Books Like The Unhoneymooners: Fake Honeymoon & Vacation Romance With Real Heat (2026)
If you’re hunting for books like The Unhoneymooners, you already know the formula: a wedding goes sideways, a nonrefundable trip survives, and two people who should never share a hotel room end up pretending to be blissfully in love somewhere beautiful. In Christina Lauren’s 2019 hit, Olive Torres and Ethan Thomas, the groom’s brother and her sworn enemy, are the only two people spared when food poisoning takes out her twin sister’s entire wedding party. So they take the couple’s free honeymoon to Maui and pose as newlyweds.
A film adaptation is in the works, so it’s a good time to stock up on fake honeymoons. This list keeps the jilted brides, resort suites and one-bed problems, then turns the heat all the way up, with eight Fractal Enigma picks first and three trad gateways after.
Affiliate disclosure: This post contains Amazon affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate, Fractal Enigma earns from qualifying purchases at no extra cost to you.
See The Unhoneymooners on Amazon →
What Makes The Unhoneymooners Work
The book runs on a delicious contradiction: public performance, private hostility. Olive and Ethan have to look madly in love in front of everyone at the resort, then retreat to a room where they can barely stand each other, until the performance starts leaking into the private hours. Paradise matters too. Nobody has their routines, their friends or their excuses, and every gorgeous view makes the lie harder to sustain.
The best readalikes keep at least two of those ingredients: a trip that can’t be cancelled, a relationship that has to be faked and a room with one bed. The Fractal Enigma picks below cover sapphic, why-choose and MMM honeymoons, every one rated Inferno. For more queer trips beyond the honeymoon suite, see our queer vacation romance guide.
Fake Honeymoons & Honeymoon Suites
The Honeymoon Upgrade — Riley Kendra
Wedding photographer Nora Bennett shoots other people’s happy endings for a living. Then the bride bolts six hours before the welcome party, the resort gives away Nora’s room and her final payment bounces. Stranded, she takes the honeymoon instead, along with a fake marriage, an older ice queen and exactly one bed. Riley Kendra’s sapphic vacation romance pairs an age gap with a bi awakening and a control-and-surrender dynamic that makes the villa feel very small. Available at all major retailers.
Heat: Inferno 🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️
Tropes: Fake Marriage, Vacation Romance, Forced Proximity, One Bed, Age Gap, Ice Queen, Bisexual Awakening, Control/Surrender
Start reading The Honeymoon Upgrade →
The Honeymoon Wasn’t Cancelled — Isla Wilde
Daphne Prescott plans perfect weddings for a living. Ten days before her own, the groom backs out, leaving her a laminated itinerary and fourteen prepaid nights in paradise that can’t be refunded. The trip she never meant to take alone turns into an FFM closed triad built on old friendships, a brother’s best friend and one shared bed. It’s Isla Wilde’s why-choose answer to the jilted-bride honeymoon, and the closest thing on this list to Olive and Ethan’s chaos with a third person added. Available at all major retailers.
Heat: Inferno 🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️
Tropes: Why Choose, Jilted Bride, Vacation Romance, Best Friends to Lovers, Brother’s Best Friend, Bisexual Awakening, One Bed, Closed Triad
Start reading The Honeymoon Wasn’t Cancelled →
Honeymoon Crashers — Isla Wilde
On what should have been the happiest week of her life, Elise Hart checks into a luxury Caribbean resort alone. Her fiancé cheated, the wedding imploded and the honeymoon was nonrefundable, so she went anyway, with a suitcase packed for a man who didn’t deserve it. She is not going home the way she arrived. An MFM why-choose romance with friends to lovers, a long-overdue awakening and a found family under the Caribbean sun. Free with Kindle Unlimited.
Heat: Inferno 🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️
Tropes: Jilted Bride, Vacation Romance, MFM Why-Choose, Forced Proximity, Friends to Lovers, Found Family, Touch Starved, Triad Romance
Start reading Honeymoon Crashers →
Three Keys to the Honeymoon Suite — Jace Wilder
Ten years married, two big careers and one renovation from hell later, Julian Cross and Mateo Serrano-Cross are rock solid. What they both feel for their closest friend, Theo Bennett, simply doesn’t fit inside a marriage built for two anymore. Jace Wilder’s MMM romance is the honeymoon-suite pick for readers who want an established couple, intentional polyamory and a vacation that finishes building a family instead of breaking one.
Heat: Inferno 🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️
Tropes: Established Couple + Third, Intentional Polyamory, Best Friends to Lovers, Age Gap, Vacation Romance, Forced Proximity, One Bed, Found Family
Start reading Three Keys to the Honeymoon Suite →
Jilted Brides, Destination Weddings & Vacation Flings
The Bride’s Backup Woman — Aurora North
When her groom vanishes forty-eight hours before their island wedding, beauty mogul and control enthusiast Carys Bellweather is left with two hundred guests, a magazine exclusive and an enormous orchid arch built for a ceremony that won’t happen. The wedding is off; the honeymoon isn’t. Aurora North pairs the 34-year-old jilted bride with her 46-year-old wedding planner, an ice queen with a caretaking streak, for an age-gap destination romance. Free with Kindle Unlimited.
Heat: Inferno 🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️
Tropes: Jilted Bride, Destination Wedding, Older Wedding Planner, Age Gap (34/46), Ice Queen Caretaker, Forced Proximity, Praise Kink
Start reading The Bride’s Backup Woman →
Sailing Past Straight — Riley Kendra
Megan Hartwell packs in labeled cubes, survived a divorce so civil it barely registered and is ignoring a promotion waiting in her inbox. Ten days on a sailboat in the Greek islands was her sister’s idea, not hers. Then she meets the captain. Riley Kendra’s late-bloomer bi awakening trades the resort suite for a boat with nowhere to hide, adding opposites attract, competence kink and a commitment-phobe to the mix. Available at all major retailers.
Heat: Inferno 🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️
Tropes: Bisexual Awakening, Late Bloomer, Vacation Romance, Forced Proximity, One Bed, Opposites Attract, Competence Kink, Commitment-Phobe
Start reading Sailing Past Straight →
Vacation Girlfriend, Double Trouble — Isla Wilde
Paige Wynn is twenty-nine, freshly dumped by voicemail and determined to take her dream beach vacation alone. After five years of being the easy, accommodating girlfriend, she is about to find out what it’s like when two best friends put her wants first. One week, one fake-girlfriend arrangement and an MFM why-choose romance that stops feeling fake almost immediately.
Heat: Inferno 🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️
Tropes: Vacation Fling, Fake Dating, Forced Proximity, One Bed, Why Choose, Touch Starved, Praise Kink
Start reading Vacation Girlfriend, Double Trouble →
Getting Lei’d — Aurora North (Free)
Chicago corporate lawyer Harper Vance runs her life on color-coded spreadsheets, right up until her fiancé ends things by email three days before the wedding. Now she’s alone in Hawaii, in a honeymoon suite she can’t afford, and a booking error means sharing it with Riley Chen, a stranger who is nothing like her. Aurora North’s sapphic fake-honeymoon romance brings grumpy-sunshine sparks and one bed, and it’s completely free to download.
Heat: Inferno 🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️
Tropes: Fake Dating, Forced Proximity, Grumpy/Sunshine, One Bed, Vacation Romance
Trad Gateways for Unhoneymooners Fans
If you want more in the same key as Christina Lauren, these three are natural next reads. All of them run lower heat than the picks above.
The Paradise Problem — Christina Lauren
The same authors’ 2024 island romance: an artist and a billionaire heir who married in college for practical reasons now have to convince his family the marriage is real during a wedding on a private island, with his inheritance on the line. It’s the closest match for the fake-couple-in-paradise setup, and our guide to books like The Paradise Problem has ten more.
See The Paradise Problem on Amazon →
People We Meet on Vacation — Emily Henry
Best friends Poppy and Alex took one summer trip together every year until a disastrous trip to Croatia broke the friendship. Two years later, Poppy convinces him to take one more vacation to fix it. It’s friends to lovers rather than fake dating, but the travel-and-tension structure is a perfect fit, and Netflix premiered its film adaptation in January 2026. Our list of books like People We Meet on Vacation picks up from there.
See People We Meet on Vacation on Amazon →
Happy Place — Emily Henry
Harriet and Wyn broke up months ago and haven’t told their friends, so during the group’s final week at a beloved Maine cottage, they pretend they’re still together. It’s the fake-couple-on-vacation setup with an ex instead of an enemy, and it hurts in the best way.
FAQ: Books Like The Unhoneymooners
Is The Unhoneymooners spicy?
It’s moderate heat, with more emphasis on banter and slow-building chemistry than on explicit scenes. Every Fractal Enigma pick above is rated Inferno (🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️) if you want the same setup with the door wide open.
Is there a free fake honeymoon romance?
Yes. Getting Lei’d by Aurora North, a sapphic fake-honeymoon romance built on a Hawaiian booking error and one bed, is free to download.
Which of these honeymoon romances are free with Kindle Unlimited?
Honeymoon Crashers and The Bride’s Backup Woman are free with Kindle Unlimited. The Honeymoon Upgrade, The Honeymoon Wasn’t Cancelled and Sailing Past Straight are available at all major retailers, and the other book pages list their current purchase options.
Get the Bonus Chapters First
Join the Fractal Enigma newsletter for new releases, free reads and bonus scenes we don’t post anywhere else.
