Blog Tour Review: Faking It With the Grump by Kate O’Keeffe

Posted March 14, 2023 by Lisa Mandina in Blog Tour, Review / 10 Comments

I received this book for free from Wildfire Marketing PR in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

Blog Tour Review:  Faking It With the  Grump by Kate O’KeeffeFaking It With the Grump by Kate O'Keeffe
Series: Second Chance Café #1
Published by Wild Lime Books on March 14, 2023
Genres: Adult Contemporary Romance, Adult Romantic Comedy
Pages: 318
Source: Wildfire Marketing PR
Format: E-galley
My Rating: three-half-stars
Goodreads

Blurb:

He’s grumpy, boring, and thinks it’s okay to wear a suit and tie to a small town bar full of lumberjacks. But when I kiss him? Let’s just say I wasn’t expecting THAT.

Harper
It’s one thing to be dumped by the huge Hollywood star you thought you were going to marry. It’s quite another to move back to the small town you’re both from.

As a booby prize for being shown the door by Dex Ryder, everyone is trying to set me up with their son, their nephew, or their long-lost cousin’s gardener. Either that or they’re throwing me pitying looks that say, “You’re a big loser.”

I’m not going to put up with their patronizing sympathy anymore.

So, when I spot new-guy-in-town Christopher Young, I set out to make him mine. Or you know, pretend to make him mine. I’m still in a horrible funk over Dex, and Christopher is an uptight grump. Not exactly my type.

The fact that despite appearances, he’s gorgeous and doing weird things to my blood pressure doesn’t mean a thing.

Really.

Not. A. Thing.

Christopher
Hunter’s Creek, population next to nothing, is the reason I work all the time. I’m solely focused on buying the town’s lumber mill so I can go back to NYC and get my big promotion. This small town is a means to an end. Nothing more.

That is until the prettiest girl I’ve ever seen superglues her lips to mine in an unexpected and very public way. She’s not the kind of woman I usually go for with her boho dress and ankle boots, but that kiss…

I’m disappointed when she comes up for air and tells me it’s all for show. But if Harper Cole wants me to be her fake boyfriend while I’m here in town, who am I to turn her down? Being attached to a local might ingratiate me to the townsfolk and make my job that much the easier.

After all, dating Harper can only be make believe. Not when my entire future is at stake.

Faking It With The Grump is a grumpy-sunshine, opposites attract, fake relationship romance set in the small town of Hunter’s Creek, Washington. It’s the first book in the new Second Chance Café series. Each book follows a different sister’s love story and can be read as a standalone novel or as part of a series.

Buy Link:

https://books2read.com/FakingWithGrump

My Review

Okay, so I’d been wanting to read a book by this author for a while. I was finally able to jump in on a tour and see what I thought. To be honest, this is going to be a mixed bag of a review.

Let’s start with the good stuff. I did really like the story line, the small town, the characters, and there was some cute banter. There was a lot of things that I think were realistic in how people reacted or behaved in certain situations. Something that I know I often complain about how people don’t do things realistically. When I finished the book, it was with a smile, and a thought that I wouldn’t mind reading the next book and knowing what Harper’s sister’s story would end up being.

On the negative side, I had some issues with some of the writing itself. There was a ton of the telling instead of showing, and I got to where I was kind of skipping/skimming quickly through sections to just get to actual action. Once in awhile I would then have to skip back up a few paragraphs to get a detail I was missing for the story as it went on. But otherwise, I did kind of speed through the second half of the book since I was doing that. Not that the second half was bad! I mean like I said, it did make me think I might want to read another book to keep up with these characters. The other negative for me was I did not like how he reacted to her decision that gave us that final bit of drama. I mean yeah, we needed that separation, but he was the one who told her she gave to much of herself. I did like how though even when she would wonder if she’d done the right thing, she also would then come back to remember that she was doing it for herself, which made me respect her.

Overall a cute story. And I might possibly read more in this series in the future if I have time.

About the Author

Kate O’Keeffe is a USA TODAY bestselling and award-winning author who writes exactly what she loves to read: laugh-out-loud romantic comedies with swoon-worthy heroes and gorgeous feel-good happily ever afters. She lives and loves in beautiful Hawke’s Bay, New Zealand with her family and two scruffy but loveable dogs.

When she’s not penning her latest story, Kate can be found hiking up hills (slowly), traveling to different countries around the globe (back when we used to be able to do that), and eating chocolate. A lot of it.

Right now, Kate is working on the fourth and final title in her hugely popular laugh-out-loud rom com series, It’s Complicated. Never Fall for Your One that Got Away is out on July 30th. Find out more here.

To learn more about Kate and her books, visit here

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