Can’t Help Faking in Love by Swati Hedge 4⭐️

🍓 Fake Dating
🍓 Slow Burn
🍓 Only One Bed
🍓 Family Expectations
🍓 “Intimacy” Practice

Harsha just got broken up with by what was supposed to be the perfect man. Now she has to figure out what she’s going to do for a plus one to her upcoming family events. Luckily, Veer is in the right place at the right time. Will this arrangement work out for them both or end in utter disaster?

This was a cute, lighthearted read! I really enjoyed watching Harsha and Veer develop feelings for each other. The romance was sweet and the yearning was SO GOOD! Veer is a sweetheart and totally down to earth. Even when they’re fake dating he’s so good to Harsha and his family. If you’re looking for a fun, quick read I highly recommend Can’t Help Faking in Love!

Thank you to NetGalley for the advanced copy. This is my honest review.

Can’t Help Faking in Love comes out 2/11!!

This was really cute! I always love a fake dating scheme!

Harsha was so sweet and lovely and I enjoyed seeing her blazing her own path in life, even if it wasn’t what her parents wanted for her. Her confidence in herself was one of my favorite things! And Veer was such a caring person. I loved how down to earth he is and how he supported Harsha in such sweet ways.

Thank you so much to Dell Romance and Netgalley for an early copy of this book!

This one was a fun read. I enjoyed the banter between Harsha and Veer. The way they learned to communicate and trust one another was really sweet to watch.

I do think it felt like something was off, which is what made me not rate it higher. It was an enjoyable read but it wasn't one of my favorites. I was not a fan of the family drama as it felt minor and it should have made more of an impact.

This was not a bad book by any means, just not one of my favorites.

Thank you to Ballantine and NetGalley for an eARC in exchange for an honest review.

Be prepared for a wild, hilarious ride!

Harsha Godbole has moved out from under her wealthy parent’s influence and is trying to make it on her own doing what she wants to—photography.
Harsha spent time studying in the United States but has moved back to Bangalore.
Her self centered, difficult parents (Wow!), Bollywood magnauts, want her to marry someone as rich as they are, preferably an arranged marriage like her cousin Neha.
When Harsha runs into her mean girl cousin who’s just become engaged to a successful, uptight neurosurgeon Dr. Rohan Jha, Neha decides Harsha’s companion must be her latest crush. He’s not! He’s the barista from Harsha’s favorite coffee haunt. Somehow in the confusion of the moment Harsha presents Veer Kennan as a district manager for the Suntag Coffee consortium.
Next thing we know Harsh’s paying Veer to be her fake boyfriend. Apart from the impeding craziness of it all, Veer’s been beside himself trying to work out how to pay his brother’s university fees. So against his better judgement it’s game on.
So as you can imagine the plot runs fast with anguish, humor and romance all twisted up against the backgrounds of our two main characters.
The plot, and subsequently my interest, never flagged. I read this in one fell swoop! I loved it!

A Random House ARC via NetGalley.
Many thanks to the author and publisher.
(Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.)

Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC!
This was a sweet, fun and quick read! I read it in less than a day. I enjoyed the quotes to start each chapter and I thought the fake dating trope was done well. I enjoyed my time with this one!

Thank you to Ballantine Books for providing this book for review via NetGalley. All opinions are my own.

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This was a nice story to read and I believe the first romance book I’ve read set in India. I enjoyed learning about different aspects of Indian culture and felt the descriptions made it easy to envision the settings and scenes in my head. While I wasn’t the biggest fan of Harsha throughout the book, I do believe in the relationship between her and Veer and don’t regret reading this story — especially any scene that included Harsha’s aunt. Everyone deserves to have a supportive and caring aunt like Harsha does.

I’m such a fan of desi romances. The families, the drama, the love stories. This one had Bollywood ties and who doesn’t love that ( boring people that’s who).

I love fake dating and this started with the two of them already knowing each other and being attracted. Her soon to be married cousin sees them together and Harsha lies about Veer being her bf and it’s all fun from there.

It’s always so disappointing when parents are unsupportive cause you aren’t following a certain career and treat you poorly. But luckily Harsha has an aunt who is her ally and the family events aren’t completely awful.

Loved her career development. It’s hard to make it on your own without family support when it’s available. That support had too many strings attached. Veer was a struggling actor working as a barista. I liked how he made contacts, it wasn’t what you’d expect knowing her uncle worked in the industry.

They had great chemistry and I always appreciate a one bed situation!

Do you love books about Indian weddings with a Bollywood feel? This is def the book for you. Meet Harsha. She’s a photographer who is trying to make it on her own without the help of her family who has ties to the Bollywood industry. Then meet Veer. He’s a barista at Harshas favorite coffee shop and an aspiring actor. When they are seen together at a club by Harshas cousin, the cousin (Neha) assumes they are dating and gossips to the family about the relationship and demands she come to the wedding. Harshas offers Veer a paid contract to fake date her for the wedding festivities, and Veer readily agrees. This was such a sweet book. I love the Indian culture that is woven throughout every page. The main and the secondary characters are very memorable and overall the book was super fun and a great read!

I requested to read and review this book for free from Dell an Imprint of Random House. This book I struggled at first to get into because I thought it would be your typical love story. It is a love story in some ways but also it's a story about loving yourself for who you are and who you want to be. How your family is who you want it to be whether that is family or people who you love like family. Harsha came from a wealthy family. But does that include being loved or is love conditional in her world? Veer saw what he thought was what love was like. But is possible he got it wrong. What love is for one person the same for someone else? Or can love be whatever you needed it to be? This book can be read anywhere and by a mature audience only.

Thank you to the publisher and netgalley for the arc of this book. All opinions are my own.

I really loved this one! I am not the best at writing reviews sometimes, but sometimes books take you by surprise and this one did just that. I got invested a few chapters in and couldn't put it done. It was so good! I highly recommend this one.

This heartwarming, feel-good romance novel is a perfect fit for readers who delight in stories that blend self-discovery, family bonds, and the transformative power of love with a touch of cultural richness. The narrative weaves a delightful tapestry of relatable characters navigating their personal journeys, discovering their heritage, and finding love in unexpected places. With vivid descriptions and authentic cultural details, the story transports readers to a world where traditions and modern life intertwine, creating a charming backdrop for a heartwarming romance that celebrates the power of love to bridge differences and bring people together.

In Can't Help Falling in Love, an effortlessly fun novel, we get to see the dual POV of Veer and Harsha as they navigate the ages-old fake dating trope. Harsha, the rich niece of a high profile Bollywood director and rich family, is living her life on her own merit as a photographer in Bangalore. That's where she meets Veer, the kind bartender at her favorite coffee place. When she's stuck in a position to bring a boyfriend she doesn't have to her aunt and uncle's anniversary party and her cousin's wedding - the only logical solution is to pay someone, Veer, to be her fake boyfriend.

This novel is another one filled with nostalgia for me. Having family in Bangalore, the mentions of MG Road and CTR instantly have me wanting to go back. I very much enjoyed getting to feel like I was there alongside the characters as the city of Bangalore was made into a character as well. Not to mention, I also felt represented by Veer who is a Tamilian like me.

While I wish we got a little more about the family members in Harsha and Veer's life, I did appreciate how their romance remained the central focus of the story. I also appreciated that the "misunderstanding" trope was not used in an inauthentic way and that the characters stayed true to their core throughout the novel.

This was an enjoyable, light, and breezy read and I gave it 4.25/5 stars. Thank you to Random House Publishing Group, Ballantine, Dell, and NetGalley for providing an ARC!

You gotta love a fake dating trope that's just a little different. Harsha comes from a wealthy albeit distant family and she's just been dumped by her vacuous boyfriend whose family has matched him with another woman. So who will she take to her cousin's wedding but Veer,, the barista who has been kind to her. There's more to both of them than it appears (especially Veer) but that doesn't mean the path to the HEA is easy (of course not!). Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC. This is light, it's fun, and it's well told.

Thank you to Netgalley for providing me with an ARC of this story.
SPOILERS TO FOLLOW

If you like slowburns, this is the slowest of slowburns but it is also very, very fucking sweet. Veer and Harsha are the cutest fake dating couple around and I loved their chemistry together. I've read another book by Swati (Match Me If You Can) and I think I enjoyed this one much more because these two characters communicated their feelings much quicker and less painfully than the characters in her other novel. The third act breakup I wouldn't even consider an actual breakup because Veer told her that that they would talk later and that they weren't done but he simply had to go (I won't say why since it's important) and Harsha had to stay for her own reasons so she couldn't go with him. I don't like when the third act breakup is just one big misunderstanding and thankfully that didn't happen here.

I liked this a lot. Definitely one of the best fake relationship romances I've read in a long time! I loved the setting, the characters and the plot! Very fun. Give this a try!!!

Can't Help Faking in Love comes out next week on February 11, 2025, and you can purchase HERE!
Harsha Godbole had never been dumped like this before.

She sat across from her now ex-boyfriend during their lunch date, a forkful of spaghetti midway to her mouth, as he explained that he was ending their three-month relationship to marry a complete stranger.

"I really like you, I do," Shashank insisted, sipping his iced americano. "But I was just introduced to a prospective match, and with all of my parents' life experience, they probably know enough to make the right choice for me, don't you think?”

I had to pick up Can't Help Faking in Love as soon as I read her first book Match Me if You Can coz I loved her writing and I needed more -- Can't Help... was so so good, it was the perfect mix of angsty and wholesome that I needed this week. The flirty everyday encounters (he's a barista, she's a regular) to fake dating (they were really boyfriend-ing and girlfriend-ing okay 😭) to lovers was so fun to read! And I loved reading about their respective careers/passions, it was such a well rounded book!

TWs - emotionally distant parents (FMC), parent who cheated and left (MMC)

-- ty to the author, the publisher and Netgalley for an advanced copy!

This book was not it for me. The premise was great, and I was hoping for good things after the author's first novel that I thought was cute. But the dialogue felt forced, there was nothing natural. Everything seemed really clunky and repetitive. The drama around her family as a side story was even unnatural and not fully fleshed out. I felt like things were thrown into the story to add some flair and they took away from the real story. Everything was awkward and unnatural. I finished it because I really wanted to like it, but even the way the couple came together at the end was bizarre. It had some redeeming qualities at the end, like how Harsha made up with her cousin and the heartwarming conversation with her aunt, but I didn't enjoy this otherwise.

This fake-relationship trope has become a fave of mine. Harsha’s family are rich and blah blah, she is the black sheep of the family and newly brokenhearted, she goes to her fave café where Veer works, and everything is a little better. Until her cousin sees them together and mistake’s Veer for being her boyfriend. And there we have it!!! But this is the thing Veer has feelings for her, and Harsha does as well, OH GOODNESS this romance between them is the smoothest and sweetest romance ever. I loved how quickly their characters develop through family issues and even their careers, I adored these two.

Thank you Netgalley and the Publishers for giving me the opportunity to read this book.

Cant Help Faking in Love by Swati Hegde is a charming and humorous love story filled with heartfelt moments. I found myself cheering for the characters from start to finish. This delightful tale left me yearning for more.

This book is not for me. It’s a matter of taste that has nothing to do with the quality of the book. It’s too new adult and too serious for me. I couldn’t relate to the characters.

Thanks, NetGalley, for the ARC.