Review: Love, Lies, and Cherry Pie

Love, Lies, and Cherry Pie by Jackie Lau
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

4.5 Stars

If you like the 'Fake Dating' romance, I think you are going to love this book. It has everything you would expect and then just a touch more. A couple of interesting twists had me powering through this novel even though, at first, I was skeptical. I did not like Emily Hung very much; I thought she was childish and ditzy. But the more I got to know and understand her, the more I liked and rooted for her. I also have to remember that I am older than the cast in this novel, and that may have colored my idea of her...if you know what I mean.

I also learned (and thank you for that) a lot about the writing and publishing industry that I never knew since Emily is an author.

The book's first half is written from Emily's point of view, and I expected the entire novel to be written that way. However, the author surprised me by switching to a back-and-forth point of view with Mark. I liked this very much, knowing what Mark was feeling.

So yes, you get your meet badly, then you need to keep Mom happy, so let's fake-date. Uh oh, I'm falling for this person. Oops, let's think about breaking up, and then tada!!!!

Yeah, it's a perfect light, fun romance novel just right for the summer!

ARC was supplied by the publisher Atria/Emily Bestler Books/Simon & Schuster, the author, and Edelweiss/ATTL.


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SYNOPSIS:"A charming rom-com about a young woman’s desperate attempts to fend off her meddling mother…only to find that maybe mother does know best.

Mark Chan this. Mark Chan that.

Writer and barista Emily Hung is tired of hearing about the great Mark Chan, the son of her parents’ friends. You’d think he single-handedly stopped climate change and ended child poverty from the way her mother raves about him. But in reality, he’s just a boring, sweater-vest-wearing engineer, and when they’re forced together at Emily’s sister’s wedding, it’s obvious he thinks he’s too good for her.

But now that Emily is her family’s last single daughter, her mother is fixated on getting her married and she has her sights on Mark. There’s only one solution, clearly : convince Mark to be in a fake relationship with her long enough to put an end to her mom’s meddling. He reluctantly agrees.

Unfortunately, lying isn’t enough. Family friends keep popping up at their supposed dates—including a bubble tea shop and cake-decorating class—so they’ll have to spend more time together to make their relationship look real. With each fake date, though, Emily realizes that Mark’s not quite what she assumed and maybe that argyle sweater isn’t so ugly after all…"