As a debut author, Sarah Smith makes a good-hearted attempt at an enemies-to-lovers romantic comedy between two coworkers who can’t stand each other but find their way to one another after an on-site accident. She absolutely excelled in the character development of Tate and Emmie. Throughout the book, you get a good sense of these characters: who they were, who they are, how they think, how and why they interact with others. This could have been excellent groundwork for a compelling story; however, “Faker” seemed to fall flat in overall delivery.

As her first book, Sarah’s seemingly novice writing style is evident, distracting readers with repetitive word choices throughout the story. While this might be more obvious to an experienced reader, even those who are new to the genre can easily notice the glaring plot holes. For example, Emmie is supposedly dating Jamie, yet he vanishes for a significant portion of the book as Emmie begins to fall for Tate, only to reappear randomly by sending a teddy bear. This might be overlooked, but Tate’s whiplash behavior was the dealbreaker for me. Understanding that he is introspective and an introvert helps, but his behavior still makes his character difficult to embrace. A dual POV might have improved the book, but being limited to Emmie’s perspective makes it hard for Sarah to redeem Tate, especially when Jamie comes across as a more likable character.

Overall, the steamy scenes show effort but fail to sizzle, the story’s slow burn comes with an attitude problem, making it hard to maintain focus on the narrative, and the sudden appearances and extended absences of secondary characters lead you to question their relevance. Sarah has a decent foundation and her next story may iron out the kinks of this one, but for those who truly love a good enemies-to-lovers tale, this was not it.