Without a Hitch

This was a very easy listen a couple of weeks ago and it was ... fine. 

It incorporates some of my favourite tropes (fake dating, one bed) and a beautiful Maui location, but if we're going for a cute and spicy romance with some banter (a la Emily Henry, a readalike the blurb mentions), it falls short. The problem is that it's so generic and lacks chemistry between the main couple that it's forgettable.

Overall, this was a decent predictable bookish palate cleanser in between my darker thriller reads but it won't be a book that I'll remember.

My Rating: 3 stars

Author: Portia MacIntosh

Genre: Romance

Type and Source: eAudiobook - Audible

Run Time: 7 hrs, 32 min

Narrator: Charlotte Ritchie

Publisher: Audible Originals

First Published: August 21, 2025

Read: Dec 4-8, 2025

Book Description from GoodReads: Holly thought she had it a perfect fiancé, a dream Maui wedding, and a thriving career writing about weddings. But when she's stood up at the altar, her world crumbles. Just as she's piecing it back together, her boss sends her on assignment to Maui – the very place where her happily-ever-after wedding was supposed to take place.

Saving face and her career, Holly takes on the assignment and stuffs her ex, Ed, to the back her mind. It’s at the Grand Palm Hotel where Holly meets the gorgeous Theo, the hunky stranger who rescues her from the pool. Spluttering and soaked, their connection is electric, but there's a catch: Theo is her ex-fiancé's stepbrother, and he's in Maui for Ed's wedding…

In a moment of panic, Holly and Theo strike up fake a relationship. How bad it can it be? After all, they just pretending…

As Holly navigates this new role, old feelings surface and new ones bloom, and Holly must decide what’s real and what’s fake before the big day arrives.

Perfect for fans of Emily Henry and Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Without a Hitch is a laugh-out-loud, tropical escape that proves the best love stories are the ones we never saw coming.