Imagine living a life where the only thing you truly care about is the one thing your father left you before passing away. Waking up every morning and going to your family’s bookstore, where you open boxes of books and make coffees for customers. That is the true love of your life- or so you think.
The Fiancee Farce by Alexandria Bellefleur is a book sure to have you giggling and kicking your feet, as you read through the highs and lows of a totally orchestrated romance turned too real to handle. The main character, Tansy Adams, is a young woman who’s more interested in her family’s bookstore than experiencing a cliché love story. Before you even read the book, the teaser on the back clearly tells you, “Tansy Adams’ greatest love is her family’s bookstore, passed down from her late father. But when it comes to actual romance… Tansy can’t get past the first chapter…”. To avoid her step-family’s prying questions about her love life, Tansy uses her favorite model, Gemma van Dalen’s, name and photo to claim she has a new girlfriend. It’s when Gemma and Tansy cross paths and they both need something only the other can give, that an agreement is struck, and a whirlwind romance is started.
The LGBTQ+ community as a whole is not treated as a taboo topic in this novel, nor is it centered around someone coming out. It’s treated as normal, something that queer readers will truly appreciate, as it is needed in the literature world. The book displays two queer women existing in a world where their identity does not define who they are. This is a necessity, as many novels portraying queer love are centered around this idea of a secret love where one character has to battle the idea of coming out. While this is an important concept to portray in literature, it is also essential to normalize queer love as something that isn’t meant to be secret.
An incredible sapphic story filled with love, scandal, and a tinge of heartbreak, this novel is a must add to your TBR.
A key aspect to the novel is the humanity showcased in all the characters. This is a complex story, as the reader follows Tansy’s journey through not only saving her bookstore, but herself. As the reader, you will see Tansy learn to love herself again, after having dealt with her insecurities her entire life. What specifically stood out to me was the fact that the main relationship did have issues, but both parties did their absolute best to fix them and save their romance. Tansy and Gemma both received a not-so-traditional happy ending.
This novel does a great job with its representation of the LGBTQ+ community, as harmful stereotypes which can be found in so many Queer novels are avoided. On top of that, Tansy has to face the ghosts of her past, as she fights to regain her confidence from the man that stole it when she was sixteen. Overall, this is a great novel if you are looking for a book to keep you entertained with butterflies in your stomach and perhaps a few tears falling from your eyes.
