Reviewed by True
TITLE: Double Dared
SERIES: The Boys of Elmwood U #2
AUTHOR: Hayden Hall
PUBLISHER: Self-Published
LENGTH: 334 pages
RELEASE DATE: June 18, 2026
BLURB:
I’m not the kind of guy who turns down a dare. This is a lifestyle choice. I have committed to it fully, proudly, and without a single second thought.
So when Greg pointed across the bar at a man reading poetry alone in a black turtleneck and said “get him to agree to a date,” I was halfway out of the booth before the sentence finished.
Enter Harrison: film student, built like an athlete, reads like a scholar, and has clearly never once left the house without putting on a fashion show for strangers. He saw through my opening line before I finished delivering it. He said yes to the date before I could ask. He also had his own agenda entirely.
His ex had moved on faster than he was prepared for. I needed a dare to brag about. So we struck a deal: three weeks of convincing, mutually beneficial fake dating. His ex would reconsider. My fraternity brothers would think the dare had backfired so spectacularly that I was, apparently, in love with a man.
Easy.
Except when his hand settled on the small of my back in a crowded market and my brain went somewhere it had no business going. Except when he leaned in close to say something and I forgot what language was. Except when I caught myself watching his mouth and had to physically relocate my eyes.
I never met a dare I couldn’t handle. I just never expected one to handle me right back.
Double Dared is the second novel in The Boys of Elmwood U series, but it can be read as a standalone. It features one film student with a broken heart and an ill-advised theory about grand romance, one fraternity jock who has just discovered, somewhat inconveniently, that he has a type, and a fake-dating scenario that will bewilder, boggle, and befuddle its way to an accidentally happy ending.
REVIEW:
“I hereby challenge you, as the Bel council is my witness, to get a date with…”
That’s how it started. Taylor accepted a dare from his fraternity brothers to ask the gorgeous intellectual poetry reader sitting across the bar out for a date.
But ha! Harrison turned the tables by taking the initiative and asking Taylor out. Taylor was a bit flabbergasted by Harrison’s action.
Harrison has motives. They made a deal: Taylor will be Harrison’s fake boyfriend for the next three weeks, and vice versa.
They will show up wherever Harrison’s ex-girlfriend is, hoping she’ll get jealous.
What they couldn’t foresee was that they both fit and connect perfectly. They have many things in common. The conversations are meaningful, and they have fun together. A wonderful friendship is blooming.
The more time they spend together, the more aware they become of each other. Oops, feelings are getting involved-that wasn’t the plan.
The author took the time to create two wonderful, interesting, and lovable characters. The more I got to know them, the more I loved them. The more they interact, the more convinced I was they were meant for each other.
It’s a super romantic, sweet, and spicy story, with emotional moments that made my heart skip a beat and my eyes blur.
This fake-relationship-to-friends-to-lovers romance had everything I wanted from a story.
RATING: 
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