My Favorite Holidate
4.2 | 13,194 ratings
Price: 19.68
Last update: 12-21-2025
Top reviews from the United States
- Lacysweet, sexy, steamy, hilarious, emotional, romantic, heartfelt, and fast-paced audio listenSamantha Brentmoor and Jason Clarke narrate Lauren Blakely’s pretend relationship romance, My Favorite Holidate, in duet, supported by a full cast of narrators. Fable needs someone to pose as her Christmas boyfriend to make her cheating ex jealous at holiday parties, and single dad Wilder, her billionaire boss, needs a plus one for his best friend and her sister’s Christmas Eve wedding—where they’re maid of honor and best man. Together they attend the annual week-long Christmas competition, leading up to the destination wedding.
Stoic and reserved, Wilder has massive trust issues. Focused on raising his daughter, Wilder doesn’t believe he’s capable of love or having romantic love because of parental/childhood baggage. Talented, hardworking, and creative, Fable longs for an extraordinary love, but she’s unsure whether she believes it exists. From her experiences, she believes that romance and she don’t mix, giving her a negative view of both. Fable is Wilder’s football team’s merch designer. She carries parental/childhood baggage because of her father, too. Fable holds her feelings inside for self-protection.
Brentmoor's and Clarke’s animated and expressive narration brings Blakely’s playful and sexy narrative/storytelling style to life, seamlessly shifting between the novel's hilarious, intensely emotional and sizzling hot, intimate, and poignant tones. The narrators brilliantly express their characters’ emotions, connection, desire, passion, and love. Clarke's and Brentmoor’s narration for Blakely’s beautifully written character interactions, and intimate and love scenes benefit from their skill and full vocal ranges that express/portray the characters’ intimacy, chemistry, sensations, and moods.
From Brentmoor’s first scene I fell in love with her voice, accent, and narration for Fable, and she’s become a new favorite narrator. Clarke is already a favorite of mine, and I love his voice/narration for Wilder. Their voices perfectly pair to portray Fable and Wilder, providing distinct voices for their characters using dialects, pacing, tone, inflection, cadence, and emotion to reveal their feelings, personalities, traits, quirks, and states of mind.
Wilder and Fable’s banter, and cute, sweet, sexy, and steamy interactions draw you into the novel. They’re so into each other. Watching them attempt to resist their intense attraction and chemistry is adorable and funny. How Wilder cares for Fable and worships her is exceptionally sexy, steamy, and sweet. Blakely takes the time to develop a genuine relationship between Wilder and Fable, allowing them to learn about each other, become friends and lovers, and fall in love. I love Fable and Wilder’s internal dialogue about their attraction and connection, feelings realization, and being unable to deny them any longer. Blakely includes so many perfectly written and narrated fun scenes!
Fable and Wilder are two sides of the same coin—opposites sharing similar traits and life experiences. Despite how their childhoods and fathers have shaped their views of love and romance, how they view themselves, and what they believe they deserve and can have in life, they are so loving and selfless toward the people they care about, putting them first.
The novel’s tone is a nice balance of hilarious, angsty, sweet, emotional, and steamy heat. Full of moments that left me laughing out loud and others emotionally compromised and holding back tears, My Favorite Holidate is a sweet, sexy, steamy, hilarious, emotional, romantic, heartfelt, and fast-paced audio listen I highly recommend.
Thanks to Lauren Blakely for the ARC. - Madison W FairbanksMy Favorite HolidateMy Favorite Holidate by Lauren Blakely
How to Date series #5. Contemporary holiday romance. Fake relationship troupe. 1st person, alternating POV. Can be read as a stand-alone.
Wilder needs a plus one for his best friend’s wedding. He didn’t expect it to be an employee from his firm, but Fable seems perfect to carry off the temporary fake romance.
Fable needs a date for the wedding she’s attending since her ex will be at the event. Wilder is definitely in a position to make the weekend easier as her fake boyfriend for the long weekend.
Keep it platonic or have some fun? Keep it a secret or tell those few that would be hurt by the lie? Decisions.
How fun and even sentimental. Super steamy and happy holidays. Banter and humor. Lots of names and relationships to remember. Focus on the couple and fall in love for Christmas.
I received a copy of this from NetGalley. I purchased a copy to keep. - LarkOkI think this showed up as a sample or something which is how I started it. It's decent as a Christmas romance with some caveats.
There's not a lot of Christmas. I mean it's ever present but the details are not there. The story isn't about it, but it definitely didn't give the cozy Chrisrmas vibes.
Everything is WAY over the top. Not just a super hot single dad billionaire, but also super into green energy and cats. And toss in some poor orphan children as an afterthought. Truly. Just have a character realize after lots of shopping sprees "oh, some don't have presents" and then everyone does the obligatory 2 minute poor orphan shopping.
Ex boyfriend, super repugnant, check. Overly smart, insightful, and cute kid, check.
Two traumatic backstories, check.
Wilder (super modern popular name, check) is also possessive... like alarmingly so. Growling and "mine mine" and "if you ever hurt her, I'll hurt you" alarming.
I know these tropes and stereotypes are appealing to some, especially in "suspend disbelief." But I found them grating.
Voice acting was superb though. - C. FontanesiChristmas RomanceLauren Blakely has written a five star book about how a family’s history can affect a possible relationship. Wilder is a young billionaire and a single dad. He has great relationships within his family but has no interest in romance. Fable has a group of great friends and a special relationship with her sister, who is engaged to Wilder’s best friend. At a large family dinner Fable found her boyfriend in a compromising circumstance with the female caterer. Wilder promised a vendetta against Brady, indicating he detests cheaters. They were cell going to be together for the Christmas wedding. Brady is the cousin of the groom so he’s part of the wedding party. Wilder and Fable develop a wild plan to have a fake romance. Many comedic and romantic things happened. Must read to enjoy the romance, comedy and a variety of entertaining circumstances.
- Andrea BrownFable & Wilder!4 stars – My Favorite Holidate by Lauren Blakely is a lighthearted fun holiday rom-com. The FMC, Fable, discovers her boyfriend cheating on her at her sister’s engagement party. Her single billionaire boss, Wilder Blaine, offers a fake dating relationship to help Fable get through the wedding as her recent ex is a member of the wedding party. In the process, Wilder gets his matchmaking aunt off his back. It’s a win-win for each of them. Except they fall in love. It’s a fun festive spicy ride and a really cute story with a great supporting cast of characters. Overall, a good read. Fable gets into some OTT situations and it must be nice to have someone with oodles of money give you everything you want and need. Quite a few good tropes here: coworkers/office romance, single dad, one bed, billionaire romance, and fake dating.
A huge thank you to NetGalley, Lauren Blakely and Atria Books for allowing me to read an ARC. All thoughts and opinions expressed here are my own.