by Amy Lea
Publisher: Berkley
Release Date: December 2, 2025
Reviewed by Hellie
Andi Zeigler lives a double life. By day, she’s the no-nonsense, steadfast personal assistant to the Prime Minister of Canada’s wife. By night, she slips out of her heels and writes romance novels under a top-secret pen name. But when her steamiest book, The Prime Minister & Me, unexpectedly becomes a bestseller, rumors of a real-life affair between her and the PM start swirling out of control.
Enter Nolan Crosby, the PM’s new close protection officer (aka bodyguard) – and Andi’s failed one-night stand from three years ago. Nolan’s in town very temporarily to care for his mother, who’s battling early-onset Alzheimer’s. But when the scandal erupts, Andi ropes him into a fake-dating plan.
As loyal employees, they’ll pretend to date for the summer, just long enough to put the scandal to bed and save their boss’s reputation. In an unexpected plot twist, Andi and Nolan discover that keeping their romance strictly fictional might be easier said than done.
Hellie’s Heeds
Thank Goodness for Winter break because this was just the book I needed for my travels and it was all the things I adore about a “vacation book.” The book goes back and forth between the two main characters (in a first person writing, which allows a deeper POV for readers to connect to the characters immediately.) Rom com humor can be a bit subjective for readers, but I adore Amy Lea’s style of absurd humor (the “meet cute” happens when the hero walks into the bathroom stall as the heroine is using it) is blended with real emotional pulls as the heroine is dealing with a breakup, only to learn her best friend now wants to date her ex. And in fact, the ex had wanted to date her friend the whole time–their relationship had been a mistake. Seriously, dude? I just…related with this heroine so hard with her need to keep this friendship and to put aside her needs and reactions in order to please everyone else. But her character arc isn’t even the bigger one! The hero’s struggle with his complicated relationship with his mother and her new diagnosis of Alzheimer's just kicks the reader in the chest as you wonder how is this author going to make a positive resolution to this story.
Amy Lea does what I feel is an awesome thing with her “one night stand” scene. (I feel having sex so early in the story can deaden the sexual tension, which is why I love to read romance, so it can be a chancy thing to have the sex too early in my opinion.) It’s a one-night stand that doesn’t connect at a physical level, but instead connects at the emotional level, providing each character with something they need at this point of their lives before they part ways in the morning. Therefore when they meet again a few years later, the heroine, Andi, has been outed as a romance author who wrote a book called The Prime Minister & Me, when she is an assistant to the Prime Minister’s wife–and it seems the obvious choice she forges a fake dating relationship with her former one-night stand, now the PM’s bodyguard, to deflect the scandal.
Their “summer of love” is filled with the easy connection they had experienced when they met three years ago and it deepens into an even better friendship, but also, oh, the sexual tension! Neither seems to want to ruin things with sex, especially Nolan, who knows he’s leaving at the end of summer. However, they finally come to their senses–and oh, the scenes are steamy. So worth the wait. Even better, the heroine starts writing again–and with the new popularity of her scandal-producing book–this couldn’t be timelier. The character arc for Andi had exactly the elements needed to make her the more confident, “I’m worthy” character in the end, but it was Nolan’s arc that broke me. Oh my God, the dog, people. You have to read this book for the dog.
I kept reading scenes and dialogue to my husband–and would say, “Does this sound familiar?” because the heroine honestly felt like my doppleganger. Then I would read scenes with the hero, and my husband would sniffle (he’s a notorious Disney crier) and I would be like, “I know! Right?” This book is on my top 5 books I’ve read this year (2025). All the feels. If you haven’t put it in your TBR pile yet, do so. Top Dish all across the board.
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