I loved this! The fun combination of grumpy/sunshine small town and fake dating - Christopher and Harper were the cutest. I really enjoyed how light and sweet this one was! Usually insta-love is a bit too much for me but this was balanced perfectly with so much joy within the characters and great humor in the little town.

Faking It With The Grump was a quick and enjoyable rom-com that featured two of my favorite tropes: fake dating and small town romance. There were definitely some Hallmark vibes here, and that’s a good thing in my book.

We follow Harper and Christopher. Harper returns home to Hunter’s Creek from LA after her long-time boyfriend and popular actor broke up with her and the whole fiasco went viral. Christopher is in Hunter’s Creek from New York. His company wants to buy the town’s lumber mill so he’s there to check if that’s a good idea. He’s only focused on work and getting that big promotion he’s worked so hard for. But when Harper gets a little tired from the entire town pitying her, she makes up a new boyfriend on the spot just so everyone will leave her alone. And said new boyfriend is no one else than new-in-town Christopher. Who is her complete opposite in every way.

While enjoyable overall, I did have some mixed feelings as well. I loved the first half of the story. I loved the set up of both of the characters, I loved the small town vibe that we get in Hunter’s Creek, the variety of quirky town people and their love of flannel and their tendency to name every establishment in town after a bear. Both Harper and Christopher were fun characters and I loved the switching POV’s to get into both of their heads. And I adored their meet cute and the set up of the fake dating hijinks. All the good stuff, all the tropes I loved were there.

But then the second half fell a bit flat for me. The romance went from fake dating to real feelings a bit too quickly for me and I would have preferred bit more slow burn. I also missed some depth in both of the characters, their feelings and even the rest of town people. But what irked me most of all after finishing the book? There is no way you could call Christopher a grump. He was serious and a bit uptight, yes, but he was also a sweet cinnamon roll. Never a grump! So I definitely disagree with both the title and marketing calling this a sunshine/grump story.

Overall, I’d recommend this book if you’re looking for a quick and easy rom-com read with Hallmark vibes and all that small town romancey goodness.

Faking It With the Grump by Kate O'Keeffe is everything a Hallmark movie embodies and more! I love the character development. And the small town vibes gets me everytime! This author was new to me and I cannot wait for book two in this series and her other books!

Was really excited about this book just by the name of the book. As I really love grumpy x sunshine.

First few chapters was honestly pretty good, but as the story progresses, I found that them falling in love was a little too quick(?). But I really like the small town vibe that is going on there and Christopher's decision in the end.

Overall, its okay but did not really pull me into the story.

- Thanks net galley for the ARC copy -

Such a cute book. Small-town romances are on a different level. I love the connection between the characters. I love the relationship between the people of Hunter’s Creek, like one big family. I love the simplicity and ease of this book, the light atmosphere.

I just didn't enjoy how Harper and Christopher seemed to share the same brain. They had the dame thoughts towards one another and I found Christopher to conflict himself quite a lot. It was just annoying to see them battle with their obvious attraction towards each other like primary school students.

Also, that nickname Topher? It was cute but at the same time, kind of cringe.

Thank you to Wild Lime Books and Netgalley for an ARC of this book in exchange for my honest review.

What a sweet book! Very Hallmark Movie vibes! Perfect for a cozy day of reading, or a day at the beach! I flew through this book pretty quickly, but it was an enjoyable read.
Predictable... but enjoyable!

Faking It With the Grump by Kate O'Keeffe

I did not know how much I needed to read this book. Harper Cole is meeting her famous boyfriend for dinner at a place that people tend to propose marriage. He shows up and breaks up with her and she dumps soda over his head. She did everything to help him including moving to Los Angeles for him. She decides to go back to her hometown in Hunter's Creek and work as a second grade teacher. Harper is nice and she has problems saying no.

Christopher Young is a lawyer working for a firm in New York and he is working his butt off to become partner. He gets an assignment to go to Hunter's Creek to look at the town Mill for his company to acquire.

Christopher crosses path with Harper in the local diner. He is taken aback by her beauty. Harper decides to kiss Christopher and they agree on a fake relationship. Christopher goes along because he is only going to be there a couple of months.

You can guess what happens from there it was such a sweet HEA and it had some tropes like fake dating and grump versus nice girl. Anyways I just loved this tory it would make a great Hallmark movie. This was a five-star read and I recommend this book if you like fake dating tropes.

Thank you to Netgalley and Wild Lime Books for a free copy of Faking It With the Grup for an honest review. All thoughts and opinions expressed in this review are my own.

I nearly put this book down a few times but decided to push through. I regret my decision. I really just found this book to be super frustrating. They would just skip over swaths of stuff, which I get, you need to love the plot forward. But in a romance book why did you skip over the part where they actually fell in love? One minute they are attracted to each other and starting to spend time with each other and then boom next chapter they have spent time together and now love each other.

I felt like the middle 1/3rd of the book was missing. We went straight from setting up the premise to cliffhanger and resolution.

ARC generously provided by NetGalley and Wild Lime Books in exchange for fair and honest review.

I received this from netgalley in exchange for a review.

This was a fast read, but all in all, kind of predictable and with characters that didn’t grab me. I didn’t think Christopher was actually a grouch, and Harper definitely experienced a horrible breakup, and while I can see why they’d think a fake relationship was good for both of them, I still found it weird how quickly they had fallen for each other even before making that fake relationship.

All in all, fast read, but nothing that will stick with me.

This was such a fun and lovely rom com! I love the authors writing. The characters were super lovable especially harper!! Christopher was such a stuck up but with a heart of gold to be honest! I loved reading about himm.

Quick Summary: A "now and forever" love story

My Review: Faking It With the Grump by Kate O'Keefe was book one in the Second Chance Cafe series.

About the Book: What happens when two strangers suddenly decide to fake a relationship?

About the Characters:

With a heart crushed by love, Harper Cole decided to return home to Hunter's Creek. No sooner than she'd arrived, the locals decided to set her up with anyone who had a pulse... or so it seemed. In order to curb their enthusiasm, she had to come up with a deterrent of some sort. What better way to throw others off her trail than to have a fake boyfriend?! That should work out, right?

Christopher Young had a plan. He had goals and objectives set for himself. Nothing in his plans involved Hunter's Creek. It certainly had not involved being kissed by a stranger. There was something about the beautiful woman who had locked lips with him. Something made her stand out. He owed it to himself to explore the possibilities with her, didn't he?

My Final Say: This book was sweetness times two. I loved the premise, the characters, the community, the conflict, the slow burn, the groveling, the drama, the reconciliation, and the conclusion. Faking It With the Grump gets a gold star rating from this reader. Readers who enjoy stories with an opposites attract theme will fall in love with this romance.

Other: This story had a number of interesting people. I found myself wanting to know more about both the siblings and the townsfolk. I cannot wait to learn more about the Second Chance Cafe and about Hunter's Creek.

Rating: 4.5/5
Recommend: Yes
Audience: A
Status: Clean
Level: 🍬
Re-read: Yes
Keeper: Yes
Series: Yes

Sincere appreciation is extended to the author, to Wild Lime Books, and to NetGalley. Thanks for making this title available for review in exchange for an honest critique. The words I have shared are my own thoughts and opinions.

* Goodreads and Amazon reviews have been posted.

is a cute rom-com with a few common tropes. These are a few of the tropes you might see … fake dating, grumpy/sunshine, new to a small town, and returning home. If you are a fan of the Hallmark channel’s romances I recommend this book to you. The characters are interesting and relatable. The relationship isn’t spicy. There were a couple of time while reading this book I thought that maybe the author was a Legally Blonde fan growing up.

All thoughts and opinions are my own, and I have not been by anyone.

Ah, the good ol’ small-town rom-com recipe: Small-Town Gal meets Big-City Boy. They’re polar opposites. They fall in love. They break up for a hot second because wait, what? We live on opposite sides of the country? Doesn’t matter, because STG and BCB get their Happily Ever After. Throw in some fake-dating and quirky side-characters and BAM. You’ve got yourself that hot cuppa filled with warm and sweet goodness.

Even with all of that, “Faking It With the Grump” is a 2.5 out of 5 stars for me. I'll round it up to 3 though.

Am I getting grumpy myself? No idea. Let’s dive in, shall we?

The story focuses on our two main characters, Harper and Christopher, who meet when Harper comes back to her hometown in Washington State after she breaks up with her high school sweetheart in a rather public way. Christopher shows up after he gets an assignment from his boss to buy the town’s local lumber mill and get that promotion he’s been working for for years. He’s only in town for a few months, but sparks fly when he meets Harper – and she proceeds to kiss him unexpectedly and begs him to be her fake boyfriend so the town will get off her back about her ex, Dex. Christopher, being the nice guy that he is, goes along with it.

Um, yeah. Okay, so I’m all for the Fake-Dating and then “Suddenly Falling In Love” trope, don’t get me wrong, but this particular one just felt… forced. I think it’s because a lot of the stories I read with this trope are of two characters who already know each other to an extent. Either they’re friends already, or maybe one of them has been desperately in love with the other for years, so of course they’ll say yes but pretend they’re just being nice. This one? Not so much.

First off, the way Christopher is portrayed, it doesn’t seem like the kind of thing he would go along with. “Oh, a random stranger needs me to be her fake boyfriend for a while, even though I’m only in town for a few months to get a job done? Oh, and I’m super Type-A and just want to focus on work and get back to NYC? Sure, I’ll help anyway, because the power of boners is strong.” (Thanks, CinemaSins.)

This goes into how the relationship between Harper and Christopher felt rushed and flat to me. When Christopher (I refuse to call him Topher) first sees Harper it seems very abrupt. Like he was already half in love with her. Which, okay, I know can happen (and has happened in other books/movies/stories), but I didn’t really believe this one. The Insta-Love wasn’t the best.

Thank you to Wild Lime Books and NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review. “Faking It With the Grump” was released March 14, 2023.

I really enjoyed this book. At first I was afraid it wasn't going to be my cup of tea but I connected with the characters, I felt that they were really compelling, and the trials and tribulations that they went through specially towards the end were realistic in a way that made me feel for them and got me rooting for them to have their happily ever after.
It's not a perfect book, but it's definitely worth the read and easy to get through (I read it in less than 24hrs)
Thank you for the opportunity to read this book!

This was a really cute and really fun read. I really liked Christopher and how different he was from Harper. I liked the small town vibe. It felt like a Hallmark movie. My only complaint was how fast they fell in love. I would’ve liked a little more character development as a couple. Just a little too fast for my liking but overall really enjoyable and fun read.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publishers for allowing me to read this!

This book was a really sweet and cute read while I was flying! It covers one of my favorite tropes of grumpy and sunshine small town transplant. Harper was recently dumped by her highschool boyfriend turned big star. She returns to her hometown and meets Christopher who temporarily moves there for work. They end up fake dating and end up really falling for each other.

I recommend reading this book, it was really adorable!

I took longer than usual to read this book. Honestly I was excited at first because is grumpy x sunshine trope, my favorite. But I felt like the main male character was not grumpy at all. Or maybe he changed his personality too fast. Also there was so much dialogue it felt a bit tiring to read sometimes.

Thank you NetGalley for providing this ARC for me to read.

I loved this book!! It has everything a good Hallmark movie needs, but in book form…and as you know the book is always better!

3.5⭐️ rounded up to 4!

This was a cute, cheesy, and fun rom-com! I enjoyed both Harper and Christopher. I found their entire dynamic to be adorable. The storyline was fun, even if it was a bit predictable. Harper’s relationship with her sisters were fun and varied. There were a ton of laugh out loud moments. I did find the timeline to be a bit fuzzy (it seemed to have only been a month, and then suddenly Harper said it had been three months since her break up and it made it hard to place how long everyone had been together etc.) Christopher and Harper were a little Insta-lovey, but I could look past it because of their cute moments. I loved Christopher’s wit. Overall, this was a fun and easy read! Cant wait for the next book!

Small town romances just get me right where I need it. I don't think that there was ever a second where I was not enjoying this book. Loved every second!