This is a supremely funny story. Readers will get multiple couples getting happy endings as the plot unfolds. The dialogue is witty and entertaining and will make you laugh out loud. The characters are wonderful and lovely. Readers will love the variety in the characters ages and the place they play in the story. It is sexy and romantic and a joy to read from start to finish.

This book has it all. Faking datingx2, crazy Italian family, sneaking around, and it’s a dual pov. PHOTOBOOTH SCENE!!

Nora and Sebastian help out their two best friends by agreeing to fake date them for their siblings weddings, little did they know they would end up at the same wedding. Prior to the fake dating agreement Sebastian missed out on the opportunity to ask Nora out. They are stuck pretending to be with other people when they are having a hell of a time trying to fight the pull they have to one another.

Spice in this book is so good. Exhibitionist at its finest.

Nora & Sebastian meet and have an instant attraction, but before it can go anywhere, they both get themselves in separate fake dating arrangements. The next time they see each other they’re both guests at a huge Italian wedding for friends/family. The wedding is a circus. The two families hate each other. There’s loud, meddling family + adorable grandparents. What’s not to love?!

Every time I read a new Livy Hart book, I get mad that I’ve read everything else by her already. I love her characters & banter.

• fake dating • wedding week • meddling family • feuding families •

Favorite parts:
•bachelor & bachelorette party night
•every moment at his grandmas house

What gets more entertaining than 2 people who are supposed to be fake dating 2 other people try to stay away from each other at a destination wedding. Nora and Sebastian are supposed to be fake dating their best friends, respectively but can’t seem to stay away from each other. The banter was giving and the spice was great! This is a perfect rom com. There were a few too many characters, but not too many that it was hard to get over. I would recommend this for a fun beach read! Thanks to the publisher, author, and NetGalley for this eARC.

Livy Hart has a way with words that has me knowing that anytime I pick up her book, I need to clear my schedule because it's an IMMEDIATE binge. The Great Dating Fake Off is no different.

Nora, a bookseller with her best friend Benji, put in a pickle when they announce their dating and will be attending as a couple for his sister's wedding. All is well, until she runs into Sebastian, the handsome man opening different Boys and Girls clubs in the area. She knows sparks are flying between her and him yet, she cannot do anything about it... not at a meddling huge Italian family wedding.

Sebastian, promising to help his best friend keep her secret, is attending her brother's wedding as her plus-one a.k.a. fake date. But he's got feelings for Nora too, ones that will be impossible to ignore as the wedding festivities continue. With a wedding on the line and family secrets to keep tied, both are in for a wild ride as they try to be the best fake daters they can be.

There were so many highlighted lines in my kindle while reading "Fake Off" that I almost cried while laughing! Livy Hart's novels are always a delight for me, especially because of the chemistry and banter she brings to each character. I couldn't help but picture these big Italian families as in the movie "My Big Fat Greek Wedding" as they fight, squabble and just plain out try to kick each other's asses in pickleball. Those wanting a quick, fast paced yet steamy read to binge on your next reading day will NEED to pick up The Great Dating Fake Off!

In general, I love Livy Hart's novels. However, this one was hard for me. Something about these characters did not connect with me. I love the fake dating trope but when the fake daters fall in love with one another, not other fake daters. I kept hoping that it would get easier for me but it never did.

All that to say, this is not a bad book! The setting is great! And the characters are well developed! It just wasn't a book for me. Hoping I connect better with her next book.

2.5 stars, rounded up.

Nora and Sebastian find themselves at a wedding, pretending to date their respective best friends. They find themselves spending a lot of time together and realize they have feelings for each other. When they accidentally get caught, chaos ensues.

The premise of this book is so good. It has so much potential to be fun and swoony, but just missed the mark for me.

It also took me forever to finish this book. I think there are way too many characters with relationship drama. It's a lot to keep track of, especially with the family dynamics. I also just couldn't really get into the romance between the MCs. The romance was kind of instalovey and there was a lack of chemistry. I didn't feel an emotional connection between Nora and Sebastian and I kept hoping for fun banter that never really appeared.

The writing itself was fine, but I didn't love the writing style. I did enjoy the dual POV and the fun twist on the fake dating trope.

Thank you to Entangled and NetGalley for the ARC.

A fun, albeit predictable, romance. The best part was absolutely the banter between the two main characters. It was funny and it kept me reading even when the plot started to lag a bit.

The author of Some Kind of Blunderfull and Talk Flirty to Me is coming with a new release called The Great Dating Fake Off. As the title suggest this book will be about fake dating. Even though I must admit I haven't read a book by Livy Hart before, I couldn't wait to dive into this story. What will this fake dating romance bring?

Two fake dating couples. She wants him, but he is in the other couple. It's the story of Nora. Ever since he walked into the bookstore, Sebastian has her interest. But when it turns out they both are the plus one for their best friends to the Italian wedding between rivaling families, they cannot be seen together.

It's really amazing how Livy Hart manages to create the vibe of forbidden love while also in a fake dating. It makes the development of the romance even more stunning. I really loved the storyline.

Both Nora and Sebastian are amazing characters. It really is love at first sight for the two of them and if it wasn't for the wedding I think they would have been on a date sooner. However where is the fun in that right? I really loved the fact they had to wait to be together and I feel like it made the romance even stronger.

I really enjoyed reading The Great Dating Fake Off. This book made me curious about the other Livy Hart books, which will be added to my endless wishlist for sure. In my opinion this book deserves a 3,5 star rating.

This was a fun spicy fake dating trope book with a spin that the two leads are actually fake dating other people for a wedding week. I liked our main couple and their best friends. They had banter and steam right from the beginning. They just mesh and their intense alone moments in terms of talking and emotion were the best. Easy to binge read but dang there are a lot of characters. A few less would have been nice because I was at my limit for remembering who was who. The third act break up was dumb and I didn’t appreciate it but they figured out their own stuff to be able to come back together in a great way.

So far I have enjoyed everything Livy Hart has written and this was no exception. Can’t wait for her next book!

I really liked the main character chemistry in this book but sadly that's all I really enjoyed. I was bored for about 50% or the book. I ended up skimming to the good parts. The main plot is very week imo. 3 stars.

This was really cute! A fun premise with the fake dating their friends and being attracted to each other. It definitely lent itself to the third act conflict. There were a LOT of characters and it got tricky to keep track of who was who and how they were related. I adored the meet cute and the characters were really funny together—great dialogue and banter. The pacing stalled through the middle for me, especially with the specifics of the wedding events. but there was fabulous tension—Sebastian was so sweet to Nora. And my picky eater heart was so happy with how he found foods for her—wedding food is so tough when you’re picky! The third act conflict felt really well developed too which was refreshing! The ending and beginning were really well paced.

Big thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for the eARC in exchange for my honest review!

Livy Hart books always bring the spice, the humor, and the love. The Great Dating Fake Off is such a fun and steamy romance.

Nora is the manager of her best friend, Benji's, bookstore. Sebastian comes into the bookstore, and he is about to ask Nora out on a date, but he is interrupted by Benji's overbearing sister and mother. When they try to set him up on a wedding date for his sister's wedding, Nora steps in to pretend to be Benji's girlfriend.

Sebastian steps in to help his best friend, Alessia, because she is not ready to come out to her family at her brother's wedding. It turns out that both Nora and Sebastian are fake dating other people at the same wedding!

When they arrive at the wedding, Sebastian and Nora wind up spending so much time together. They fight their growing attraction to each other because they want to stay in their fake relationships with their best friends.

Their forced proximity leads to sneaking around and leads to some steamy moments! There's one steamy scene in photo booth that is so much fun.

Overall, I loved the wedding scenes with the Italian families. I'm Italian, and I could relate to that part of the story. I enjoyed Sebastian's closeness with his grandmother too. Nora and Sebastian were so great together, and I loved the epilogue too.

Thanks to Entangled Publishing and NetGalley for an ARC of this book.

What a fun book this was! Two couples fake dating as they attend an over the top Italian wedding between two rival families. This was such a fun premise, I loved the fake dating twist in this one! The banter was laugh out loud funny and the chemistry between Nora & Sebastian was off the charts! Expect wide open door spicy scenes!

I always have a great time with Livy Hart's books and The Great Dating Fake Off was no different.

Hart blends spicy & 2000s romcom perfectly. This felt a bit like My Big Fat Greek Wedding but with fake dating. I had so much fun with the characters, the fake dating shenanigans and, of course, the spicy scenes. Nora and Sebastian were such lovable characters. I loved Nora's sunshine disposition and how gentle Sebastian was. They complimented each other and made the romance between them so romantic. Sebastian's lines about being in so gone for Nora were so good! I definitely highlighted the heck out of his POV chapters.

This has heart, banter, playful vibes and steamy spice. Definitely recommend this one!

Reading a Livy Hart book is one of my favorite things: I love the comfort of knowing that I am going into a book by an author whose books I've loved before, and The Great Dating Fake-Off was no different.
The fun twist on the fake-dating trope in this story - Nora and Seb are fake-dating other people - was refreshing. Them being insanely attracted to each other, while trying to keep things under wraps, and all of that with the potential of chaos that arises during this week-long wedding celebration, truly kept things interesting all throughout.
The Great Dating Fake-Off felt like being in a movie, and also a contemporary week-long house party à la histrom with all the drama (if that makes sense). The story flew really well, and I enjoyed every bit of it!

Thank you to the author and publisher for the ARC. All opinions are my own.

Thank you to NetGalley and Entangled Publishing for providing the ARC.

This was a genuinely cute romcom right from the get go. I had so much fun reading about Nora and Sebastian, and watching both of their fake relationships crash in real time while they were pining for each other. The two families in this book were extreme caricatures of bad blood and their scenes almost took me out of the book, but overall, this was a fun read.

Really enjoyable if a bit ridiculous at times, but definitely fun.

Livy Hart is my go-to author for steamy romcoms. The Great Dating Fake Off is another terrific example of how to write a romance that’s equal parts hot and funny, and impossible to put down.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Outgoing Nora and introvert Benji are such good friends that when his mom and sister start aggressively talking about setting him up on dates, she immediately chimes in and says she’s his girlfriend. She has no idea that she’s just signed herself up for a week of fake dating at his sister’s destination wedding. In the meantime, she meets Sebastian, and the two definitely have a spark. But she’s shocked when the next place she sees him is at the wedding festivities with his date. For his part, Sebastian is just helping out his bestie Alessia, sister of the groom, who isn’t ready to come out to her family about her girlfriend yet. But, the chemistry between Nora and Sebastian is combustible every time they are in the same room. Can they keep their hands off each other long enough to keep up their fake dating pretenses?

I adore this original take on fake dating! The challenge is for Sebastian and Nora to seem interested in their BFFs and not each other. I especially like that there isn’t major miscommunication between the MCs from the outset. They both know they are fake dating, and work with their friends to attempt to keep the various family members in the dark.

Nora and Sebastian have plenty of tension and chemistry, fueled by the forced proximity of a week of wedding related activities. It’s so much fun to watch them banter and quip while they try not to appear interested in each other. As their relationship develops, it’s also nice to see that their dedication to their friends is unshaken. And, it adorable watching Sebastian taking care of his feisty grandmother too.

The Great Dating Fake Off is a creative take on fake dating, with fantastic characters and hilarious extended families. I adore every step of Nora and Sebastian’s journey, and can’t wait to read what Livy Hart writes next.

I voluntarily read and reviewed an advance copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

The setting and premise for this one were fun. Two fake dating couples at a week long family wedding trip. One from each fake couple attracted to the other, but trying to deny their feelings for the sake of the ruse.

A few things that I personally struggled with: The cast of characters was huge and a bit hard to keep straight in my mind from time to time. I didn’t really feel the chemistry that was supposedly there between the MCs, but luckily by the end I was rooting for them.

Thanks to netgalley and the publishers for the chance to review an advance copy.

There's something about Livy Hart's books that just hits for me, and "The Great Dating Fake Off" was no different. This is definitely one of my favorite books by her, and I couldn't put it down.

I thought this was an incredibly creative take on the fake dating trope and worked very well to create tension between the two leads. I also loved the "My Big Fat Greek Wedding" vibes of the whole thing. If there was a version of this book that focused on the bride and groom's POV of the week's events, I'd totally read that too.

I liked both Nora and Sebastian as characters and enjoyed how their backgrounds complemented each other. However, if I had one criticism of the book it would be that this backgrounds/past experiences (Sebastian's past relationship and Nora's upbringing) were mostly explored in narration. Neither Sebastrian nor Nora ever really discussed these things with the other. If they had, I think it would have added depth to the final conflict of the book.

I did have a little bit of difficulty keeping track of all the members of both large families and how they were related to the characters (especially since neither of the families were that of either of the protagonists). Family trees at the beginning of this book would have gone a loooooong way.

Also - I criticize a lot of books for lack of discussions around safe sex/contraception. I think this book proves that you can write very good spicy scenes that do not use condoms or contraception, while also still including discussions about consent, contraception, and risk before and during sex.

4 stars

Thank you NetGalley and Entangled for the eARC. All opinions are my own.