Caught in a Bad Fauxmance

A fresh, fun contemporary rom-com from debut author Elle Gonzalez Rose, about an aspiring artist who agrees to fake date one of his family’s longtime enemies in the hopes of gathering intel good enough to take down their rivals once and for all. Devin Baez is ready for a relaxing winter break at Lake Andreas. That is, until he runs into his obnoxious next-door neighbors the Seo-Cookes, undefeated champions of the lake’s annual Winter Games. In the hope of finally taking down these long-time rivals, the Baezes;offer up their beloved cabin in a bet. Reckless? Definitely. So when annoyingly handsome Julian Seo-Cooke finds himself in need of a fake boyfriend, Devin sees an opportunity to get behind enemy lines and prove the family plays dirty. As long as Devin and Julian’s families are at war, there’s only room for loathing between them. Which is a problem because, for Devin, this faux game of love is feeling <very< real.

Autorentext

Elle Gonzalez Rose is a producer and author from New York who’s better at writing love stories about short, queer Boricuas than she is at writing bios. Her dog thinks she’s okay. Caught in a Bad Fauxmance is her debut novel—Elle’s, not the dog’s.

Zusammenfassung
Neighborhood rivals turned fake boyfriends discover that there’s a fine line between love and payback in this fresh, fun YA rom-com.

“I swooned so hard I pulled a muscle!”—Sonora Reyes, National Book Award finalist for The Lesbiana’s Guide to Catholic School
**
“A charming, hilarious debut!”—Abida Jaigirdar, award-winning author of The Henna Wars

Devin Báez is ready for a relaxing winter break at Lake Andreas. That is, until he runs into his obnoxious next-door neighbors the Seo-Cookes, undefeated champions of the lake’s annual Winter Games. After the Báezes offer up their cabin to their rivals in a reckless bet to finally take them down, more than just family pride is on the line.

So when annoyingly handsome Julian Seo-Cooke finds himself in need of a fake boyfriend, Devin sees an opportunity to get behind enemy lines and snoop for proof that Julian and his family have been playing dirty for years.

As long as Devin and Julian’s families are at war, there’s no room for anything but loathing between them. Which is a problem because, for Devin, this faux game of love is beginning to feel a little too real.

Leseprobe
CHAPTER ONE

Thirty minutes in the backseat together and my sister wants to kill me--a new record.

“Devin.” Maya snaps her manicured fingers in my face when I ignore her. “Move over.”

It’s the third time she’s made that demand since we piled into the car. Any other day I would pack up my drawing tablet and laptop and give her free rein over the backseat, but I’m holding my ground this time.

I push her hand away. “No, I’m working.”

“No, you’re not,” she scoffs. “You’ve been looking at your phone this whole time. Your tablet isn’t even on.”

Up in the peaceful driver’s seat, Dad sighs while Andy tries and fails to hold back a snort. We should’ve seen this coming when we let Andy call shotgun. It made sense at the time--shoving our six-foot-three stepbrother into the cramped backseat of our Honda Civic wouldn’t have been fair--but Maya hates long drives, and my tablet takes up all the extra leg space. It was a recipe for disaster.

“I’m doing research,” I reply indignantly.

I turn my attention back to the profile I was scouring, only for Maya to snatch the phone out of my hand. She tucks it right into the one place she knows I’m not willing to go: her bra. “Social media stalking your classmates doesn’t count as research.”

Scoping out the competition absolutely counts as research. “Yes, it does.”

She gives me a deadpan look.

Okay fine, it doesn’t.

Not that I’d ever admit it to her, but Maya’s right. If I want any chance of not shooting my barely existent art career in the foot, I should be working on my application for the Cardarelli mentorship. Every spring semester, one CalArts freshman is whisked away to undergrad stardom by Professor Lila Cardarelli, an animator with so many accolades under her belt she needs a separate Wikipedia page to list them all.

Professor Cardarelli’s protégés are basically gods, according to my roommate, my advisor, and just about everyone else at CalArts. You give up any semblance of free time in exchange for shadowing one of the most iconic names in animation. Internships at Pixar and Disney are essentially guaranteed once you’ve got a recommendation letter from Lila Cardarelli, who has the Disney family on speed dial. No one has any clue how Cardarelli picks her mentees, but it’s the same application every year. Standard background information, and one enormously daunting assignment: attach one piece that you feel best expresses who you are as an artist. Which sounds easy enough, except I barely have any idea who I am as a person, let alone an artist.

My first semester of almost-adulthood was less than stellar. Being surrounded by people who have been creating since they could hold a pencil and can produce gallery-worthy art in their sleep isn’t exactly encouraging when you can barely grasp the basics of color theory. Especially when you’re like me, someone who didn’t consider animation as a profession until their junior year of high school. Six months ago, I thought I’d be in my element--living the cool, aloof LA art school kid life I’d seen in movies. Instead, I spent the past four months hardly ever leaving my dorm room just so I could keep up with all the homework. I’ve been in the land of eternal sunshine for three months and I’m even paler than when I arrived, and I’ve spent more time with the vending machine on my floor than my roommate.

So, yeah, I could really use a win right now.

The application isn’t actually due until the first day of spring semester, and while procrastination has never done me any favors, I can’t focus on productivity when my innocent phone is being held captive in my sister’s gross, sweaty clutches.

“C’mon, give it back,” I whine, nudging my knee against Maya’s.

“Nope.” She smacks her bubblegum and waves a finger at my tablet. “Pack it up or get drawing.”

I can explain to her for the hundredth time that that’s not how my artistic process works, or I can play dirty.

“Dad, Maya stole my phone.”

“Give your brother his phone back,” Dad mumbles, squinting at a sign about road closures.

Maya’s glare would turn me to stone if I wasn’t so used to being on the receiving end of her rage. Whoever said twins have a special psychic bond lied. The last time Maya and I were on the same page was when we sent Mami into labor ten weeks before our due date. We’ve been menaces since the day we were born.

We stare each other down, unblinking and unrelenting, until she lunges at me. On instinct, I curl around my tablet, protecting it from her wrath. She goes for the cord connecting it to my laptop instead, ready to yank it free, when Dad springs into action.

“Hey!” he shouts, startling all of us, even Andy, into total silence. “Watch it around the tablet,” he warns, focusing back on the road once Maya retreats to her side of the car.

She begrudgingly hands me back my phone, sticking her tongue out at Dad when he’s distracted by a Prius that gets too …