When the maid of honor and the best man fabricate a romance to keep the peace, the only thing they can’t fake are the sparks.
Lucy Jones is tired of being the “other sister.” Elizabeth is the golden child—beautiful, serene, and engaged to the perfect man. Lucy? She’s thirty, single, and still dodging her mother’s digs about how she never quite measures up. But when Elizabeth names Lucy as her maid of honor, she vows her sister’s wedding will be her grand rebrand. She’ll prove she’s polished, sophisticated, and totally in control.
Enter Hunter Bain. Best man. Business bro. Walking scowl emoji. Also the rudest, most aggravating man Lucy has ever met—and her new partner in planning the joint bachelor/bachelorette weekend. Fantastic. Because nothing says “reinvent yourself” like clashing with a man who thinks party planning is beneath him.
From drunken disasters to shenanigans on Martha’s Vineyard, Lucy and Hunter can’t stop butting heads. Until one impulsive lie forces them to pretend they’re dating. It’s supposed to be temporary. It’s supposed to be fake. But every lingering glance, every stolen kiss, every unexpected laugh makes it harder to remember what’s real and what’s not.
Full of sharp banter, slow-burn tension, and laugh-out-loud chaos, The Deal Maker is a swoony enemies-to-lovers rom-com about messy families, fake relationships, and finding love when you least expect it.
This title is a standalone, and it's a great chance to introduce yourself to this author, if you haven't already. The characters are fun, and some of them are awful, but all of them are engaging and no one feels like they are extra and could have been left
Lucy and Hunter dislike one another from their initial meeting, and one of the challenges I have about the enemies to lovers is not believing that they would dislike one another, or that they wouldn't be able to get past the reasons for their dislike: this book had neither issue. I believed in the reason they didn't like one another, and I believed in their evolution as a couple.
I enjoyed the way the author paralleled the growth of both Lucy and Hunter as they realized some things about themselves that allowed them to see things a lot differently. Exactly what this is would be a spoiler, but I can say it really made the story work for me.
