Take a Hint, Dani Brown

Dani Brown has her next few years mapped out: doctoral research, a career that goes somewhere, and no room for a relationship. Then a video of a botched workplace fire drill spreads online. In it, Zaf Ansari, a tall, brooding security guard, carries her out of the building, and the internet decides the two belong together.

Dani sees an opening. She proposes that they fake a couple for the cameras while keeping things physical in private, with no feelings involved. Zaf agrees, though he is a romantic underneath the glower. He used to play rugby and left the sport after an injury, and he now sets out to show Dani that what they share could be real.

This is a contemporary romance built on a fake-dating arrangement that stops being fake. The heroine is bisexual and a committed realist, and the hero is the soft-hearted one, so the push and pull runs against the usual script. Expect a warm, playful tone and a slow slide from agreement to attachment.

It is the second novel in the Brown Sisters series by Talia Hibbert, following Get a Life, Chloe Brown, which follows Chloe's story. The focus here moves to Dani.