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Playing With Fire: a Firefighter Fake Dating Romance
When adrenaline junkie firefighter Liam Blackwood needs a fake girlfriend for his brother's wedding, he strikes a deal with his high school crush—baker Cassidy Wilde, who desperately needs cash to save her struggling business. But their pretend romance in the mountains of Pine Ridge ignites real sparks that neither saw coming. Now they're playing with fire in more ways than one.
LIAM
I'm a firefighter who thrives on danger, but my meddling family's matchmaking attempts are the one threat I can't handle. When I propose a fake relationship to Cassidy, it seems like the perfect solution—help her save her bakery while keeping my relatives off my back. Simple business arrangement between old friends, right?
Wrong. One look at those green eyes and the way she bites her lip when she's nervous, and I'm completely wrecked. Now I'm fighting an attraction that could destroy the careful walls I've built around my heart since losing my partner.
CASSIDY
I've spent three years rebuilding my life after escaping my abusive ex-husband, and my bakery is all I have left. I can't afford to lose it, which is why I agree to Liam's crazy scheme even though being close to him makes my pulse race and my hard-won independence feel fragile.
Pretending to be his girlfriend should be easy—except every stolen kiss and heated glance makes me crave something real. But when my dangerous past shows up, our fake engagement becomes a very real gamble with both our hearts.
LIAM
I'm a firefighter who thrives on danger, but my meddling family's matchmaking attempts are the one threat I can't handle. When I propose a fake relationship to Cassidy, it seems like the perfect solution—help her save her bakery while keeping my relatives off my back. Simple business arrangement between old friends, right?
Wrong. One look at those green eyes and the way she bites her lip when she's nervous, and I'm completely wrecked. Now I'm fighting an attraction that could destroy the careful walls I've built around my heart since losing my partner.
CASSIDY
I've spent three years rebuilding my life after escaping my abusive ex-husband, and my bakery is all I have left. I can't afford to lose it, which is why I agree to Liam's crazy scheme even though being close to him makes my pulse race and my hard-won independence feel fragile.
Pretending to be his girlfriend should be easy—except every stolen kiss and heated glance makes me crave something real. But when my dangerous past shows up, our fake engagement becomes a very real gamble with both our hearts.
324 pages, Kindle Edition
Published September 24, 2025
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
October 25, 2025
I’ve read a fair number of romances that are not reflected in my Goodreads lists. As a romance novel, this is pretty bad. But as a work of process art, it is kind of fascinating.
The basic plot is the classic fake-dating trope with a dangerous ex (hers) thrown in for suspense. Ex-firefighter Liam Blackwood is crippled with guilt over the death in a fire of his best friend Daniel, who Liam couldn’t move fast enough to save/ left pinned under rubble/ held in his arms as he died (more on that in a minute). Liam’s family want him to settle down, and the wedding of Liam’s older brother is rapidly approaching. Bakery owner Cassidy Wilde bakes excellent (but under-described) baked things but is about to lose her business, so Liam suggests that she be his fake girlfriend for two weeks, through the wedding, and he’ll bail out her business. Spoiler, they fall in love.
The ‘author’ appears to have ‘written’ the book by developing a beat by beat plot, and then feeding in the plot points into an AI platform to write the chapters. Yet, each beat is covered in several chapters that are alternatives to one another. These aren’t his perspective and hers; they are three different and mutually exclusive accounts of the same events: setting the ground rules of the fake relationship; their first kiss; the evening when she meets his family and the aunts and siblings ask Cass detailed question about how she and Liam met. The effect is a kind of written cubism; any of the versions /could/ be true, but they can’t all be true. They collectively suggest a feel for how each plot point happened while making it impossible to resolve what actually did happen.
The writing is unfortunately only passible. It is also uncannily similar in phrasing and use of rhetorical devices to the writing in another book I’ve read recently, Fake Dating My Dead Husband's Brother: A Widow's Second Chance Romance. For example, in both books, words keep ‘hitting characters like a physical blow’, and blood frequently ‘turns to ice water’ in the characters’ veins. I assume both ‘authors’ used the same AI writing platform.
I’ve seen laments and worries about how AI could deprive flesh and blood authors of readers. It’s hard to imagine this level of quality poses much threat. This book is free (at least as I write this), but the main reason to read it is as a spur for thought about how fiction and reading work, not as a substitute for a story fully written by a human.
The basic plot is the classic fake-dating trope with a dangerous ex (hers) thrown in for suspense. Ex-firefighter Liam Blackwood is crippled with guilt over the death in a fire of his best friend Daniel, who Liam couldn’t move fast enough to save/ left pinned under rubble/ held in his arms as he died (more on that in a minute). Liam’s family want him to settle down, and the wedding of Liam’s older brother is rapidly approaching. Bakery owner Cassidy Wilde bakes excellent (but under-described) baked things but is about to lose her business, so Liam suggests that she be his fake girlfriend for two weeks, through the wedding, and he’ll bail out her business. Spoiler, they fall in love.
The ‘author’ appears to have ‘written’ the book by developing a beat by beat plot, and then feeding in the plot points into an AI platform to write the chapters. Yet, each beat is covered in several chapters that are alternatives to one another. These aren’t his perspective and hers; they are three different and mutually exclusive accounts of the same events: setting the ground rules of the fake relationship; their first kiss; the evening when she meets his family and the aunts and siblings ask Cass detailed question about how she and Liam met. The effect is a kind of written cubism; any of the versions /could/ be true, but they can’t all be true. They collectively suggest a feel for how each plot point happened while making it impossible to resolve what actually did happen.
The writing is unfortunately only passible. It is also uncannily similar in phrasing and use of rhetorical devices to the writing in another book I’ve read recently, Fake Dating My Dead Husband's Brother: A Widow's Second Chance Romance. For example, in both books, words keep ‘hitting characters like a physical blow’, and blood frequently ‘turns to ice water’ in the characters’ veins. I assume both ‘authors’ used the same AI writing platform.
I’ve seen laments and worries about how AI could deprive flesh and blood authors of readers. It’s hard to imagine this level of quality poses much threat. This book is free (at least as I write this), but the main reason to read it is as a spur for thought about how fiction and reading work, not as a substitute for a story fully written by a human.
Displaying 1 of 1 review