REVIEW: Love, Lies, and Cherry Pie by Jackie Lau

Love, Lies, and Cherry Pie by Jackie Lau: Being the last single daughter in an Asian household is not easy, just ask Emily Hung. It would seem that her well meaning but rather overzealous mother is dead set on setting Emily up with who she believes to be the perfect guy, engineer Mark Chan. Clearly the only solution to this problem is faking it to get everyone of her back, right? Well this was Mark and Emily’s plan, that is until family members kept popping up at all of their dates, forcing Mark and Emily to actually spend time together. Well now you see this is where the real problem starts, spending all of this time with Mark is forcing Emily to realise that just maybe she misjudged him and maybe his stuffy sweater vest are actually kind of cute… sort of like the engineer wearing them…

Love, Lies and Cherry Pies was a rather cute romcom read. I truly am a sucker for the fake turned real dating trope and getting to see Emily and Mark bamboozled into actually dating was quiet easily the best. One of the things that I really enjoyed in this book was the Asian representation, I loved the cultural references that came through in the book but also getting to see the family dynamics.

Emily was an interesting character, at first she comes across as a bit judgy and whiney, but as the book progresses we kind of get a better understanding of her character and I found myself warming up to her. I will say that I did find it easy to relate to Emily as she tried to navigate her way in making herself happy but also keeping her family happy at the same time. There are a lot of inner monologues with her rambling on about how she feels, while it might have gotten a bit tedious to constantly read her complaining, there was a note of relatability to her struggles. As for our hero Mark, well he was checking all the boxes. There wasn’t much not to like about this guy. He went along with Emily’s crazy plan and put up with her pushy nature. Also he was a cat dad, this alone won him some brownie points from me. I will say the only thing I would have liked would have been to get Mark’s POV earlier in the book.

I really liked that these two did not instantly hit it off, if anything it was pretty much hate at first sight for them. This only made getting to see them being forced to spend time together all the more delicious. Once they let their guards down and actually got to know each other sparks began to fly. I liked getting to see them support each other overcome their own self doubt.

The supporting characters in this book were many and I for one liked this. I loved how overbearing and pushy Emily’s mother was and once we got to know why she kept trying to set these two up it was hard not to want to give her a hug. Truly one of the best parts of this book was getting to see the dynamic between Emily and her mother and seeing what would happen next between them. I will say I did not like Allison at all, she was not a nice sister and I did not care for the way she treated Emily. Though I think it would be safe to say that Ms Muffins stole the show, I loved this cute shy ball of fur!

If you are looking for a cute and funny fake turned real dating romcom then I would definitely recommend reading Love, Lies and Cherry Pies!

Book Info:

Publication: May 7, 2024 | Atria/Emily Bestler Books |

Mark Chan this. Mark Chan that.

Writer and barista Emily Hung is tired of hearing about the great Mark Chan, the son of her parents’ friends. You’d think he single-handedly stopped climate change and ended child poverty from the way her mother raves about him. But in reality, he’s just a boring, sweater-vest-wearing engineer, and when they’re forced together at Emily’s sister’s wedding, it’s obvious he thinks he’s too good for her.

But now that Emily is her family’s last single daughter, her mother is fixated on getting her married and she has her sights on Mark. There’s only one solution, clearly : convince Mark to be in a fake relationship with her long enough to put an end to her mom’s meddling. He reluctantly agrees.

Unfortunately, lying isn’t enough. Family friends keep popping up at their supposed dates—including a bubble tea shop and cake-decorating class—so they’ll have to spend more time together to make their relationship look real. With each fake date, though, Emily realizes that Mark’s not quite what she assumed and maybe that argyle sweater isn’t so ugly after all…