THE NEXT BEST FLING

Two singles pining for other people fake-date to avoid complications—and surprise themselves.

Librarian Marcela Ortiz has been in love with Ben Young for years, though he friendzoned her after a few dates and began seeing someone else. Now that he’s engaged to his girlfriend, Alice Cho, Marcela needs to move on. But after she finds out that Ben’s brother, Theo, plans to declare his own love for Alice at the couple’s engagement party, she convinces the drunken Theo to come home with her, leaving their friends and family to think they’re involved. They decide to be each other’s alibis to salvage the situation (though Marcela doesn’t tell Theo whom she’s trying to get over), but the line between allies and friends-with-benefits keeps blurring. Marcela seems to be sexually and emotionally hooked on Ben for much of the plot, which fits the backstory of her decade-long pining but is jarring in a romance in which another man is meant to be her true mate. That Ben is fat-phobic and stringing Marcela along makes him increasingly villainous, a portrait that turns to caricature when he’s also identified as unwilling to let his fiancee or his brother find professional success. Marcela’s library colleague (mentioned in passing as attracted to other women), her mother, and Alice are all drawn with some nuance, as is Marcela, suggesting that more thought went into developing the female characters. The narrative is compelling but teeters on the edge of staging a train wreck, with secrets, jealousies, and confrontations resembling a soap opera.

The story of a woman involved with two brothers who both want another woman might not grab all romance readers.