Can’t Help Falling in Love

Once a scholarship college athlete, Lexi is now a struggling waitress, slowly finishing out school while living with her widowed mom. Meanwhile, Will sits comfortably as the successful grandson of “Seattle’s Royal Family,” though that doesn’t stop his mom from trying to meddle in his love life. A disastrously funny meet-cute turns into people assuming Lexi and Will are engaged, and they decide to temporarily fake a relationship. But the longer the farce continues, the more it doesn’t feel fake at all. But when a relationship begins as a lie, can it really endure? Sullivan delivers a low-stakes, high-rewards romance, brimming with delightful classic tropes. Lexi and Will’s insta-like encounter, paired with their familial back stories, makes their romance easy to root for. The comedy of errors in creating a fake relationship exposes the main underlying conflict of honest communication. Lexi and Will learn they can’t live at the expense of their own feelings; the facade of happiness isn’t worth silencing any struggles. It’s a smooth storyline that’s exceedingly easy to be hooked on. The speed of the romance may be fast, but the “he falls first” is guaranteed to satisfy readers regardless of the short time line. Intimate scenes are built up, then implied and not seen, making this a pick for teens wanting a light romance with older characters. Characters are minimally described.