Review: Fake It by Jennifer Chance
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 07 13, 2014
Jennifer Chance's debut novel, Rock It, featuring Lacey and Dante totally blew me away. I immediately added her to my list of must-read authors. I have been eagerly waiting for FAKE IT, the second book in the Rule Breakers series, about Lacey's workaholic friend, Anna Richardson and their hot neighbor, Jake Flynn. Finally it's out and I am happy to say I was not a bit disappointed! It was such a great read I didn't mind one bit that I lost sleep finishing it. Lol. Anna and Jake were completely worth it!!Anna is a great character I couldn't help but cheer on. She had some rough years at home as a teenager and has made it her mission in life for neither her or her mother to ever be in that situation again. With all that ambition she doesn't have a lot of time to give to a relationship. She thought she'd found the perfect guy in her coworker, Todd. He was handsome, as driven as her, successful, and they worked well together. He told her she was his perfect number two right up until he took a position on the opposite coast and dumped her, saying a long distance relationship was too hard and he wanted to be able to explore his options. To save face and hold off her matchmaking friends she invents a sexy and successful new boyfriend, Dave. This works fairly well until she's expected to bring the new guy along with her to her best friend from college's wedding. Not ready to admit she's been lying for the past six months she enlists her roommates to help her find a guy willing to fake being in a relationship with her in exchange for a weekend at the beach. Problem being, she's waited to the last minute and is pretty desperate to find someone who can live up to the paragon she's invented.Jake Flynn is Anna's tall, dark and sexy new neighbor who's had her full attention ever since he moved in. He's had a starring role in her fantasies even though he's not at all her usual type. He rides a motorcycle, spends his days working on them and is a live for the moment kind of guy. Hot as hell, but bad boy through and through. So even when Jake volunteers to be Anna's "Dave" she's not so sure he can pull off the corporate type she's described to her friends, and even if he can, she's not so sure she can resist falling for him. He's definitely too dangerous to her peace of mind.Jake has been having some fantasies of his own and jumps at the chance to spend a weekend in close quarters with Anna. A temporary arrangement is fine by him because he's not the settling down kind of guy. Jake went through some rough times of his own and doesn't think he can ever offer the stability and security a woman like Anna needs. He doesn't think she'd want anything to do with him if she knew his past, but he's more than willing to help the beautiful and curvy Anna unwind and enjoy some good times in the present together.These two are definitely a case of opposites attracting and filling in the parts missing in the other. Their sexual attraction has been accumulating for six months and let me tell you it explodes!! They are so into each other they have no problem convincing Anna's friends that what's going on between them is real. No, their problem is they fall hard and fast, can't keep their hands off each other, can't imagine their life without the other once the weekend is over. but don't know how to work past their differences. Jake is free-spirited and lives for the day while Anna is uptight and sacrifices today in order to secure her future. Ms. Chance does a fabulous job of drawing the reader into the heart of her characters and their plight. She does it with wit, great dialogue, well-developed and likable characters, and a writing style that is comfortable to read while we settle in for her entertaining story.My only issue was the age of the characters. They seemed too mature, not so much in their life experience, but in the way they handled themselves to be as young as they were. Jake seemed too comfortable in his own skin, knew himself too well, and behaved in ways that didn't sit right with me to attribute them to a twenty-four year old man. I felt the same about Anna at twenty-three and all she'd accomplished, but not quite to the same degrees as Jake. IMHO these two seemed at least in their late twenties. Every time their young age was mentioned it threw me, but not so much that I didn't love it from beginning to end! 4 stars~Complimentary copy received via NetGalley in exchange for a honest review.