My Fake Holiday Date Review — Is It Worth Reading?

Verdict: A sweet, steamy 74-page fake-dating novella that does something most holiday romances skip — Hanukkah and Christmas in the same story — held back by a love interest the book barely lets you know.

Best for: Readers who want a one-sitting December read with explicit heat and an interfaith, interracial couple, and who are happy to trade depth for speed.

Heat level: ★★★★☆ (4/5 — Hot & Steamy per I Heart Sapphfic; no romance.io rating exists)

Rating: ★★★★☆ (3.7/5 — a 3.95 Goodreads average across only 22 ratings, warm but thin evidence)

Tropes: Fake dating, one night to forever, holiday romance, meddling mother, ex at the party, interfaith couple, interracial couple, opposites attract, novella.

My Fake Holiday Date by Elizabeth Andre is book 14 of her long-running Lesbian Light Reads series, a standalone contemporary lesbian romance novella set in a Midwestern city between Hanukkah and Christmas — where Claire, a public-health worker whose mother keeps setting her up with men, and Ellie, a Jewish rock climber whose ex has just turned up with someone new, agree to be each other’s fake date for both holidays.

It holds a 3.95 average across 22 Goodreads ratings and 4.0 across 29 on Amazon, and it is the first new Lesbian Light Reads title since 2017. The reviews are unusually uniform — almost everyone gives four stars and almost everyone says the same two things. That uniformity is worth unpacking before you start.

What Is My Fake Holiday Date About?

My Fake Holiday Date is a short contemporary sapphic romance built on two of the holiday season’s most reliable engines: the fake date and the family that will not stop matchmaking. At 74 pages it is a novella, and Amazon files it under its two-hour short reads, which is the right expectation to bring. The setting is a modern American city in the run-up to December, with a queer bar, a Hanukkah party and a family Christmas as the three set pieces.

Claire is the one with the problem: a loving, relentless family that hears “single” and reaches for the nearest available man. What she lacks is a girlfriend to bring home. Ellie has the opposite problem — she has plenty of composure until her ex arrives at a party with a new partner on her arm. The story is told from Claire’s side, which keeps it brisk but means Ellie is seen almost entirely from the outside.

What Makes This Sapphic Holiday Fake-Dating Romance Work

Two holidays, not one: The Hanukkah party and the Christmas table share the story, and readers single this out as the reason to pick it over standard Christmas fare. One calls the Jewish lead a welcome exception in a December shelf that is otherwise all tinsel.
The family comedy: Claire’s mother and her Thanksgiving setup with a sixty-year-old man are the most-quoted scenes in the reviews, and the loud family Christmas gets called fun and cozy.
The length: Nine of eleven written reviews mention that it is short or quick, and most of them mean it as praise. It is built to be finished in an evening.
The heat: I Heart Sapphfic files it as Hot & Steamy, and readers confirm explicit scenes that land as a feature of a short book rather than filler.
A reversible favour: Each woman fakes it for the other at a different holiday, which gives a fake-dating plot a neat symmetry and keeps the arrangement from feeling one-sided.

Book Synopsis

Claire has survived another Thanksgiving, though only just. Her mother’s latest idea of a perfect match was a sixty-year-old man, introduced over the turkey, and Claire leaves dinner with a single conviction: she is not walking into Christmas alone and defenceless. She needs a woman on her arm, and she needs one fast.

What she finds instead is a night. A stranger at a queer bar, an easy connection, a morning after without so much as a surname exchanged. Claire tells herself that was the end of it. Then she walks into a friend’s Hanukkah party and there is Ellie — the climber from the bar — watching her ex arrive with someone new. Claire does the only gracious thing she can think of and becomes Ellie’s girlfriend for the evening.

A favour like that wants repaying, and Claire knows exactly what she wants in return: a convincing date for her family’s Christmas. So the two women settle on terms for a relationship that exists only for an audience, one holiday each. The problem with performing affection for people who know you well is that it has to look real — and somewhere between one holiday and the next, Claire stops being sure which parts are the act.

My Review

The best thing about My Fake Holiday Date is its premise, and specifically its calendar. Holiday sapphic romance is overwhelmingly Christmas romance, and Andre builds this one across a Hanukkah party and a Christmas dinner with a Jewish lead and a Black lead, so the two traditions sit side by side rather than one being a garnish. That is the thing readers name first when they recommend it, and it is a genuine point of difference in a crowded December.

The second strength is economy. Starting with a one-night stand rather than a meet-cute does real work at this length: the attraction is established before the fake arrangement begins, so the book does not have to spend half its pages getting the two of them interested. The family scenes carry the humour, and the reciprocal favour — Claire fakes it for Ellie, then Ellie returns the favour — gives the plot a tidy shape.

Where it struggles is Ellie, and this is the closest thing the reviews have to a consensus complaint. Three separate readers say they wanted more: one says you learn too little about Ellie, one wished for Ellie’s point of view to understand what changed her mind, and one simply wanted more story. With a single POV and 74 pages, the love interest is mostly what Claire sees. The second, smaller theme is word choice in the sex scenes — two readers flag terminology that pulled them out, one saying the second scene cost the book a star, though the other still enjoyed the scenes overall. One reader also wanted more chemistry before the first night, which is a fair note on the one-night-to-forever structure but only one voice.

One expectation to reset: the cover and the title sell a light holiday rom-com, and that is accurate as far as it goes, but this is an explicit book. The “Light Reads” series name refers to length and tone, not heat. If you wanted something cozy to read with family nearby, calibrate; if you wanted steam with your eggnog, you are in the right place.

My honest note: A charming premise in a novella that is over before it can get to know one of its two heroines. If you want depth, look elsewhere; if you want a quick, warm, steamy evening read with Hanukkah in it, this delivers exactly that.

Element	In My Fake Holiday Date
Central relationship	Claire & Ellie — public-health worker and Jewish rock climber, one-night stand to fake dates to real
Core tropes	Fake dating, one night to forever, meddling mother, ex at the party, interfaith and interracial couple
Setting	A Midwestern US city in December — a queer bar, a Hanukkah party, a family Christmas
Heat level	4/5 — Hot & Steamy per I Heart Sapphfic; not listed on romance.io
Series	Lesbian Light Reads book 14 — standalone, 74 pages, ends with the couple together
Content notes	Explicit sexual content; family pressure to date men. No other warnings recorded by readers or StoryGraph

How Spicy Is My Fake Holiday Date?

A 4/5. romance.io has no entry for this book, so there is no steam band to quote; the score comes from I Heart Sapphfic, which classes it as Hot & Steamy — full, graphic description, adults only — and from readers. One reviewer sums it up as “a quick read with lots of steam” (Mx Phoebe), others call the spice nice and well done, and the reviews reference at least two explicit scenes, which is a lot of page share in 74 pages.

The one thing to know in advance is the language in those scenes: two readers flag specific word choices that jolted them, which is a matter of taste rather than content. No reviewer names any kink or consent concern. For holiday romance at a similar heat, Mangos and Mistletoe and The Christmas Catch both sit at 4/5 explicit open door.

Who Should Read This Book?

You’ll likely love it if: you want a holiday romance you can finish in one evening, you are tired of Christmas-only stories and want Hanukkah on the page, you like explicit heat in your seasonal reads, and fake dating with a meddling mother is your comfort trope.

You may want to skip it if: you need both leads fully drawn, you want slow-burn tension before anyone sleeps together, clinical or blunt language in sex scenes pulls you out, or you wanted a closed-door cozy read.

In short: a sweet, spicy, two-holiday novella that trades depth for speed.

What Readers Are Actually Saying (October 2026)

This is a quiet book, and the evidence base is small. There are eleven independent written reviews across Goodreads and Amazon — most of the Amazon reviewers posted the same text on both — and every one of them dates from the December 2025 launch window. StoryGraph has a single review and no content warnings, romance.io does not list it, and there are no trade or blog reviews; I Heart Sapphfic catalogues it but does not review it. Reddit could not be checked for this review, and there is no audiobook. Two of the eleven reviews came from review copies, one from the author and one from the publisher. The more interesting fact is the series history: Lesbian Light Reads ran thirteen books between 2015 and 2017, and this is the first new entry in about eight years.

Why readers love it (according to the discourse): The length, first and most consistently — “short”, “quick” and “one sitting” recur in nine of eleven reviews, and almost always as praise. “Cute” and “sweet” are the recurring adjectives, in six. The family comedy comes next: the Thanksgiving setup, the meddling mother and the loud Christmas gathering are named in five reviews. The Hanukkah-and-Christmas mix and the Jewish lead are singled out by three or four readers as the reason they picked it up. The heat gets named as a positive by three, and one reader who says she does not usually like fake dating enjoyed this one. One reader notes that she was unsure how it would end at the 80% mark, and was pleased by the turn.

What readers argue about and complain about: Ellie first. Three readers say the book is too short to tell them who she is, and one specifically wanted her point of view. Second, the vocabulary of the sex scenes — two readers, one of whom noted the same issue in another of Andre’s books. Third, and only one voice, the early chemistry before the first night. The single two-star rating on Goodreads has no written review, so its reasons are unknown. There is no real split in the reviews; the complaints are mild and come attached to four-star ratings.

The standalone question worth asking first: it stands alone. Each Lesbian Light Reads book stands alone, nothing from books 1–13 is needed, and readers describe the fake arrangement ending up real with no cliffhanger. If you want more Andre, her other holiday title, On Track for Love, has more readers but sits lower at 3.55 across 97 Goodreads ratings. Her highest-rated work is the Paranormal Grievance Committee Chronicles, whose later books run from 4.34 to 4.59, albeit on 29 to 41 ratings each.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is My Fake Holiday Date a standalone?

Yes. It is book 14 of Elizabeth Andre’s Lesbian Light Reads series, but each book stands alone and nothing from the earlier books is needed.

How spicy is My Fake Holiday Date?

A 4/5. romance.io has no entry for it, but I Heart Sapphfic classes it as Hot & Steamy and readers confirm at least two explicit scenes in 74 pages.

Does My Fake Holiday Date have a happy ending?

Yes. Readers describe a fake arrangement that becomes real, and nobody reports a cliffhanger. No reviewer specifies whether it closes on a full happily-ever-after or a happy-for-now.

How long is My Fake Holiday Date?

74 pages on Kindle. It is a novella that most readers finished in one sitting, and Amazon files it under its two-hour short reads.

Is My Fake Holiday Date a Christmas or a Hanukkah romance?

Both. The fake dates run across a Hanukkah party and a family Christmas, and readers single out the mix of traditions and the Jewish lead as the reason to choose it.

Is there an audiobook of My Fake Holiday Date?

No. As of October 2026 it is available in Kindle and paperback only.

If You Loved My Fake Holiday Date, Read These Next

If the fake-dating-at-Christmas engine is the draw, Make You Mine This Christmas runs the same setup at full novel length, with far more room for both leads and less heat. If you want another short holiday read at the same spice level, Mangos and Mistletoe is a holiday novella built around a baking competition. And for a holiday fling that turns serious, told from one side, The Holiday Treatment is the closest match in structure.

For more, browse our sapphic fake dating romance list, the sapphic holiday romance favorites, or the full Book Reviews collection.

The Bottom Line

My Fake Holiday Date sets out to be a quick, warm, grown-up holiday romance, and it mostly is. The two-holiday setting is a genuine point of difference, the family comedy lands, and the heat delivers what the listing promises. It is also very short, thin on its second heroine, and written in a sex-scene vocabulary that will not suit everyone. The evidence behind it is small — eleven written reviews, nearly all four stars — so treat the score as provisional. For a single December evening with Hanukkah on the page, it is an easy recommendation. Check My Fake Holiday Date on Amazon →

The Eikna Overall Ranking

On the Eikna scale, My Fake Holiday Date ranks as a pleasant indie sapphic holiday novella — sweet, steamy and distinctive for its Hanukkah-and-Christmas pairing, limited by its length, and best approached as a one-evening seasonal treat rather than a romance to sink into.