Faking It in Cedar Hollow — A 5-Book Blue-Collar Small-Town Romance Series

FAKING IT IN CEDAR HOLLOW

A Five-Book Blue-Collar Small-Town Romance Series

Five brothers · Five lies · One grandmother who out-schemed them all

Five blue-collar brothers. Five fake relationships. One scheming grandmother who refuses to watch a single one of them spend his life alone.

The Series

In Cedar Hollow, a small town tucked into the Blue Ridge foothills, the five Calloway brothers run Calloway & Sons — a garage, a contracting crew, a line truck, a welding shop, and a wrecker, all under one family shingle. Orphaned young and raised by their grandmother, Pearl, every one of them grew up around the same hole and learned the same lesson: don’t reach for anything you can’t stand to lose.

So when Gran threatens to sell the business unless they settle down, each brother does the only thing a Calloway knows how to do under pressure — he produces a fake girlfriend to keep the peace, and falls for her for real before the lie even cools. A fake-dating bargain, a panic-blurted engagement, a storm-stranded reunion, a custody-fight family, and a week-before-Christmas tow out of a ditch — five different fake setups, five very real happily-ever-afters.

Told in heat-forward, dual first-person present tense, these are fast, warm, low-angst comfort reads with five distinctly drawn blue-collar heroes and the heroines who see straight through them. Every book delivers the same promise — instalove, a fake relationship that turns real, a found family that absorbs each new heroine, and a guaranteed HEA with no cheating and no cliffhangers.

Five brothers. Five lies. One grandmother who out-schemed them all.

What’s Included in This Package

The Five Books

Book One — Faking It with the Mechanic (Daisy Mercer & Beck Calloway)

“She needed a date who’d make her runaway ex choke on his own toast. He needed a girlfriend to keep his grandmother from selling the family garage. Neither of them planned on meaning it.”

Faking It with the Mechanic · Daisy Mercer & Beck Calloway

Daisy Mercer moved to Cedar Hollow to start over, and her three-month-old bakery, Sugar Hollow, runs on butter and hope. Beckett “Beck” Calloway has run the family garage — and helped raise his four brothers — since he was nineteen, and he hasn’t let himself want a single thing for himself since. When Daisy’s van dies in his bay while she’s being strong-armed into bringing a plus-one to her sister’s wedding, Beck overhears the whole thing and offers her a trade neither of them should take.

She’ll play his serious girlfriend for the grandmother threatening to sell Calloway & Sons; he’ll be the wall of a man at her back when she faces the ex who left her at the altar. The rule is simple: public only, ends after the wedding, nobody means anything. But a fake kiss on the dance floor stops being fake — and when Daisy overhears half a sentence in the garage, she walks out before she can hear the rest, certain she’s the woman men only ever practice on.

Grumpy-sunshine instalove at its warmest: a man who only knows how to give, a woman who only knows how to be left, and the public, flour-dusted declaration that finally lets a careful man reach for the one thing he wants to keep.

Featured hooks · Fake Dating · Grumpy/Sunshine · Small-Town Instalove · Blue-Collar Hero · Left-at-the-Altar Heroine · Wedding Date

Book Two — Faking It with the Contractor (June Portis & Sawyer Calloway)

“She blurted out a fiancé to shut her family up. He happened to be the contractor already half-living in her inn. The lie fit them both a little too well.”

Faking It with the Contractor · June Portis & Sawyer Calloway

June Portis inherited the crumbling Hollow Inn from the one relative who ever believed in her, and she has forty-one days to make it beautiful before a make-or-break grand reopening — with her dismissive family booked as guests, waiting for her to fail. Sawyer Calloway is the contractor doing the work: the charming Calloway, the funny one, the brother nobody ever picks first. When June’s aunt corners her about being all alone, June panics and announces she’s engaged — and Sawyer, walking in mid-disaster, plays along.

A fake engagement solves everything: June gets a fiancé who “chose” Cedar Hollow and her, and Sawyer gets his grandmother off his back about settling down. But somewhere between a junk-shop ring and a flooded parlor they save together at midnight, the performance stops being one. Then June’s family dangles a buyout, Sawyer overhears her go quiet, and the brother who’s never been chosen first does what he always does, and leaves before he can be left.

Opposites-attract fake-engagement romance with banter for days: a woman who trusts buildings more than people and a man who hides solid gold under a grin, both learning to be chosen on purpose.

Featured hooks · Fake Engagement · Opposites Attract · Fixer-Upper · Ticking-Clock Deadline · Blue-Collar Hero · Banter

Book Three — Faking It with the Lineman (Mari Vega & Knox Calloway)

“He’s wanted her since they were eighteen and never said a word. A storm just stranded her back in town for one week — and the quietest Calloway is finally out of excuses.”

Faking It with the Lineman · Mari Vega & Knox Calloway

Marisol “Mari” Vega left Cedar Hollow at eighteen and built a whole life as an ER nurse three hundred miles away, specifically so she’d never again be at the mercy of the town that broke her. A storm and a washed-out bridge strand her back home the week of her ten-year reunion — and the lineman fixing her grandmother’s downed power is Knox Calloway, the silent boy who watched her from the back of every classroom and never once said why.

Knox offers to be her fake date so she won’t face the people who bullied her alone. For her, it’s a favor; for him, it was never fake — it was ten years of a want he learned to swallow after losing his parents at thirteen. Forced together by the outage, they finally crack open, and at the reunion the act stops being one. Then the bridge reopens, her shift waits, and the man who never asks for anything has to decide whether to stay silent and lose her again.

The quiet, aching one: forced-proximity, unrequited-then-requited longing and a strong-silent hero who learns that saying a true thing once isn’t brave — saying it twice, after, when it’s hard, is.

Featured hooks · Forced Proximity · Fake Dating · High-School Reunion · Strong-Silent Hero · Unrequited-to-Requited · Instalove

Book Four — Faking It with the Welder (Tessa Lange & Rhett Calloway)

“She’s thirty-five with a custody fight and a five-year-old. He’s twenty-seven and the steadiest man she’s ever met. Faking a family was supposed to be temporary.”

Faking It with the Welder · Tessa Lange & Rhett Calloway

Tessa Lange came to Cedar Hollow to raise her son, Milo, somewhere her controlling ex couldn’t reach — until a custody petition arrives calling her unstable and alone. Rhett Calloway, the welder next door, has spent months quietly fixing every broken thing on her rental and answering her five-year-old’s every question. When her ex’s family descends at Thanksgiving to prove she’s isolated, Rhett offers to pose as her steady live-in partner — one true piece of a stable picture she’s already built.

Eight years younger and certain he’s too rough to be anyone’s safe place, Rhett falls for the boy as fast as the mother — and for the first time in her life, Tessa believes a good man might choose the whole package. Then the custody pressure escalates, and to protect Milo she cuts Rhett out, sure she’s sparing them both. It teaches a five-year-old the exact lesson his father taught him: men leave.

The tender, heart-heavy one: a reverse age gap, a gentle giant, an instafamily, and a hero who learns that walking away “to protect them” is the coward’s version of love — and that staying is the brave one.

Featured hooks · Reverse Age Gap · Single Mom / Instafamily · Fake Live-In Partner · Blue-Collar Hero · Gentle Giant · Custody Stakes

Book Five — Faking It with the Tow Truck Driver (Holly Brooks & Tucker Calloway) · Series Capstone

“He pulled her out of a ditch the week before Christmas. She’s his best friend’s little sister — the one woman in Cedar Hollow he’s never been allowed to want.”

Faking It with the Tow Truck Driver · Holly Brooks & Tucker Calloway

Tucker Calloway is the baby of the family, the funny one, the kid nobody takes seriously — and the last single brother left at Gran’s table. When he tows Holly Brooks out of a snowy ditch the week before Christmas, the girl he taught to drive stick is suddenly very much a grown woman — and very much his best friend Jesse’s little sister, which makes her permanently off-limits. Holly’s tired of being treated like she’s nine; Tucker’s tired of being the punchline. So they strike a deal: fake-date through the holidays, and Jesse can never know it started as a con.

It stops being a con almost immediately, because Holly is the first person who ever saw straight through Tucker’s grin. But when Jesse finds out, Tucker folds, choosing the peace over the girl. Meanwhile Gran gathers all five brothers to reveal the truth she’s sat on for a year: she was never going to sell the shop. She’d protected it in a trust before she ever made the threat. She just needed her boys to look up and live.

The best-friend’s-little-sister holiday finale: two “babies of the family” who finally get to be the leads in their own story, a hero who stops folding and stands his ground, and a full Calloway table — every chair filled at last — for the grandmother who out-schemed them all.

Featured hooks · Best Friend’s Little Sister · Forbidden Romance · Holiday / Christmas · Fake Dating · Instalove · Series Finale

Series Tropes

Series Details

Heat Level

Content Notes

Comp Title Shelf

What You Get

Five reads away from your next binge-launch series. ❤