Jackie Lau’s new novella, GRUMPY FAKE BOYFRIEND (Kwan Sisters #1), has good bones. It stands out for its Toronto setting and a Chinese-Canadian heroine who has a diverse friend group. All things we don’t see enough of in the romance world.
Naomi, the heroine, is looking forward to spending a long weekend at a lake house with three sets of couple friends, one of which includes her ex and his new girlfriend. Not wanting to be the only single person on this trip, she gets her brother to enlist the help of his reclusive writer buddy Will Stafford to pose as her boyfriend for the weekend. Forced proximity, ahoy!
Written in alternating first person, Naomi’s early chapters read like a high school diary, way younger than her late 20’s age. Will is a grumpy introvert writer who’d rather avoid people. They bicker (and I mean bicker, this is not banter) the whole way to the lake house. Frankly, I wanted to kick both of them out of the car. Things improve once they arrive. It’s showtime.
The second act at the lake house is the strongest section of the story. We meet Naomi’s friends including her ex Jordan, and his new girlfriend. Their overzealous PDA turns into a battle of who can be more lovey-dovey. All in all, it feels more like New Adult than adult contemporary romance to me.
One of the couples on the trip is planning a wedding and over the course of the weekend, the group ends up talking about and playing Chinese wedding games. Lau integrates cultural elements seamlessly, it never seems gratuitous or like she’s trying to make a point. As many of us hapa kids can attest, most of the time you don’t go around consciously thinking about this stuff every minute of the day, it’s just part of your life and experience.
GRUMPY FAKE BOYFRIEND pretty quickly turns into instalove. One of my least favorite tropes. I’m all about everyone deserving a happily ever after, but I just didn’t buy how fast it happened. If anything, for Naomi, it’s rebound, and Will? Well, his dry spell just ended, so it’s probably more like insta-lust.
Asian-(North) American leads are still rare enough in adult romance that I’ll be watching to see how the series develops. Mr. Hotshot CEO, book #2 in the series, is due out in July.
3 stars
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