Stephanie's Reviews > The Best Kind of Forever

I love a fake dating trope, but this one was fun with a twist! In that, Hayes needs to fake date someone to turn around his reputation or get traded to another team, so he starts dating someone without telling her it's fake!

Hayes is the resident badboy in the NHL. He parties hard, fights, and hooks up with all the Puck bunnies. When he takes it too far with one of the team's major sponsors daughter, his agent sits him down for some tough love. Improve your image asap or risk being traded to another team.

While on his mission to meet the lucky fake lady, he meets Aeris at a bar on a night in which she's drowning her sorrows on the anniversary of her brother's death. Lucky for Aeris, Hayes is immediately intrigued by her and goes out of his way to help her. Lucky for Hayes, she has no idea who he really is.

I don't like that Hayes embarks on this fake dating relationship without telling Aeris, but I understand it. And I love that Hayes very quickly falls for Aeris and realizes nothing about his feelings are fake. I love a reformed playboy who becomes a golden retriever boyfriend.

I really like Aeris's character. She's incredibly strong and independent. We learn that she's been through a lot of bad relationships in her life, from her parents to her ex-boyfriend. She doesn't give her trust easily, and I like that she sticks her guns and makes Hayes work for it.

I think my favorite scene is when Hayes helps Aeris overcome her securities about her body. My goodness, it is both special and also HOT. We stan a man who puts his woman on a pedestal and makes sure she knows it.

I do think that to really develop more of the plotline with Hayes's relationship with his father and Aeris's relationship with her family, the book needed to be longer. It felt like those plots were introduced and resolved quickly due to time constraints.

Some of the language used to describe the steamy scenes put me off a bit... like "slurp" and labia (I tend to prefer less technical terms) 🫣 Do you ever replace words in your head when you're reading something if you would have personally said something different? I found myself doing that a lot...

Overall, I did enjoy the book! I think it's a solid start to the series and will be excited to see where the story goes with more characters down the road!

3⭐️

☆I received an advance copy, but the review is my own☆

Tags: Hockey romance, sports romance, fake dating, opposites attract, he falls first
Spice: 🌶🌶🫑
First person/Dual POV