Recommendation
MM fake dating romance
Two men agree to perform a relationship for an audience, and the trouble starts when the performance stops feeling like one. The premise does the work: it gets two people who wouldn't otherwise touch each other close enough, often enough, in public enough, that pretending becomes its own kind of exposure.
It overlaps constantly with marriage of convenience, roommates and grumpy sunshine, and half the shelf tags itself as two or three tropes at once. Heat and ending stated up front, and the overlap noted where it matters.
Updated 23 September 2026
What counts here
Three rules:
- The dating has to be fake to someone. If both men already know exactly how they feel and are only fooling a stranger for five minutes, that's a different book. The arrangement needs an audience that matters: family, a workplace, the public.
- A reason worth the lie. A wedding, a job, a custody hearing, a magazine profile. If the fake relationship could be dropped with no consequence, there's no book.
- Heat and ending stated plainly for every book. You shouldn't have to find out at chapter twenty.
What the heat ratings mean
The five point scale romance readers already use, lowest to highest. Every book below is marked on it.
- Glimpses and kisses a kiss at most, and no sex on or off the page
- Behind closed doors it happens, but the door shuts first
- Open door at least one scene you are in the room for, written without the explicit words
- Explicit open door two or more scenes, explicit, and a range of things happening
- Explicit and plentiful several explicit scenes spread through the book
Is fake dating the same as marriage of convenience?
Not quite, and the shelf blurs them constantly. Fake dating is temporary and usually starts as a favour: come to this wedding, meet this reporter, get my parents off my back. Marriage of convenience is a legal or financial arrangement from the start, with a document behind it rather than a request. The Husband Hoax runs both at once, which is common enough that the distinction is more useful for knowing what you're picking up than for sorting books into two clean piles.
Grumpy sunshine and roommates also turn up constantly alongside it, because forcing two men to perform closeness in public tends to force them into proximity in private too. None of that makes a book miscategorised. It makes fake dating a hub trope rather than an island. The overlap is noted book by book below rather than sorted out here, because half of them are honestly both.
Every MM fake dating romance worth reading
Not ranked. Heat and ending are on every one, so you can pick by what you're after.
Boyfriend Material
Alexis Hall
AboutLuc O'Donnell is the son of two 1980s rock stars, and one compromising photo could cost him his job at a charity. He needs a nice, normal boyfriend to clean up his image. Oliver Blackwood is a barrister and an ethical vegetarian, and has never been in a scandal in his life. He needs a date for his parents' anniversary. They agree to fake it for a few weeks.
Read it ifYou want it funny, closed door, and set in London.
DifferentIt's a comedy first.
SettingLondon, contemporary
HeatBehind closed doors - 2 of 5 on romance.io
EndingHFN. Together at the end of the fake-dating year, with the proposal pressure carried into Husband Material.
SeriesFirst of two London Calling books. Husband Material follows the same two men through the wedding season after.
Rating3.97 on Goodreads, from 166,581 ratings
Fun factThis is his best known book by a wide margin.
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Fake Out
Eden Finley
AboutMaddox is straight. When the pressure to marry his childhood sweetheart Stacy got too much, he told her he was gay and ran to New York. Five years later she invites him to her wedding, and he has to bring the boyfriend he doesn't have. Stacy asks her brother Damon to play the part. Damon lost his baseball career to an injury and is trying to make it as a sports agent, and Maddox can get him a meeting with a client.
Read it ifYou want a straight man who has to produce a boyfriend, and the bride's brother playing the part.
DifferentDamon is Stacy's brother, so the fake boyfriend is family to the bride.
SettingContemporary US, sports-adjacent
HeatExplicit open door - 4 of 5 on romance.io
EndingHEA, and no cliffhanger.
SeriesFirst of the Fake Boyfriend books. Trick Play is next, a different couple.
Rating3.96 on Goodreads, from 32,901 ratings
Fun factFinley is Australian, from Queensland, though the book itself is set in the US.
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The Husband Hoax
Saxon James
AboutChristian hasn't seen his family in ten years, since they turned their backs on him. Now he's invited to his cousin's wedding, and he's hired an impressive date to show them what they lost. The date cancels minutes before the ceremony. Outside, Émile is getting some air after his grandfather's will reading, where he's found out he has to marry to inherit. He steps in as Christian's boyfriend for the day, and starts to think Christian could solve his problem too.
Read it ifYou want a stand-in wedding date who turns out to need a husband.
DifferentThe paid date cancels, and the man who steps in has his own reason to want a husband.
SettingContemporary, wealthy family backdrop
HeatExplicit open door - 4 of 5 on romance.io
EndingHEA, and it takes a cousin's wedding to get there.
SeriesFirst of the Accidental Love books.
Rating4.03 on Goodreads, from 10,813 ratings
Fun factJames is Australian.
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Playing His Game
Ashlyn Kane and Morgan James
AboutMo is the son of the Arizona Canyons' owner, and one scandal away from losing his family's support. Adam is the team's captain and the league's first openly drafted gay player, and careful about everything. A candid photo of them goes viral, and everyone decides they've been secretly together for years. Denying it would hurt Adam and the team, so they fake it.
Read it ifYou want hockey, a team captain, and a relationship the internet decided on for them.
DifferentEveryone believes it before they've agreed to anything.
SettingProfessional hockey, contemporary, 2026
HeatNot rated - too new for a steam rating yet
EndingNot confirmed. Too new for reviews that say how it lands.
SeriesFirst of the Goal Mates books.
RatingNo Goodreads average yet. Released 2026.
Fun factBoldwood is marketing it straight at Heated Rivalry readers: fake dating and found family, released 2026, after a photo of the two men leaks online and they decide to run with it rather than deny it.
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Strawberry Moon
Lily Morton
AboutClem has worked in Harry's bookshop in Cornwall for years, and been in love with him the whole time. Harry is fifteen years older and thinks Clem is too young for him, so he keeps dating unsuitable men. When Harry needs a fake boyfriend for a family wedding in Norfolk, Clem takes the job. He has one weekend to change Harry's mind.
Read it ifYou want it short, and a boss who thinks he's too old for you.
DifferentA novella, set over one wedding weekend.
SettingA bookshop, contemporary, novella length
HeatOpen door - 3 of 5 on romance.io
EndingHEA.
SeriesStandalone novella.
RatingNew enough that Goodreads has no stable average yet, 38 reviews so far
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The Gift
May Archer
AboutDaniel moved to the small town of O'Leary for a fresh start and became best friends with Julian, the local vet. One morning Julian accidentally tells the whole town they're dating, and rather than correct the rumour, the two of them go along with it.
Read it ifYou want the fake relationship to start as an accident, in a small town, with low angst.
DifferentNobody chooses the lie here. It starts as a mistake and the two men decide together not to fix it.
SettingA small town, contemporary
HeatExplicit open door - 4 of 5 on romance.io
EndingHEA.
SeriesSecond of the Love in O'Leary books. Each pairs a different couple in the same town.
Rating4.21 on Goodreads, from 4,650 ratings
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Fake Dating the Prince
Ashlyn Kane
AboutBrayden Wood is a flight attendant who agrees to go to a charity ball with a first-class passenger. His date turns out to be Prince Antoine-Philipe, who needs a boyfriend for the night so nobody tries to match-make him. Then the paparazzi get involved, and the fake relationship has to last the rest of Brayden's three-week holiday. They share a bed the whole time, platonically.
Read it ifYou want an audience that matters: press, protocol, and a title neither man can just walk away from.
DifferentFlip is Europe's only prince of Indian descent, and its only openly gay one.
SettingA royal court, contemporary Europe
HeatOpen door - from reviews, not romance.io
EndingHEA, after a miscommunication nearly costs it.
SeriesStandalone.
Rating4.01 on Goodreads, from 490 ratings
Fun factFlip screens his dates for "appropriate" first and attraction second.
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Work: Strictly Professional
Jesse H. Reign
AboutDerek is forty-eight, a millionaire CEO, and has been hiding that he's gay for nearly thirty years. Wyn is twenty-nine and his personal assistant. Derek gives him three weeks to plan his son's wedding, hoping it will make him quit. Then, to win an argument with his ex-wife, Derek tells the whole wedding party that he and Wyn are dating, and ends up paying Wyn to be his boyfriend.
Read it ifYou want the lie told to a whole wedding party, and a boss who pays for it.
DifferentDerek tells the lie on the spot to win an argument with his ex-wife, then has to pay Wyn to keep it going.
SettingContemporary US, an office
HeatExplicit and plentiful - 5 of 5 on romance.io
EndingHEA.
SeriesSecond of the Bad Decisions books, linked standalones. Best read after Rent: Paid in Full, though it can be read alone.
Rating4.1 on romance.io. Goodreads count too small to surface in search.
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Himbro
Honey London
AboutDevon gets dumped the day before he's due to leave for a destination wedding, so his stepbrother Jesse offers to come along instead. To get Devon's manipulative ex off his back, Jesse introduces himself as the boyfriend, and the room booked for a couple only has one bed in it.
Read it ifYou want the fake boyfriend to be the stepbrother, and a destination wedding with one bed.
DifferentNobody asks Jesse to lie. He volunteers, to get Devon's ex off his back.
SettingA destination wedding, and a stepbrother who volunteers as a last-minute plus-one
HeatExplicit open door - from reviews, not romance.io
EndingHFN, per reviews rather than a full HEA.
SeriesStandalone.
Rating3.93 on Goodreads, from 895 ratings
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Finding Lord Landry
Lucy Lennox
AboutKenji Toma is the assistant who runs the Billionaire Brotherhood's lives. Landry Davis is the charming one who keeps disappearing and turning up in trouble. Kenji doesn't know that Landry is a viscount and will one day be an earl. When Landry's family catches up with him, Kenji agrees to a fake engagement, and it goes very public.
Read it ifYou want a fake engagement that goes public before either man is ready for it.
DifferentKenji agrees to it without knowing Landry is a viscount, so the lie is much bigger than the one he signed up for.
SettingNew York, then a country estate in England
HeatOpen door - from reviews, not romance.io
EndingHEA.
Rating4.40 on Goodreads, from 2,835 ratings
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Awfully Ambrose
Lisa Henry and Sarah Honey
AboutAmbrose Newman is a professional bad boyfriend. When parents hate who their kid is dating, the kid hires Ambrose for one dinner, and the old boyfriend suddenly looks fine. Liam's last boyfriend cheated on him, and he doesn't want another. His parents want him paired off. When they visit, he hires Ambrose to pose as his boyfriend. Liam's family loves Ambrose, and they invite him to the family winery for Easter.
Read it ifYou want a man who fakes relationships for a living, and a long weekend at the parents' winery.
DifferentAmbrose is usually hired so the parents hate him. This time they love him, and that's the problem.
SettingSydney, then a New South Wales winery over Easter
HeatOpen door - from reviews, not romance.io
EndingHEA.
SeriesFirst of the Bad Boyfriends, Inc. books. Terribly Tristan is the third, and each one is a different couple, so they stand alone.
Rating3.98 on Goodreads, from 1,101 ratings
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If you have run out
Marriage of convenience is the natural next stop: same audience-that-matters logic, with a document behind it instead of a request. The Husband Hoax sits on both shelves at once.
Roommates and grumpy sunshine turn up constantly beside fake dating for the reason above: an arrangement performed in public tends to force proximity in private too. Rule Breaker, on the opposites attract guide, is Lily Morton's other book and runs the grumpy sunshine version without a fake relationship layered on top.
Frequently asked questions
What makes a romance "fake dating" rather than something else?
Someone who matters, a family member, an employer, the public, has to believe the relationship is real when it isn't. If the two leads are only fooling a stranger for a few minutes, or if nobody outside the couple is meant to be convinced of anything, it's a different trope wearing similar clothes.
Is Boyfriend Material actually fake dating, or is that oversold?
Yes. Luc needs a respectable boyfriend to keep his charity job, Oliver needs a date for his parents' anniversary, and both of them are fooling people who matter. It's also a comedy first and closed door, so it reads differently from the rest even though the premise is textbook.
How much MM fake dating romance is there?
Enough to fill a shelf, though it overlaps constantly with marriage of convenience and roommates, so a lot of what gets tagged fake dating is really one of those with a fake relationship layered on top.
Which of these is the most explicit?
Work: Strictly Professional, rated Explicit and plentiful on romance.io, the top of the scale. Fake Out, The Husband Hoax, The Gift and Himbro are all Explicit open door. Boyfriend Material is the lowest heat here, Behind closed doors, and reads as a comedy first.
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