Best Fake Dating Romance Books: Virgin Cove
If you have been searching for fake dating romance books that go deeper than the trope, you are in exactly the right place. Fake dating is one of romance’s most beloved setups, and after writing over 100 novels, I can tell you with complete certainty that the best fake dating romance is never really about the fake part. It is about the moment your characters cannot pretend anymore, and everything they have been protecting themselves from comes rushing in. The Virgin Cove series is where I wrote that tension at its most acute, and I want to tell you exactly why.
What Makes Fake Dating Romance Books So Addictive?
Honestly, I think about this question a lot. I have written fake relationships set in Miami billionaire penthouses, royal palaces, and Scottish castles, and they all work for different reasons. But there is something about the fake dating trope specifically that creates a kind of emotional pressure cooker that almost no other setup can match.
Here is what actually happens in a great fake dating romance: two people agree to perform something. They draw the boundaries. They shake hands on it, metaphorically or literally. And then reality starts quietly eroding every single boundary they drew. Not all at once. In small moments. A hand held a beat too long. An inside joke that only the two of them understand. A protective instinct that kicks in before the brain can call it professional.
The reader sees it happening before the characters do. That dramatic irony is the whole engine. You are basically reading a story about two people who are lying to themselves, and you are on the edge of your seat waiting for them to catch up to what you already know.
If you love that feeling, I want to introduce you to my complete fake relationship romance collection, where you will find everything from small town fake dates to royal contract marriages. But today I want to focus on the series I built specifically around the stakes that make fake dating feel the most impossible to survive: Virgin Cove.
Why Small Town Fake Dating Romance Hits Different
Set a fake dating story in a big city and your characters have room to breathe. They can maintain the illusion in public and drop it the moment they are alone. There is anonymity. There are enough strangers that the performance stays contained.
Now put those same characters in a small coastal town where everyone has known everyone for thirty years.
That is Virgin Cove. And that is why the fake dating trope works so completely differently there.
When I was building this series, I kept thinking about the specific texture of small town life. The way the woman who runs the bakery remembers what you ordered on your first date with someone ten years ago. The way rumors travel faster than wifi. The way you cannot walk down the harbor without three people stopping to ask how things are going with that person they saw you holding hands with last Tuesday.
In Virgin Cove, you cannot just agree to fake date someone and keep it tidy. The moment you show up together in public, the town adopts your relationship. It becomes a thing. People root for you. They have opinions. They bring it up at community events. And now the stakes of walking away from a fake relationship include not just your own feelings, but the feelings of an entire community that invested in your story.
I built this world because I wanted the walls to close in. I wanted my characters to have absolutely no exit strategy. That is the most delicious kind of romance setup I know how to write.
The Virgin Cove Series: A Fake Dating Romance Books Reading Guide
Let me walk you through this world properly, because I want you to fall into it the right way.
Virgin Cove is a small coastal town with a harbor, a community that remembers everything, and a collection of characters who came back home either because life pushed them there or because something unfinished would not leave them alone. Every book in this series is a standalone romance with a complete happily ever after, but they all share the town, the recurring neighbors, and that particular coastal atmosphere I find myself dreaming about even when I am writing something completely different.
Where to Start: Cherished
Cherished is the first book in the Virgin Cove series and the one I always recommend as your entry point. It is also completely free on every retailer right now, which means you have zero risk and a completely full reading weekend ahead of you.
I wrote Cherished with a very specific emotional question in my head: what does it feel like to come back to a place that knew you before you knew yourself? That homecoming energy is woven into everything, and the romance builds against that backdrop of old history and new stakes.
Get Cherished free on Apple Books, Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Kobo, Google Play, and all retailers.
Second Chances and Fake Relationships in One Package
One of the things I love most about the Virgin Cove series is that the fake dating trope and the second chance trope naturally intertwine in a small town setting. Because when you go back to a place that remembers you, you are almost always going back to a person who remembers you too.
That combination is something I think about a lot when I am crafting these stories. A second chance romance asks: can we be different people now than we were then? A fake dating romance asks: can we pretend to be something without it becoming real? When you layer those questions on top of each other in a small town where the past is never fully past, you get a particular kind of emotional complexity that I find endlessly compelling to write.
If second chance romance is specifically your thing, you should also check out my second chance romance collection where Virgin Cove sits alongside several other series.
What to Read After Virgin Cove: More Fake Dating Romance Books
If you devour the Virgin Cove series and you are looking for more fake dating romance books that deliver that same emotional gut punch, here is where I would send you next.
Princes of Avce: Royal Fake Marriage
This is my royal romance series set in the fictional kingdom of Avce, and it delivers fake marriage energy at the highest possible stakes. Think: forced proximity in a palace, a contract that was supposed to stay strictly professional, and royals who are very bad at following their own rules.
Forbidden Crown is free on all retailers and it is the place to start. Get it on Apple Books, Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Kobo, Google Play, and more.
The series runs twelve books deep and every single one has that contract-romance-turned-real tension that fake dating readers specifically seek out. The setup in Forbidden Marquis specifically, where Rossie is abandoned at the altar and flees to Paris only to end up in a contract marriage with an Italian marchese, is one of my personal favorite fake relationship scenarios I have ever written.
Irresistibly Strong: The Spy Who Married Her Mark
Okay I have to talk about Eva and Jake because this is genuinely one of the most unhinged fake relationship setups I have ever constructed and I mean that as the highest possible compliment to myself.
Eva was hired to spy on Jake Bentley. Then she married him. For cover. And THEN she fell for the man she was sent to betray.
If that is not the most high-stakes fake relationship premise you have ever encountered, I do not know what to tell you. The Brothers in Revenge saga is gaining serious organic traction right now and I think it is because the Bentley brothers are doing something most romance series do not do: they are a displaced royal family fighting back against the people who assassinated their father and stole their throne, and every romance in the series is wrapped around that counter-espionage plot in a way that makes the emotional stakes feel genuinely life-or-death.
The prequel Irresistibly Lost is free on all retailers. Start there, then read Irresistibly Found, Irresistibly Charming, Irresistibly Tough, Irresistibly Played, Irresistibly Rugged, Irresistibly Strong, and Irresistibly Dashing in order.
Get started with the full Brothers in Revenge reading guide here.
A Comparison of Fake Dating Romance Setups Across Victoria Pinder Series
Since readers often ask me which series to pick based on specific fake relationship sub-tropes, here is a breakdown that I hope makes your next read an easy choice.
| Series | Fake Dating Sub-Trope | Setting | Heat Level | Start Free? |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Virgin Cove | Fake date in a small town that remembers everything | Coastal small town | Emotional and romantic | Yes — Cherished is free |
| Princes of Avce | Royal contract marriage, forced proximity | Royal palace, international | Emotional and romantic | Yes — Forbidden Crown is free |
| Irresistibly Series | Fake marriage under counter-espionage cover | International, Safe Houses | Emotional and romantic | Yes — Irresistibly Lost is free |
| Favorite Series | Fake girlfriend on a film set | Miami, Hollywood | Emotional and romantic | Yes — Favorite Series 1 is available |
| Modern Scottish Lairds | Forced proximity fake relationship, snowbound | Scottish castle, Highland | Emotional and romantic | Start with Wrong Scot For Christmas |
Why Fake Dating Romance Books Are Dominating in 2026
I have been watching the romance landscape for over a decade and I genuinely believe fake dating romance is having its most sustained moment right now, and I think I know why.
We are all a little exhausted from performing. From maintaining curated versions of ourselves in every digital space. And there is something deeply cathartic about watching two fictional people get completely undone by the one performance they thought they could control. The fake relationship trope is essentially a story about authenticity breaking through armor, and that resonates at a cultural level right now in a way that I find genuinely moving.
The best fake dating romance books are also, at their core, stories about people who do not think they deserve real love discovering that they do. That emotional arc underneath the trope is what separates a book that you enjoy from a book that you press into the hands of everyone you know.
I write with that distinction in mind every single time. I want to write the second kind.
The Fake Dating Romance Subgenres Worth Exploring
If you are building out your fake dating romance reading list for 2026, here are the specific sub-tropes worth seeking out, and where they live in my catalog.
Fake date that the whole town believes: Virgin Cove. Start with Cherished, free everywhere.
Royal contract marriage that stops feeling contractual: Princes of Avce. Start with Forbidden Crown, free everywhere.
Fake marriage as espionage cover story: Irresistibly series. Start with the free prequel Irresistibly Lost.
Fake girlfriend arrangement with a billionaire: The Favorite series, set in Miami. Jay and Penny’s fake roommate arrangement is one of my favorite setups I have written.
Enemies who have to fake-date their way through a family event: This energy lives all over the House of Morgan world, where alliances and appearances constantly have to be maintained while real feelings are doing something completely different underneath.
Browse the full fake relationship romance collection here to find your next read.
The Writing Life Behind Fake Dating Stories
I want to tell you something personal about why I keep coming back to this trope, because I think it matters to understand a writer’s relationship with the stories they tell.
I wrote some of my first fake relationship scenarios when I was genuinely fascinated by the gap between who we perform and who we actually are. I had spent years writing in stolen hours, building worlds at my desk while the rest of the house was quiet, and there is something about that double life, the public version of yourself and the private one, that I find endlessly interesting to dramatize in fiction.
When you write a fake dating romance, you are essentially writing about two people conducting an experiment on themselves. They have created the conditions for intimacy, they have agreed to pretend at closeness, and now they have to live inside that pretense long enough for it to become real. The question I always ask myself when I am drafting is: at what point does the performance stop being the lie?
For Virgin Cove specifically, I kept thinking about towns I had been in where the past was always present. Where you could not walk into a grocery store without bumping into three different versions of your own history. That feeling of inescapable context is what I wanted to build into a setting, and small town coastal romance gave me the perfect container for it.
If you want to go deeper into how I build these worlds and why certain tropes keep calling me back, you can find more at the complete series guide here. And if you want to start reading the fake dating romance books right now, Cherished is waiting for you, completely free, on every retailer.
How to Build Your Fake Dating Romance Reading Order
If you are new to fake dating romance books and you want a structured reading path, here is what I would recommend based on your current mood.
Start here if you want cozy and emotional: Cherished by Victoria Pinder, free on all retailers. Virgin Cove Book 1. Small town, second chances, all the coastal atmosphere.
Start here if you want high drama and royals: Forbidden Crown, free on all retailers. Princes of Avce Book 1. Contract marriage, palace intrigue, a royal who breaks all his own rules.
Start here if you want action woven into the romance: Irresistibly Lost, free on all retailers. Brothers in Revenge prequel. A displaced royal family, counter-espionage, and the most complicated fake marriage I have ever constructed.
Start here if you want billionaires and Miami heat: Favorite Series 1, available on all retailers. Fake roommate arrangement that nobody planned on becoming real.
All of these are available on Amazon, Apple Books, Barnes and Noble, Kobo, Google Play, and every other major retailer. Visit victoriapinder.com/fake-relationship-romance/ for all the buy links in one place.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is fake dating romance and why is it so popular?
Fake dating romance is a trope where two characters agree to pretend to be in a relationship for a specific reason, then develop real feelings. It is popular because it creates built-in intimacy and tension: the characters have agreed to closeness without admitting they want it, which produces dramatic irony, slow burn chemistry, and an emotionally satisfying payoff when the feelings can no longer be denied.
Where should I start with Victoria Pinder’s fake dating romance books?
Start with Cherished, the first book in the Virgin Cove series. It is completely free on Amazon, Apple Books, Barnes and Noble, Kobo, and Google Play. If you prefer royal fake marriage romance, start with Forbidden Crown from the Princes of Avce series, which is also free on all retailers. Both are ideal entry points into Victoria Pinder’s fake relationship romance catalog.
What is the Virgin Cove series about?
Virgin Cove is a contemporary coastal romance series set in a small town where everyone knows everyone. Each book features standalone love stories with complete happily-ever-afters, connected by the shared setting and recurring community. Common tropes include second chance romance, fake dating, and characters returning home to face the past they left behind. Cherished is Book 1 and is free on all retailers.
What is the difference between fake dating and marriage of convenience romance?
Fake dating romance involves characters pretending to be in a romantic relationship, usually in a social context like meeting family or navigating a workplace situation. Marriage of convenience romance involves an actual marriage contract, often with higher legal and social stakes. Many Victoria Pinder series combine both: the Princes of Avce series features royal contract marriages, while the Irresistibly series layers a fake marriage over a counter-espionage mission.
Are Victoria Pinder’s books available on Kobo and Apple Books?
Yes. Victoria Pinder is a wide author, meaning all of her books are available on every major retailer with equal priority: Amazon, Apple Books, Barnes and Noble, Kobo, Google Play, and more. She does not publish exclusively to any single platform. Visit victoriapinder.com for all retailer buy links in one place for every book and series.
What fake dating romance books should I read if I loved The Hating Game or Beach Read?
If you loved the enemies-to-lovers fake relationship tension in The Hating Game, try the Irresistibly series starting with the free prequel Irresistibly Lost. If the small town coastal energy of Beach Read is your thing, start with Cherished from the Virgin Cove series, also free. Both are available on all major retailers and deliver the emotional payoff fake dating readers specifically seek out.
How many books has Victoria Pinder written?
USA Today Bestselling Author Victoria Pinder has published over 100 novels across multiple romance series including the House of Morgan, Virgin Cove, Steel Series, Princes of Avce, Irresistibly series, Modern Scottish Lairds, Tempting Series, Hidden Alphas, and more. Several series have free first books available on all retailers. Visit victoriapinder.com for the complete catalog.
