Faker

Forever Family Trilogy, Book 3

By: Kiki Clark

Narrated by: Liam DiCosimo

Falling for your straight best friend while he pretends to be your boyfriend is something not even Samuel would be foolish enough to do.

And yet...

All Samuel wanted was to not show up to his ex's wedding alone, but his friend Will has a better idea: go as fake boyfriends to make him jealous.

What could possibly go wrong?

Well, for starters, Samuel’s ex knows Will isn’t gay. Of course, Will has a solution for that too.

They’ll just have to convince him. By whatever means necessary.

As the big day approaches—and he and Will keep practicing how to pull off their charade—Samuel’s not sure he’ll make it through the wedding festivities without losing some of his dignity.

And maybe his best friend.

Faker is the final installment in the Forever Family Trilogy but can be enjoyed on its own. It features a 30-something former marine who maybe likes pretending more than he should, a 20-something social worker trying his hardest not to forget none of it’s real, practice dates with more PDA than sense, and the use of praise in very creative ways.

©2023 Kiki Clark (P)2024 Kiki Clark

Super Sweet!

I really enjoyed the fact that these two got together pretty quick and there wasn’t a whole lot of drama in doing so.
I loved their pumpkin patch and movie dates and how they kept the tradition alive years later as well.

Not gonna lie, the ending absolutely made me cry! I wish we’d gotten a chance to see Rune feel more comfortable there, with them and their snack cabinet but I loved it so much!!

Couch Cuddles!

I really enjoyed this narrated version by Liam DiCosimo! I loved how easily Will was able to jump in and be a fake boyfriend for his best friend Samuel. Poor Samuel had not been treated right by his ex and Samuel wants to move past it. Will treated Samuel good and even though he did have a realistic bit of a time figuring out his newfound attraction to his friend everything stayed sweet and angst free between. Quick and easy listen.

Will❤️Samuel

This was a fun listen. I loved how dedicated the friendship between Samuel and Will is, these two are very close which raises the stakes a bit on starting a relationship. The author is able to successfully pull together so many fun tropes, with best friends to lovers, roommates to lovers, fake dating, only one be, and bi-awakening all in the mix. Will and Samuel’s story was crazy entertaining, had a really engaging performance by the narrator, and just the right blend of sweet and steam.

I voluntarily reviewed a complimentary copy of this audiobook.

The best kind of pretend

Being invited to Brad’s wedding, Samuel doesn’t want to go alone. When his best friend and roommate Will steps up and wants to pretend to be his date, Samuel knows no one will believe their little lie.
With a bit of practice, their pretending becomes a little too real and they quickly realise that they are meant for each other.

This is a very short listen but Liam does this story justice. With great vocalisation of the characters, we get to see them get their HEA and a peak into their future.

Best friends fall in love!

I'm a sucker for best friends to lovers stories, and Will and Samuel's was such a treat to listen to. Their journey was pretty short with a straightforward fake boyfriends-turned-real plotline, but I felt as invested in the characters as I do during a full-length read. Poor Samuel had completely convinced himself that he had no shot with Will, and even when their practice dates turned into something more he kept waiting for him to change his mind. Will was remarkably sure about his newfound sexuality for someone who'd never been attracted to a man before, and I was here for his surety in contrast to Samuel's anxious stressing. The two of them had amazing chemistry when they finally allowed themselves to explore it, and with a foundation of friendship to build their romantic relationship upon there was minimal angst once they decided to take the leap. I especially adored the extended epilogue five years down the line--getting to see these two build up their unconventional family was everything I didn't know I needed to send them off on their happily ever after.

Faking never felt so real

Will and Sam finally get their story!

Throughout this series, I was intrigued with Will and Sam both. They were kind of on the fringes of the friend group as Will only moves to town at the end of Favor (book 1) and Sam is much younger than others, having been Declan's foster son (he's 6 years younger than Jeremy, Dec's husband).

Will buys Jeremy's house and invites Sam to live with him. Sam jumps on the chance to move out of his mom's house in exchange for a low rent so he can get some independence and still pay on his student loans. What he fails to consider is just how hard it will be for him to be so close with the object of his crush, the (supposedly) very straight Will.

Will loves having Sam around and they become best friends. When he finds out that Sam's awful ex has invited him to his wedding, Will's protective instincts go into overdrive. He comes up with a plan to pose as Sam's boyfriend at the destination wedding.

Between practice dates and practice cuddles, Sam realizes that he can't handle pretending with Will when he longs for the real thing with his best friend. Just as Sam starts to pull away, WIll realizes that maybe he isn't so straight after all, at least not where Sam is concerned.

Like the other books in the series, the MCs stumble over miscommunications and misunderstandings on their way to their HEA, but it's so sweet and worth the journey when they get there. The steam doesn't hit until near the end of this short story, but when it does... yowza. Sam is inexperienced and Will is only too happy to teach him all the pleasures they can give each other. I adored both Will's protectiveness and earnestness with Sam and Sam's innocence and sweet nature. These guys adored each other and only wanted the best for one another, even if that meant putting their own desires on hold. Lucky for them, it turns out they ultimately want the same thing.

I think this is the end of the series and I'm sad to say goodbye to these guys, but I'll definitely visit for re-listens. As always, I love Liam DiCosimo as a narrator and Kiki's writing never disappoints!

Perfect

I love a good fake relationship trope! This story was so good! Sam and Will are perfect together. Will has his work cut out for him trying to convince Sam that he is worth it but it made the HEA that much better. And the narration was really good too.

Enjoyed!

Liam DiCosimo does a great job of bringing Fake by Kiki Clark to life.
This was a wonderful friend to lovers, fake relationship story that I so enjoyed listening to.
This story has everything I love — friends to lovers, first times, only one bed, and protective main characters and I gobbled it up. Samuel and Will are perfect together, and I loved their story.

Competently written

I’m not going to complain that this book, like all modern romance novels, is nothing but a collection of tropes. Friends to lovers, bi-awakening, fake boyfriends, it’s like someone picked a bunch of candy hearts out of a jar and those were the words written on them. I’m also not going to complain that every so often the action stops dead so the author can lecture us on the Issue of the Day™ such as informed consent or whatever. Because again, that’s every romance novel written after 2020.

Ok in reality I’m going to complain a little about both those things because I already did. But I’m not going to complain MUCH about them. What I am going to mention is that the m/m romance genre suffers greatly, and this book has a PARTICULARLY bad case of it, from being written both by and for women, and as a result can be described as anywhere from unrealistic to borderline homophobic.

Samuel, in this book, basically IS a woman. You could replace him with a female character and, with surprisingly few edits such as removing Will questioning his sexuality, you’d have the same book. In fact, in all the gay relationships in the book, and I’m assuming these are from the other books in the series, there seems to be one “man” archetype and one “woman” archetype, and I just have to wonder, does this author actually know any male couples? Because our relationships don’t actually work like that, and I thought we’d left the question “so which one of you is the ‘woman’” somewhere in the past.

What’s worse, it seems like in every relationship in this book, the gay character is the “woman” and the bisexual character is the “man.” This is also something completely divorced from reality, and quite honestly pretty insulting. Actually I’m not sure where female authors got the idea that most male couples must consist of one gay man and one bisexual, because that’s not really all that common a situation in reality.

But whatever, I guess that’s what you get when you read “bi-awakening” novels, which used to be called “gay for you” and were perfectly fine pieces of romance novel fluff until someone somewhere got the idea that they needed to legitimize them somehow and now every one of them has a scene where the straight guy has to ruminate on how fluid sexuality actually is, eyeroll.

Anyway sorry, I’m becoming super jaded as a gay man reading gay fiction written for women, so who knows, maybe most people who buy this WANT a very obvious female self-insert and they’ll actually love this book. It’s certainly perfectly competently written and the actual plot is well-crafted even if it is just tropes. So go for it, if that’s what you’re into. But please keep in mind that in real life, gay men are actually also men, and we don’t typically sit around depending on our bisexual partners to protect us from the big bad world and tell us that it isn’t ok that our ex was sexually pushy. I don’t even OWN a fainting couch, believe it or not.

Liam DiCosimo is a good narrator even though his “older man” voices are a bit awkward. I don’t know, this book isn’t any worse than most m/m romance novels, really, I’m just getting so sick of the whole thing.