The Mendoza Line

by Christy Healy

Dr. Elizabeth Brooks, PhD, once thought she'd have her life together by the time she was thirty-six. Yet here she is, newly dumped in the most public and painful of ways, stuck back in her tiny backwoods hometown with her once-promising academic career placed on an indefinite hold as she cares for her bereaved yet overbearing mother.

Enter Jake Cole, the new coach of the university's baseball team and her high school nemesis whom she still blames for a particularly humiliating prom night twenty years ago. Jake is eager to make amends for his past transgressions, and as reluctant as Elizabeth is to admit it, his suggestion that they fake-date in the interest of helping her save face in front of her colleagues who are buzzing with gossip over her fiancé's infidelity with a former student isn't without merit. Yet as the months pass, despite her resolution to remain aloof and emotionally unattached, Elizabeth begins to realize that the boy she remembers as good-for-nothing himbo has matured into exactly the kind of man for which she has spent most of her life looking.

But Jake has his own reasons for their charade, ones that he has deliberately kept hidden, and when the truth comes out, Elizabeth is left wondering whether there was anything real about the fake relationship that has brought the joy back into her tumbled-down life.

Genres: Romance

330 pages, Kindle Edition

Published October 10, 2025

About the author

Christy Healy is the author of the adult fantasy novel, Unbound, and its companion novels, Unseen and Undying. She has been a lifelong reader and writer, weaving stories of her own into the myths and tales of the Celtic, Indo-European, and Greco-Roman worlds that she has loved for so long. She lives in North Carolina with her children, her dog, and her husband.

Reviews

[Tela Puente · Rating 5 out of 5]

I want to thank Christy Healy for allowing me to read the finish copy of The Mendoza Line.

This book was slow in the beginning but the farther along I read I couldn't put it down.

I didn't like Liam in the book. He was a complete asshole dumping his fiancée for a student, but at least she found out sooner than later. Liam Knight a professor who prayed on a 22 year old student and then goes and talks shit to Elizabeth about her actions at the social professor gathering at school a couple days later. I hate the fact that he tried to make it out about him and how she is affecting his image and how he made her feel small. Classic manipulation

With Elizabeth and Jake, I knew from the beginning that there fake relationship was going to turn into a real relationship. They are amazing together and it is true no relationship is without it's up and downs. They are a very big unlikely match but it works for them.

Mara Jean is an amazing friend to Elizabeth. Always trying to boost Elizabeth's self confidence and tell her that she shouldn't give up hope because of Liam Knight. I didn't really care for Mara's husband at all. He seemed like a good guy in the beginning but the way he would leave on trips for work and left her with three kids to take care of and then them getting strep. He should have stepped up and came home to be the husband and father he needed to be. I hate how he talked to Elizabeth at the dinner party and the way he grabbed her. But I did like the fact that Jake took control over that situation and protected her.


All in all I am giving this book a 5 star rating, because that is what it deserves. I hope Christy Healy does a sequel for what happens to Mara Jean and her husband marriage, and Jake and Elizabeth getting married.

[Kerri · Rating 4 out of 5]

I received this book through a Goodreads Giveaway. I enjoyed this book. The MCs were well developed and it was well written. There were parts that were kind of slow and I found myself skipping to dialogue. Overall, though, I appreciated the mix of fun, steamy, serious, complicated, and interesting storylines and relationships. I would read more from this author.

[Logan Schmid · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic!

What a sweet and delightful debut contemporary romance ! This fake dating rom com has snappy banter and two MCs with off the page chemistry. Christy Healy is one of my favorite authors and I look forward to her next book!

[Jen Aycock · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was such a fun read. Lots of laughter! My English major heart was loving life.

[Rena' · Rating 5 out of 5]

I won this book through the Goodreads giveaway.

This is the first book I have read by author Christy Healy, it will not be my last. Ms. Healy presents the reader with the perfect second chance romance. Both characters suffer what they determine to be life altering circumstances and through their past determine to use the other to improve their out come.

When working to keep their deception from others, life has other plans.

I highly recommend reading THE MENDOZA LINE.