The Fiancee Farce

A Novel

By: Alexandria Bellefleur

Narrated by: Lauren Sweet

Lambda Literary award winner and national bestselling author Alexandria Bellefleur returns with a steamy sapphic rom-com about a quiet bookseller and a romance novel cover model who agree to a modern-day marriage of convenience...

Tansy Adams’ greatest love is her family’s bookstore, passed down from her late father. But when it comes to actual romance… Tansy can’t get past the first chapter. Tired of her stepfamily’s questions about her love life, Tansy invents Gemma, a fake girlfriend inspired by the stunning cover model on a bestselling book. They’ll never actually meet, so what’s the harm in a little fib? Yet when real-life Gemma crosses Tansy’s path, her white lie nearly implodes.

Gemma van Dalen is a wild child, the outcast of her wealthy family, and now the latest heir to Van Dalen Publishing. But the title comes with one tiny condition: she must be married in order to inherit. When Gemma discovers a beautiful stranger has been pretending to date her for months, she decides to take the charade one step further—and announces their engagement.

Gemma needs a wife to meet the terms of her grandfather’s will and Tansy needs money to save her struggling bookstore. A marriage could be mutually beneficial, if they can fool everyone into thinking it’s a love match. Unexpected sparks fly as Tansy and Gemma play the role of affectionate fiancées, and suddenly the line between convenient arrangement and real feelings begins to blur. But the scheming Van Dalen family won’t give up the company without a fight, and Gemma and Tansy’s newfound happiness might get caught in the fallout…

©2023 Alexandria Bellefleur (P)2023 HarperCollins Publishers

It’s missing some magic

I couldn’t love this author’s first three books any more, so I had really high hopes for this one. But it just didn’t have the same magic! The characters felt a little flatter, the story felt slow and then rushed, and it was missing the *spice* of her first books. I still enjoyed it, but it just didn’t quite capture me the same way.

found it funny and perfectly sweet! loved

I am always looking for a story to take me for a ride! funny, smart and very cute in more ways than one. thank you!

Sweet

Great narration. Two wonderful characters who are kind, sweet, and intelligent. I loved this book.

The best!!!

I could not stop listening. By far one of my favorite sapphic reads. I highly recommend!

Overall a really great story.

I loved pretty much everything about this story. It was easy to get sucked into the story and to get attached to the characters. The performance was flawless and easily made me forget that I was listening to an audiobook and not actually witnessing the story as it unfolded. My only complaint probably has more to do with my impatience and less to do with the author’s writing, but I felt like rather often she would take a day and a half expressing the characters internal monologue and every single thought before getting to the point the paragraph was trying to make. Personally if the author has already established that a character is shy or lacks confidence, I don’t need 4 or more paragraphs relating every single worry, thought and fear going through a character’s mind before they gather their nerve and burst through a door to confront their antagonist or fight for what they want. Once I got past the parts that made me wait longer than we’ve had to wait for season 2 of “House of the Dragon,” to find out what happens next, I was extremely happy with the storyline and the conclusion of the book. Overall I would give it a 4.9/5 and definitely recommend it. It will probably be a 5/5 for anyone with more patience than me.

Great narrator

I thought the narrator did a GREAT job on this one. Every character she portrayed she had a different voice for and did really well. A lot of times I get annoyed with single narrators but this lady was excellent.

As for the story it's cute and I thought was written well. marriage of convenience tropes aren't usually my favorite so I'm still getting past that. 😅

Loved it

Lovable characters, funny sweet and plot twisting. Perfect! Cant wait to have the book
In my hands

Clever plot

Lesbian protagonists, believable conflicts, predictable antagonists, surprise twists, good character interpretations by the reader—each character recognizable by the changes in voice.

great narrator

always eye roll inducing to have ultra elite wealthy be human and kind. Add in that the ending literally involved someone making rich people feel human with mere words followed by a crowd literally clapping and cheering and the eye rolling hit the levels of medically concerning.

Slightly spicy but oh so passionate queer story that had my heart fluttering in the best way possible!

I loved everything about this book. At the end I didn’t care what happened with VDP as long as the two main characters admitted their love for each other. I cried in the end.