Such a great read. I love reading books with such diversity because I always learn something new culturally. This had a great story, I love romances that have a cooking competition show in them. It was a great romance and a great story, fantastic writing!

The perfect rom-com. The main characters are set up by their parents but meet coincidentally before knowing this. They hit it off until they realize they are supposed to be an arranged relationship. After entering a couples cooking contest, however, they realize a relationship may not be such a bad thing.

Thank you to @readforeverpub for my free ecopy. I loooved Accidentally Engaged. The baking, the chemistry, the culture, the family & friendship. I loved it all. I listened to the audiobook for most of it & LOVED it. Highly recommend!

Accidentally Engaged was cute, smart, and funny. Reena has a job she hates, Indian parents who are constantly on her back about settling down and getting married, and a new neighbor that is hot--who also turns out to be the man her parents want to set her up with and marry. But Reena can't think about that right now because she needs to find a new job, help out her friends, and keep her sourdough starter Bryan alive and thriving. This was adorable, but also took on arranged marriages and the way our families can be overbearing even when they think they are helping us. Loved it!

Farah Heron is easily becoming one of my fav writers. This book was so good. Muslim rep along with sexy British accents, cooking contest and meddling parents. It was everything.!!! And the right amount of heat, snark and all of that. The phrase "douchbeard" will forever be engrained in my head. LOL. Neighbors to Lovers... perfection.

This book was so cute! I loved every part of it. It was an easy read and I couldn’t put it down. Thank you for allowing me to read it.

Farah was interviewed by Jen Vido on the Fresh Fiction blog, for Jen's popular Jen's Jewels column: https://freshfiction.com/page.php?id=11188

This is a cute romance! I loved the representation and culture in this book. This book was so fun and made me hungry from all the cuisine that was talked about. I wanted all the sourdough bread and Indian food and as a person who dis culinary school for a few years and wanted to be a chef at one point, it was so fun to read from that perspective. I did like the characters and but did feel they needed to be a little more fleshes out. I felt like I wanted more things to be expanded on and they weren’t. Reena and Nadia were so cute and I loved their chemistry. I loved getting to know Reenas family and all the banter. Overall a fun read that will make you hungry for more!

Reena, a middle-child in a traditional Muslim Indian family, is sandwiched between an older brother who has done everything right and a younger sister who is self-absorbed, somewhat passive aggressive and obsessed with healthy eating, to the point that she destroyed her sister’s side business blogging food and chance at a cookbook deal when she posts a diatribe on food bloggers pushing fattening foods. She has very low self-esteem and sees herself as a failure at everything, but especially relationships (12 in 13 years) and jobs (one layoff after another due to downsizing). She’s stuck in finance because she doesn’t want to work for the family development firm, but also doesn’t see a way to turn her passion for artisanal bread baking into a viable career.

Added to all of this are Indian Muslim parents who emigrated to Toronto from Tanzania who are pushing eligible, but totally unappealing men at her in the hopes she’ll marry someone of her kind and pump out some babies. Then Nadim moves in across the hall, a sexy “brown Captain America” with a swoonworthy smirk and British accent. Before she even has a chance to learn more than his name, he reveals that he’s her dad’s new employee and arranged marriage prospect thanks to a business deal between their fathers.

So what’s a girl to do? In her case, she’s pushed into entering a televised cooking contest where she needs a fiancé. Turns out that Nadim is the perfect and willing candidate to fake it. When their drunken audition video lands them a spot, they become fast friends, agreeing to an “unengagement” and fighting an attraction because there’s no way Reena will give her parents the satisfaction of falling for one of their chosen marriage prospects, no matter how appealing.

This story proved to be so much more than a lightweight rom-com. Although there’s humor, chemistry (of both the physical and kitchen variety), and family drama, there are also some heavy topics. When a family that thrives on gossip (while keeping their own secrets) and long-time rivalries starts coming apart at the seams, issues such as eating disorders, depression, and bad decisions threaten to tear them apart. However, the author treats our MCs with compassion and proves that with a little faith, emotional support (from each other and a couple of LGBTQ friends and relatives), and killer sourdough, mistakes of the past can be overcome and the patriarchical nature of their community can be overcome. Highly recommend.

I received a complimentary ARC of this book from Forever Publishing through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Opinions expressed are completely my own.

I absolutely loved this book. I loved every bit. Review link below. I am very much looking forward to her next book.

Just completely and utterly adorable. Who wouldn't fake-date for the Food Network? Of course you would! Even if it was the guy your parents wanted, and you were trying to rebel! It's the FOOD NETWORK. (Okay, okay, it's the fake, fictional Food Network. But it's fake dating. All of the fake things cancel out!)

In all seriousness, this is an extremely cute romance that somehow manages to mix the Fake Dating trope with a kind of marriage-of-convenience vibe, and a this-is-the-ONE-guy-I-shouldn't-like thing and it just WORKS.

(Also, our heroine's friends/cousins who live upstairs are a delight. Is this a series? Because I would read, like, four more books set in this same apartment building).

Reena Manji is 31 and has made avoiding her parents meddling in her love life a hobby second only to her true passion of baking bread. Both keep her busy outside of the finance job she doesn't really like. However when Nadim Remtulla moves in across the hall from her she finds herself flirting and attracted to him...before learning he's yet another "Good Muslim Husband" prospect selected by her parents. While she refuses to considering marrying the man on principle alone, Reena cannot help being drawn to the gorgeous, and surprisingly compassionate, and British accented man. Especially after they strike up a friendship and Nadim agrees to pretend they're engaged in order to enter a couples cooking competition. But the farther they go in the competition, the less pretend Reena's feelings start to feel, but how can she trust that her own feelings, or Nadim's are real when their relationship is built on a lie and can she really accept falling for a man her parents picked?
I loved this contemporary romance novel. I would classify the primary trope as friends to lovers, although we get hint of potential enemies right off the bat when Reena finds out Nadim is a potential marriage prospect selected by her parents. There are so many different relationships to explore which increases the emotional depth of the novel as we see Reena navigate romance, friendship, and family. I really like the complexity of the relationship between Reena and her sister Saira and how it grows over the course of the novel. The best friend Amira is fierce even though we don't see her as much and there is some great overlap between other friends and family. Food being a shared love language between Reena and Nadim make this book extra delicious. It is such a fun way for the characters to bond, as well as seamlessly weave in a positive aspect of the Indian culture that is so greatly affecting their potential romance. The only thing hotter than the bread being cooked here is the relationship fermenting between these two.

Reena and Nadim aren't supposed to fall in love. They can't fall in love because if they do, they fulfill their families' wishes and continue trapped in a cycle of living their lives for other people. Despite their best efforts, the two can't help but fall hard for each other, and while they fake a romance online for a cooking contest, they pretend that they aren't together in real life.

Accidentally Engaged is an excellent twist to the fake romance. Reena's POV for the story was a great choice, although I wished we had had Nadim's version. Reena and Nadim's love for their families and culture balanced with the same familial responsibility brought this romance up a level.

My only critique of the book is that the pacing was off in the middle. The author had a solid start to the book, but the middle got bogged down. With a bit of middle-of-the-book editing, the reader would have gotten to the satisfying HEA that much faster. The love and personalities of the main characters kept the book from lagging in the middle and kept me turning pages.

If you are looking for a diverse, Muslim-focused romance with a fake romance trope, this is the book for you.

Warning. Don't read this book hungry...

Delightful! I loved the characters and how they reacted to the others. I felt character development was good, and the plot moved along well. I will definitely recommend for purchase at my library!

A slow start, but it picked up steam--in more ways than one-- after the set-up. I found the main characters annoying so it was hard to get behind them, but other than that, it hit all the beats you need to make an enjoyable light-hearted romance.

Even though this isn't set during quarantine, it feels like a perfect book for it. Between the intense knowledge of your neighbors and baking bread, this was a very timely read! I really loved the relationship between the two main characters and loved how the familial relationships changed over time.

This was a fun one. Reena needs a boyfriend to make her parents happy. They want her to marry a nice Muslim boy. They even have her father’s employee move across the hall from her as a potential husband. She isn’t interested in marrying him but they do become friends. Reena and Nadim then fake being a couple so she can enter a couples cooking contest. Warning - this book will make you want bread. This is a fun heartwarming book with great characters and I loved it.

About the book:
Reena Manji doesn't like her career, the way her overbearing family constantly finds way to intervene in her life, or the fact that after 12 boyfriends, she's still single. But then she loses her job in the same week that she finds out her parents' latest attempt at an arranged marriage is now living across the hall from her. Normally, she'd be furious - and she is - but she desperately wants to enter a cooking contest, and she needs a fake fiancé to help her out, so having Nadim across the hall isn't all bad. Working together to win the contest brings Reena and Nadim closer, until eventually they give in to the chemistry brewing between them. It's not like they'll actually get married, right? And it's not like anyone will find out about them, right? And it's not like any of this is for real, right?

TL;DR:
- 4.5 stars
- Content warnings: hinted islamophobia, anxiety, depression, cheating
- A warm, food-driven romance with serious family drama along the way. Just the way I like it! Would recommend this one for anyone who wants to see own voices representation, loves a realistic, flawed lead, or loves FOOD.

Loved:
- To get the obvious out of the way first: I just will NEVER get tired of reading words on a page that sound like me. Seeing foods I grew up eating, hearing characters have arguments with their families I grew up having (lol), etc. It is just so wonderful. I feel so lucky that romance as a genre has come this far.
- I really appreciated the fact that this book was so messy - by which I mean all of the characters had their shit. And like, a lot of shit. This is true in any family, not just South Asian families, but I liked how it was portrayed in a way that was true to our cultural fabric. In so many South Asian families, the messiness is there, yes, but there are secrets. SO many secrets. And the ways in which they come to light always have the wildest consequences. Loved to see that on page, despite how uncomfortable it may have felt to get through.
- I loved Reena and Nadim individually as well as together. I feel like that sounds so silly but sometimes in romances I like the couple and not necessarily the parts. Here, I loved them all so much. I loved Reena because I could see myself in her, I loved Nadim, because he was just so good. And together, they really brought out greatness in one another.

Less into:
- As I usually feel with lead only POV, I really wished I could have gotten to see into Nadim's head. Alas.
- The ending felt a smidge rushed. I liked how throughout the story it was clear that there was a lot of family struggle to work through for all of the characters involved, and it did kind of feel like the ending was a little bit of a present with a bow on top.

Overall so cute. Once again. I will NEVER get over seeing characters on page that look, sound, and eat like me. I just won't, and you can't make me!

I received a copy of this book from the publisher through NetGalley. All opinions are my own.

I loved this book! I enjoyed how the author included little tidbits about cooking and the desi culture in this novel. Both Nadim and Reena had great chemistry throughout the novel. I really loved watching them go from not wanting to fall in love with each other to being engaged and then married by the end of the book!

From here on out I have decided that my life's purpose has been all wrong and I must create sourdough starters and name them. This book was ooohh so sweet and hit all the boxes. Fake relationship ✔ Crazy family dynamics ✔ Food descriptions for days✔

I really enjoyed this book! Week later and im still dreaming of all the food. I will name my first sourdough starter Nadim🥖