Faking It with the Billionaire

Ice Dragons Hockey Romance, Book 1

By: Willow Fox, Allison West

Narrated by: Kay Kennedy

When you're a star athlete and hire a bodyguard to protect your daughter, but the agency sends you an adorable five foot two brunette who barely looks capable of protecting herself, let alone anyone else.

Turns out "Ryan" is Emerson Ryan, former FBI. She drop-kicks your butt to the ground to prove her point. She’s more than capable of protecting Bristol, your little girl, but you shouldn’t be turned on by her fierceness.

Everyone thinks she’s your daughter’s nanny, including Bristol. Emerson looks the part and goes along with it at your insistence until she's forced to be your daughter's babysitter. With a professional hockey career on the line, you need Emerson by your side. But questions will arise the moment you hire a "second" nanny for Bristol, and you don't want to worry your daughter about the threat to her safety.

The next best thing? Hire Emerson as your fake girlfriend. She can protect Bristol, and you get a little extra publicity when the news learns about your spicy romance. But how long can you pretend everything is fake when the sparks are real? This steamy hockey romance book features a grumpy single dad and sizzling romance with plenty of drama.

No cheating. Stand-alone. HEA.

©2023 Willow Fox (P)2023 Willow Fox

Good story, poor execution

I finally broke down and got this because of how popular it seems. It is very directly sexual. Not my cup of tea to just move from “hey, we just met.” To just all sorts of explicit content. The build up is just lacking for me.

Perfect Hockey Rom and Fake Dating Trope

Loved! Spicy all the way through, drama was on point, and the narrator was Fantastic! I was blushing listening to this.

Good

Good story, would be a lot better with a male narrator for Kyler’s parts. Makes it confusing sometimes to tell whose point of view the chapter is from.

Falling it with the Billionaire

Great story super fun! I like the dynamics of all the characters of the book.

Not good all around

There is very little character or plot development. Too many tropes, not enough story building. I can't take any of the characters seriously, and even if I could, the narration is robotic at best. DNF.

felt too unbelievable

just felt like the author didn't really know how to write a father figure and a love interest. Felt like the kid was only there as an after thought. Also, the female seemed like she was supposed to be this strong lead, 4

DNF 😔

It’s very rare that I don’t finish a book. Even if I’m not a fan, I’ll usually still push through it but I just couldn’t with this one. Felt like it was a rough draft with not great editing. Almost as if the author had too many ideas but didn’t follow through with half of them and so they just fell flat. Too many tropes going on. Single dad/ hockey billionaire/ body guard/ mafia/ fake dating. Either take time to actually develop all the ideas or just pick one or two
I’m also a very visual person, so when things are happening in a scene a picture forms in my head. With this book things just didn’t seem realistic and it was hard to imagine what was actually happening. I had to go back and re listen multiple times because things just didn’t add up.
Felt like the daughter was kind of an after thought but I also didn’t make it more than 2 hours into the book so maybe that changes?
And also, probably shouldn’t have the heroine leave her previous job because of sexual harassment and then have her nonchalantly giving a BJ to her new boss who is paying her an exuberant amount of money

Couldn’t finish

Missing major trigger warnings for SA and from the description sounded like the plot was gonna go in one direction but veered off into a completely different direction. DNF

I couldn't do it

I tried to listen. The narrator did the author no favors by reading this for her.

I had to stop.

Unfortunately couldn't finish this book, didn't feel a connection to the characters

I listened to this via audible and maybe it's a little better if I were reading it on Kindle or as a book, but I could not finish this. I rarely don't finish books, even if I don't like them I usually finish them just because I'm not one to leave a plot hanging. But this book was so slow to get going and I did not feel connected to the FMC or MMC. Their relationship, albeit fake, felt all over the place and there were so many fake lies within the story that the plot was hard to even find.
I read through chapter 10, just under halfway through the book and almost nothing had actually happened in the story or romance. The FMC and MMC barely had any chemistry and yet early on in the book they suddenly have sex in his kitchen after fake making out twice?! It just felt all over the place. I don't mind smut at all or even a book who's plot is rather loose if there's good smut, but halfway through the book there was just that one kitchen scene that seemed to build out of nowhere and then there was no other chemistry. the FMC blatantly said she didn't like the MMC because he was arrogant although attractive. The MMC was attracted to the FMC right away but he never made any moves on her other than announcing they were fake dating and two makeout seseions, never getting to know her or even find anything out about her that would make him like her.
I didn't mind the audible narrator at all. I don't think that that impacted the story, but again, I haven't tried to read it as a book.
Maybe I'll come back to it later but I found myself not looking forward to listening to this so I decided it was time to end it.