This is becoming one of my favorite series. I like the setting of Seaside/Monterey. I especially like how the heroines in the series are strong women who support each other. This time, we get Sarah, who works at Bliss, a lingerie store. Her romantic interest–well, the attractive guy, but a jerk–is Jared.
Jared is a fairly typical romantic hero, in that he is gruff on the outside for personal reasons, but the heroine can really get him going. His character had more depth than Sarah. It felt like her backstory was a little less fleshed-out, and I wished that her brother and sister had played a bigger part. As it was, they were mentioned off-handedly as a plot point but didn’t have much else to do.
Of course, you know from the title that there is a “fake date” involved, this time to an engagement party in San Francisco. The couple has to work through some family-related stumbling blocks and, as usual, there are a few misunderstandings. I thought the characters involved with the engagement party were interesting because they were not the stereotypical type one might find. There was no bitchiness (which was refreshing).
But there is a HEA. Overall, it is an enjoyable book with good characters, and I look forward to the next in the series. I was really happy to see that Jared’s sister Candice is getting a story, but there are plenty of gals left to match up!
