Asher is dumped at the airport right before he and his boyfriend are meant to fly out to compete in a reality TV show. Theo is a pilot with too many hours under his belt, and is thus grounded for weeks with a note that he needs to prove he can do work/life balance. The two meet up in an airport restaurant and decide to fake a relationship for this reality show, helping them both with their problems.

Strangers to lovers, fake dating, reality TV – it’s a series of tropes that should work well. And at first, it did. Only after awhile, I started to notice weird inconsistencies in the story – conversations that happened more than once, for instance, with prose that matched up almost word for word. Everything grew far more formulaic than I would expect even from a romance novel. It was as if there were a series of scenes written, then changed just slightly and re-jiggered back into the book. There are only so many times you can have sex for the first time, you know? But these two managed it at least twice, possibly three times (and yes, I mean the same specific act). It was strange. Then there would be moments where, mid-scene, we would just switch to a later moment in time as if everything was resolved, leaving me to wonder if I’d accidentally hit the skip-ahead button on my audiobook.

Overall, despite the cute premise, I was left with the impression of a book that felt like a first draft, complete with all sorts of first draft issues like repeating/moved scenes and unresolved sections. It didn’t feel finished or polished. Since this is my first book by this author, I don’t know if this is normal for him. I have a few others of his on my to-investigate list, but I’ll be proceeding with an abundance of caution, just in case.

Performance: The audio was read by Michael Crouch and Lee Osorio. I have no complaints!