The Holiday Fakers

One fake boyfriend. One bed. One very complicated Christmas …

Piper

I promised my mom I’d bring a boyfriend home for the holidays.

I did not mean Brody King—Hollywood heartthrob, tabloid trainwreck, and the reason I have a folder of fantasy fan art I’ll take to the grave. 

He’s also my brother’s best friend and the man who ghosted our small town (and me) twelve years ago.

Now we’re sharing one bed, faking a relationship, and pretending he’s changed.

The problem? I’m starting to believe it.

But Brody doesn’t do forever.

And I don’t do heartbreak twice.

Brody

The plan was simple: come home, look reformed, and don’t fall for Piper Locke. Again.

Instead, I’m stuck in a snow-globe town with the girl I never stopped wanting.

Piper’s smart, hilarious, way too sexy—and still completely off-limits.

She thinks I’ll leave like last time.

And she’s right. My next job’s a world away from Hideaway Harbor.

But this fake relationship feels dangerously real, and Piper isn’t just a PR fix.

She’s the reason I want to stay.

Too bad I’m the last person who deserves her… and the one person who can’t seem to walk away.

The Holiday Fakers is a laugh-out-loud, one-bed, fake-dating romcom with festive flair and serious steam. If you love small-town chaos, slow-burn tension, and a guaranteed happily ever after, this book is your perfect cozy escape.

The Holiday Fakers is part of the Christmas at Hideaway Harbor series of six spicy romantic comedies. The books are interconnected standalones and can be read in any order.

Mini excerpt:

Piper gets out and I follow, standing by her side as we look down at Hideaway Harbor below us. The winter sun is closer to the horizon and we’re heading into the golden hour, where you can still see everything, but there’s the illusion of darkness, with the lights twinkling like stars below us.

I can see the coloured lights along Main Street, the lit-up town square, the Christmas decorations covering people’s houses like they all want to be seen from space. I want to be cynical, but it’s like Who-ville and I can’t be one hundred percent grinch when Piper’s by my side. Despite the difficulties of my childhood, it wasn’t completely devoid of joy, and I’d rather people went all-in for Christmas than not at all.

From - The Holiday Fakers by me!

Hideaway Harbor is a fictional small town on the coast of Maine, an hour away from Bangor by car. It's a holiday destination as well as a place that people go when they want to find peace and quiet. There are a lot of Nordic influences, in particular Denmark and Finland, and the town has embraced its reputation as a Hygge-style town, even though traditional industries such as lobster fishing still exist.

Until the late nineteenth century, Hideaway Harbor could only be reached by boat or on foot, and the mountains surrounding the town create patchy mobile signal coverage, a fact that the locals have come to accept, often claiming it fosters a strong sense of community spirit.

Hideaway Harbor was founded during the Puritan era in New England (1620s to around 1775/1783) by Alma Keye and George Locke who were young lovers fleeing their warring families so they could be together. When they walked over the mountains, dehydrated and delirious, they initially believed the sound of a babbling spring was a hallucination. The spring saved them, and since then, stories of the magical properties of the water have grown to mythical proportions.

When the Massachusetts Bay Colony banned Christmas in 1659 (ended 1681), the ban was not enforced in Hideaway Harbor due to its inaccessibility and the difficulty of policing it. People who wished to celebrate Christmas would travel to Hideaway to do so, and many decided it was a far nicer place to live and so moved there.

Inhabitants of the town refer to themselves as ‘hidies’. People who come to live in Hideaway but don’t stay year-round are known as ‘holiday hidies’.

The Hideaway Spring

The spring that Alma and George found is on a plot of land the couple donated to the town. The spring supplies the water for the town, however part of it has been diverted to create a wishing bridge. The bridge in Hideaway is made of stone and is a popular place to have photos taken, particularly to celebrate an engagement or wedding.

People go to the spring to make a wish, and young lovers go there to bless their union. The land around the bridge is also one of the town’s make-out spots and it’s rumored that some couples struggling to conceive go to the area around the spring to have sex...

The residents of Hideaway believe ‘there’s something in the water’, that not only improves the taste and has health benefits, but that also gives the water magical powers.

The Locke Trust & Locke Reserve

Near the end of their very long life together, George and Alma established a trust to take care of their land which included the spring and the house they originally built for their family and which they gave to the town. This land is now known as the Locke Reserve. Part of their bequest was that a community building was built by their descendants for the use of the town, and this was completed a hundred and fifty years after they founded Hideaway. Their original house still stands and is a museum near to the source of the spring.

Many events take place on the Locke Reserve, including sports events, midsummer celebrations, festivals, and the more quirky events which have been inspired by the Nordic roots of some of the town’s residents.

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