What happens when a quiet bookstore owner is offered a marriage of convenience by none other than the newspaper heiress who moonlights as Tansy’s favourite romance cover model? The Fiancée Farce starts off with just that premise. Meet Tansy, whose only love of her life so far is her family’s bookstore which will be sold if she can’t come up with the funds to save it. Enter Gemma, the gorgeous woman who just inherited her grandfather’s gigantic newspaper company—the only problem with that? To take full ownership, Gemma has to be married. What neither of them expects is that the mutually beneficial agreement may just turn into a once in a lifetime opportunity for epic love.
I don’t know how she does it, but Bellefleur’s romances always feel effortlessly charming—you feel invested in the characters and get sucked into the story from the get-go, so much so that you sometimes completely forget you’re reading a book at all.
We have book-loving Tansy who might come across as timid but is actually one of the fiercest women to grace literature. Then we have Gemma, the gorgeous heiress who has a sharp tongue and even sharper claws when you hurt the ones she loves. Together, these two made for the perfectly imperfect match. All their interactions were infused with sexual tension and incredible chemistry. Add to that the slow exploration of their backstories that made them who they are today and you have characters you can’t help but root for. I mean, truly, this book is a feast for fans of slow burn. While I admit that certain elements of their backstories were perhaps reiterated a tad too often, especially in the middle, I do feel like it drove the point home how much both Tansy and Gemma were looking for something real.
There’s of course also the greater scheme at hand with Gemma and Tansy trying to keep their marriage of convenience—or, well, engagement of convenience—from being exposed all while they’re developing real feelings for another. There are quite a few roadblocks ahead and opportunistic weasels who exploit them but, as you can guess, true love perseveres in the end, just what we need. Give me more sapphic romance where the happy moments outweigh the sad ones, please. My soul needs it.
If you’re looking for a delightful sapphic romcom with an enchanting cast of characters, gorgeous Taylor Swift references and a marriage of convenience we know all too well always goes awry, then The Fiancée Farce is the perfect read for you!
The Fiancée Farce is available from Amazon, Book Depository, and other good book retailers, like your local bookstore, as of April 18th.
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Synopsis | Goodreads
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…
