I’ve been wanting to read Alexandria Bellefleur for a couple of years, so I was delighted to get an arc of The Fiancée Farce. It is an engagement of convenience story with shades of a Cinderella retelling. I really enjoyed it.
Tansy’s only remaining family is her step-mother and step-sisters. She manages the bookstore her parents owned, which her step-mother now owns because her father died suddenly when Tansy was still a minor. The bok opens at the wedding reception of one of Tansy’s step-sisters and the man who, when they were in high school, took nude pictures of Tansy, spread them around and then claimed she was obsessed with him. So those two are terrible people.
To get out of family dinners and make her life look less pathetic, Tansy has been telling people she is dating Gemma West, a romance cover model. Things get weird when Gemma West walks into the wedding reception and is the black sheep cousin of the horrible groom’s family. when she learns that she has been “dating” Tansy for 6 months, she not only goes along with it, she proposes marriage. Gemma needs to get married to fulfill the terms of her grandfather’s will and take over the family newspaper business, and Tansy needs money to buy the bookstore from her step-mother. The romance that blossoms between them is sweet and tender.
Gemma comes with a group of close friends who are always happy to join in on possibly illegal shenanigans. The friends kept reminding me of the mice from the Disney movie who are turned into footmen, and one of them, possibly in a nod to Cinderella’s French origins, speaks mostly French. There isn’t a fairy godmother, Tansy and Gemma rescue themselves.
I’m really looking forward to reading Bellefleur’s backlist. This was delightful.
CW: death of parents and grand parents in past, toxic families, distribution of nude pictures of a minor in past, humiliation, betrayal.
I received this as an advance reader copy from Avon and Harper Voyager and NetGalley. My opinions are my own, freely and honestly given.