Fake Love by Jocelyne Soto {a review} ~ What Laura's Reading

Maddox Bauer is the type of man I wish I could spend the rest of my life with.

Jocelyne Soto released Fake Love on October 13, 2022. This book features a professional baseball player who has seemingly hit rock bottom, has been given a fresh start, and has met a woman who has deeply affected his life. Fake Love features the instalove trope, the fake relationship trope, and a bit of the workplace trope. This book was so dang good, I honestly could not put it down.

Maddox and Jen's introduction was one that was just supposed to be for a night. It wasn't supposed to be anything else. Except when Maddox returned to San Francisco, Jen immediately came to mind to handle his social media, and become his fake girlfriend. Meanwhile Jen was busy living her life, and finally deciding to make the jump to becoming a full time social media manager. She just needed to find her first client.

My rating for Fake Love:

Fake Love was full of emotional moments. It was a roller coaster ride that took us through drug addiction, a parent's health issue, being traded from Chicago to San Francisco, and entering into a fake relationship that would change their lives. Everything that happened after the relationship was created had me unwilling to put the book down. I had to know what was going to happen. What would be the breaking point? What would cause the conflict between Maddox and Jen? How would they reunite? How would they heal their relationship, and move forward?

The drug addiction was difficult to read, but witnessing Maddox go through everything that he did garnered a lot of sympathy. I say that because Maddox was not my favorite character. His actions didn't sit right with me, and while I could understand the heartache he was dealing with, and the grief he was feeling, I couldn't understand his reasoning behind his choices. I will say that as the story progressed my opinion of Maddox did change. Maybe it was seeing his eyes open at everything he could lose.

When it comes to Jen, I did like her character. For the most part. She was strong, passionate, sympathetic, and she was determined. Jen knew everything that Maddox was dealing with. She saw the man behind the mask, and fell in love with him regardless. Now I will say that I didn't like the fact that her job just disappeared and wasn't really mentioned, but I'll just assume that was happening in the background and therefore it wasn't necessary to mention.

The scene at the aquarium had me on edge for a moment. You see as that date was playing out, and a photo was snapped, my mind went to the worst case scenario. I thought for sure that it was going to wind up for everyone to see, and that there would be a gigantic fall out from that. If you caught my update on Goodreads, it was about this scene!

Let's talk about the conflict between Jen and Maddox. That was not what I was expecting at all. But when you look at everything that was shared in the story up until that point, it makes sense. It does. The fight or flight also makes 100% sense. I was not expecting our main character from Powerful Deception to make an appearance. Dante had a major influence in all of this, and so that cross over was interesting to read.

Jocelyne Soto created a wonderful story. Fake Love was emotional, it was steamy, and I could not put it down. Also getting to catch up with previous characters always puts a smile on my face.

If you were paying attention in the story, then you may have noticed the set up for a few new books. There is Lucas’s story, as well as that new hockey romance series! I am loving the stories that Jocelyne creates, and she is working her way on to my auto-buy author list.

Go grab Fake Love. It is one of those books that just grabs hold, makes you tear up a bit, and has you rooting for a happily ever after.

Happy Reading,
Laura

Amazon | Goodreads

I had everything going for me.

Drafted right out of college. Signed a multimillion dollar contract. Slated to become a hall of famer.

All my prospects were looking up… Until a diagnosis caused me to ruin everything.

It took me a season to destroy my career and now I have to work to repair it.

Step 1 : Get clean.

Step 2 : Show my new team that their investment isn’t a waste.

Step 3 : Find a woman and convince her to be my fake girlfriend and make my mom happy.

1 and 2, I got a handle on. Step 3 is turning out to be a lot harder than I thought. Finding a woman was a piece of cake, convincing her is a different story.

Jen Zaragosa is hardheaded, feisty, and a pain in my behind. But even with her being all those things, I start to fall for her

And hard.

This started out as something to make my mom happy and it’s turning into me planning our future together.

Jen is my grand slam and there is nothing fake about it.

*FAKE LOVE IS A COMPLETE STANDALONE. THIS STORY DOES CONTAIN CONTENT WARNINGS, FOR MORE INFORMATION PLEASE VISIT THE AUTHOR'S WEBSITE.*