Fake-Off with Fate
Whitney Dineen
(Love in Maple Falls)
Publication date: August 13th 2025
Genres: Adult, Comedy, Contemporary, Romance, Sports
She’s a closet designer for the rich and famous and he’s a broken-hearted captain of a pro-hockey team. Neither of them is looking for love.
Ashlyn
An unexpected trip home to Maple Falls gets even more surprising when I inadvertently become acting mayor.
Add a huge crisis and a smoking hot hockey player, and I’m in over my head before I know it.I’m only here for a short time, so I will not fall for Mr. Tall, dark, and adorable. I don’t care how helpful and kind he is. Long-distance never works, so the answer is no.
Jamie
I’m sick of the press hounding me about my last relationship, so when the opportunity arose to captain a new hockey team in smalltown Washington, I jumped at it.Too bad I didn’t ask more questions before moving here, like, “Are there bears, and will they be living in my backyard?”
Then there’s Ashlyn. The last thing I expected was to meet a funny, sassy, and good-hearted woman like her. I swore off love after my last heartbreak, but my heart is acting like it missed the memo.
There’s no way I’m going to pursue her. Unless of course, fate has intervened, and we were meant to be…
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Fake-Off with Fate is a slow-burn, friends to love, fake-dating small town hockey romcom in the Love in Maple Falls series. Add a town conflict, missing mayor, and bear infestation and you will be laughing and cheering your way to a happy ending!Welcome back to Maple Falls—the small town where hockey players fall in love! This is a multi-author series of seven full-length books that could be read as standalones, but we think you’ll enjoy them best in order.
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EXCERPT:
The mayor is ten minutes late for our dinner meeting. I figure I’ll give him another five and then I’ll go ahead and order my food to go.
I’m about to signal to the waitress when a very pretty woman wearing jeans and an orange sweater approaches my booth. She’s average height but not at all average looking. Her hair is a touch lighter than classic auburn but it’s not what I’d call red. “Hi there,” she says while sitting down across from me. “I’m Ashlyn.”
Well, this is awkward. I wonder if she thinks I’m her blind date or something. “Jamie Hayes,” I say, expecting her to realize her mistake.
“I know. You’re the captain of the Ice Breakers, right?”
“I’m sorry, do I know you?”
“I doubt it, because I don’t know you.” She takes a sip of the water glass the waitress left for the mayor.
“If you don’t know me, then why are you sitting with me?”
The question seems to startle her because she looks up and stares at me like a deer in the headlights of oncoming traffic. “I forgot you didn’t know that I was meeting you instead of my father.”
“You’re Mayor Thompkins’ daughter?” Holy heck, is the mayor trying to set me up with his daughter? I don’t care how pretty she is, that’s not cool.
“My dad got stuck in a meeting and he asked me to come in his place,” she explains.
“So, you’ve been tasked with trying to talk me into co-chairing Maple Fest?” If I had to guess, I’d say this was intentional manipulation on the mayor’s part. Little does he know I have no problem saying no to an attractive woman.
“I couldn’t care less if you co-chaired Maple Fest,” she says. “But if I were you, I wouldn’t do it. My dad is a lunatic about that event.”
Now I’m super confused. “So, you’re here to tell me all about Maple Falls?”
“Nope,” she says, before turning her menu over to look at it.
“Why are you here then?”
Author Bio:
Whitney loves to laugh, play with her kids, bake, and eat french fries — not always in that order.
Whitney is a multi-award-winning author of romcoms, non-fiction humor, and middle reader fiction. Basically, she writes whatever the voices in her head tell her to.
She lives in the beautiful Pacific Northwest with her husband, Jimmy, where they raise children, chickens, and organic vegetables.
Gold Medal winner at the International Readers’ Favorite Awards, 2017.
Silver medal winner at the International Readers’ Favorite Awards, 2015, 2016.
Finalist RONE Awards, 2016.
Finalist at the IRFA 2016, 2017.
Finalist at the Book Excellence Awards, 2017
Finalist Top Shelf Indie Book Awards, 2017
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