IRIS KELLY DOESN'T DATE

A fake relationship with a one-night stand is anything but an act in this new witty and heartfelt romantic comedy by Ashley Herring Blake.

Everyone around Iris Kelly is in love. Her best friends are all coupled up, her siblings have partners that are perfect for them, her parents are still in marital bliss. And she's happy for all of them, truly. So what if she usually cries in her Lyft on the way home. So what if she misses her friends, who are so busy with their own wonderful love lives, they don't really notice Iris is spiraling. At least she has a brand-new career writing romance novels (yes, she realizes the irony of it). She is now working on her second book but has one problem: she is completely out of juice after having spent all of her romantic energy on her debut.

Perfectly happy to ignore her problems as per usual, Iris goes to a bar in Portland and meets a sexy stranger, Stefania, and a night of dancing and making out turns into the worst one-night stand Iris has had in her life (vomit and crying are regretfully involved). To get her mind off everything and get her creative juices flowing, Iris tries out for a local play, but comes face-to-face with Stefaniaor, Stevie, her real name. When Stevie desperately asks Iris to play along as her girlfriend, Iris is shocked, but goes along with it because maybe this fake relationship will actually get her juices flowing and she can get her book written. As the two women play the part of a couple, they turn into a constant state of hot-and-bothered and soon it just comes down to who will make the real first move.

Ashley Herring Blake is an award-winning author and literary agent at Rees Literary Agency. She holds a Master's degree in teaching and loves coffee, arranging her books by color, and cold weather. She is the author of the young adult novels Suffer Love, How to Make a Wish, and Girl Made of Stars, and the middle grade novels Ivy Aberdeen's Letter to the World, The Mighty Heart of Sunny St. James, and Hazel Bly and the Deep Blue Sea.

Ivy Aberdeen's Letter to the World was a Stonewall Honor Book, as well as a Kirkus, School Library Journal, NYPL, and NPR Best Book of 2018. Her YA novel Girl Made of Stars was a Lambda Literary Award finalist. She's also the author of the adult romance novel Delilah Green Doesn't Care, and a co-editor on the young adult romance anthology Fools in Love. She lives on a very tiny island off the coast of Georgia with her family.