’ll definitely be reading more of this crew if that happens!

This is a fun romance between Donovan, a football player who owns a cupcake shop, and Jada, a woman fresh off a season of a reality dating show. Sparks fly immediately between Donovan and Jada, who have clear chemistry from the start. I recommend this romance for fans of fake dating. Don’t be surprised if this book has you craving some cupcakes and a hot football player to make them for you!

Rated: 4.25/5

I loved this book! It has an enemies-to-lovers, fake dating plotline which I adored! The characters were so sweet and loveable and kept me hooked the entire time.

It follows Jada, an ex reality TV star, and Donovan, a pro footballer turned bakery owner. When Jada and Donovan end up in a mutually beneficial fake dating relationship, the line between fake and real starts to blur.

The romance in this book was so swoonworthy and cute, and had me in a chokehold.

I received this ARC for an honest review. Jamie Wesley is a new to me author, and I’m really happy I gave her a chance. This story is well written and I enjoyed it immensely.
This story is about Jada and Donovan. Donovan is a football player who opened a cupcake business with his two friends, and business has slowed down. He is getting worried. Jada’s grandmother is the owner of the football team that Donovan plays for. Jada is lost in her life and is trying to find her way. Her grandmother stepped in and gave Jada an ultimatum either work for Donovan or lose her trust fund.
I’m not going to say much more because I don’t write spoilers. I do recommend this story.
I really enjoyed Jamie Wesley’s writing. I will definitely read another book from Jamie Wesley!

Cute! Loved the dynamic between the hero and heroine and would love to see this adapted to screen in some form.

I received this novel as an ARC from NetGalley for review.