Honestly, I have read fics with basically this premise a lot over the years. Someone needs a date to a wedding to avoid awkward family reactions and questions. Someone is asked by a mutual friend to fake it, as a favour. Romance ensues. Fortunately for everyone involved (me, you, other readers, the author), No Rings Attached has way more nuance and way less badly written gender identities than those examples.
No Rings Attached is Rachel Lacey’s follow up to Read Between the Lines focusing on Lia and Grace, the two best friends of the previous book’s protagonist Rosie. Lia is visiting her hometown in England for her sibling’s wedding, flying in from New York and Rosie arranges for Grace to be her date for the weekend to avoid having to show up alone and have her meddling relatives either shame her or try to set her up with her ex. Grace meanwhile, is about to tumble headfirst into a mess of discoveries and emotions about her past, having discovered that she has a half sister that she never knew about from her father, who had died years earlier. Lia agrees to go along on the journey as she goes to meet her lost family, and find the answers that haunt her.
The best recommendation I can give this book is that whilst I was scrolling through my drafts of books I have read months ago, this was the one that stood out most in my memory, the one I still remember strongly and fondly and dont need to go picking up the book again to remind myself of it. Whereas Read Between the Lines had me a bit at a distance, not fully invested in the characters and their dynamic, the story of Grace and Lia finding it in themselves to love each other, to want to be with each other, despite their reservations, is something that has stuck with me.
