My only issue with this fabulous book is why everyone is so in love with Adam. Alcohol-fuelled and drug-addled, he’s really not very nice. A taker, he gives nothing in return. The day he bites Lily on the face would have been my swift exit. But Lily is desperate for fame and she will do almost everything and anything to attain it. How you look the choices you make in life can direct your future, people who seem to have it all really happy, on top of the world behind closed doors living in sin.

Let’s Pretend’ is full of vapid, vain people and a perfect cast for this dark contemporary story. Vaughan's writing really had me hooked from the beginning and I was instantly drawn to the main character, Lily Thane, an ex child star whose acting character has been waning ever since. Her inner circle is full of eccentric characters who love to remind her of her limited success. Then she reunites with Adam Harker, a fellow ex-child star, but with questions over his sexuality about to spoil his next big break he asks Lily to pretend to date him. The benefits to them and their careers outweigh any doubts that Lily has about their arrangement; until Adam is found dead in a swimming pool. This book started off slowly and took sometime to get into, there was a lot of stuff at the beginning which didn't particularly add to the story, and quite a lot of characters that I found hard to link up. There is a lot in here about the darker side of acting and the route to fame, and for someone who is not living in this world it is all a bit foreign and hard to relate to. Once the story got going I did enjoy reading it, though, and then as I neared the end it became more gripping as I waited to see who had done the crime. I think this book is one of great importance, especially with the amount of younger people going through their rise to fame as we watch others fall from their place in the limelight. This is a story about what life can be like for celebrities, focusing heavily on the bad side and the crap that they go through.Lily Thane is a thirty-two-year-old actress best known for her twenty minute appearance in a low-budget British romcom as winsome orphan ‘Little Lucie’ at the age of four, and it’s clear that her star is waning, not that her mother and manager, “the momager”, is willing to give up on a dream that easily. When Lily bumps into an old stage school contemporary in Adam Harker who needs a red-carpet companion to whip up the media ahead of making a push for the big time, it seems like a win-win situation. Despite never particularly having liked Adam, there is something magnetic and dangerously alluring about him and so Lily agrees to the fauxmance and also signs a non-disclosure agreement. But troubled Adam has a penchant for drugs, a predilection for using people and a need to be in control, and things inevitably turn toxic. But as both their lives and careers move on, Lily and Adam are never too far apart and with a ringside seat to Adam’s death and growing suspicions about who wanted him out of the way, Lily turns detective.

I liked how the author focuses on Lily as the central character. I liked how it was written in the first person so you as the reader find out about their secrets and hopes. I also liked their normal interactions with other characters. Since leaving stage school, Adam has found his place in the limelight. But to grace it as he intends, he needs a pretty girl on his arm to distract the haters. He asks Lily to be his faux romance, to be in his arm at all the best parties and to share the limelight with him. Of course, Lily agrees. They get on really well. It will be no hardship to accompany Adam at all times and what can be the harm in sharing a limelight that she desperately wants for herself? But as she gets swept up in Adam's hedonistic and lascivious lifestyle she also learns more of his secrets. This was a slow burn delve into the outrageous lifestyles of the celebs caught up in the world of tv and movies, sadly I wished the ending had a bit "more."

Pretending is what Lily Thane has been doing all her life - after all, it is another word for acting, which she has been trying to do since being the famous four year old in a cult Christmas film. Now, despite being part of a theatrical family and her determined mother - the “Momanger”, she is struggling. She is good at what she does, being a perfected attractive blonde who is always auditioning for parts, but real success in being cast is eluding her. So when she meets an old friend from theatre school, the sort of famous Adam Harker, and a proposal is made of a sort of acting job with sweeteners is made, it seems reasonable to take it. Adam has secrets and a darkness that attract and repel her at the same time, but pretending to be in a celebrity romance at least raises her profile. If only she knew how deep she must plunge - and how it will feature death… Lily Thane, former child star, now a struggling actress in her thirties, bumps into a friend from stage school. Adam Harker. Once billed as the 'next big thing' , Adam has had a chequered career but hopes his next film will finally propel him into A-list stardom. Blinded by the chemistry between them, Lily is surprised when Adam tells her he is gay but wants to 'fly under the radar until his career is secure, & he wants Lily to pose as his girlfriend. Lily agrees as in return Adam says he will help her career, & she likes Adam so thinks it will be an easy gig. What follows gradually becomes a nightmare as Adam pushes all Lily's buttons making her insecure & doubtful about herself & her career. Adam is just as sneeringly dismissive of everyone else, so when he is found dead in the swimming pool after a party, there are no shortage of suspects. The police rule it accidental but Lily is not so sure, so she decides to investigate his death herself. He needs someone to be his plus one at glitzy events, a person to show off via social media, to become part of a power couple. After all the world of celebrity is all about reputation and how things look and Lily's Momager couldn't be more thrilled. I really enjoyed this book, though it is sad to imagine that all budding stars behave like this. I really hope not, but I am not naive enough to think it’s all sweetness and light. I look forward to this author’s next book. Then one day she bumps into Adam Harker, short, plump, spotty teenager-turned-heart-throb (how did that happen?) from drama school and he seems determined to re-kindle their previously non-existent romance. Because Adam wants something from Lily and it’s not what she imagines.