GRR Reviews Sold as a Fake Fiancee: A Virgin and a Bill by Juliana Conners

Sold as a Fake Fiancee is a really trope "fake fiancee turned into real love" story that the setup barely make sense. And FMC's contribution to the marriage (besides her body) seem have missed a chance at more puns that you don't know if the tone was meant to be serious melodrama or rom-com.

Veronica needed a lot of money to put her mom through some experimental treatment that their insurance won't cover. With no other choice, she put herself (and her v-card) up for auction at the super exclusive "Gentlemen's Exchange". She hoped at most to get 100K (enough for one treatment) and work on the rest. She never expected to fetch... two million, from a billionaire named Isaac. That is enough for her mom's entire treatment. What does he want in return? He needed her... to be married to him, after the proper engagement phase and all that, until he gained control over his sick father's company, as per his father's stipulations. But when her math major allowed her to piece together an embezzlement within the company, can Isaac let Veronica go after their... "fake" marriage?

This will be somewhat of a spoiler

SO YOU'VE BEEN WARNED

Veronica caught the embezzler, but he only stole like a million, over many many years. This seems to be really really low-key embezzling for a company of this scale and the high position of the embezzler. I personally feel she should have caught the embezzler and recovered two million or more, which made her "price" a positive return on investment and thus a couple more corny lines "my best investment ever" or something like that. What a missed opportunity.

Also, the idea that a billionaire can only get a girl to marry her at a Gentlemen's Exchange (where they do a lot more services than, well, offer up a girl for marriage, ya know, like BDSM club and such, if you read previous volumes in this series) is pretty darn ridiculous to start with. I can *almost* seem them falling for each other, but not really.

The author also threw in her entire 4-volume "Boss" series as a bonus, inflating the page count of almost 2000 pages (!) which I will not go into here. It's a pretty good "hot for boss" office romance.

Category: Contemporary

Primary Plot: Woman auctioned her v-card, but her "purchaser" wanted a bride...

Tropes: auction, different worlds, weird will, fake engagement, family pressure

Overall Rating:  3/5