This. This. This. The world needs more romances like this one. It’s no secret I love a good marriage of convenience, but this one went to a whole other level. All of the characters warmed my heart and made me laugh. Family makes the world go round on and off the page. Well-done!

This debut rom-com was an absolute blast. I loved each and every page I read. Proposal was entertaining as hell, filled with humor and heart (and food!). Enemies to lovers at it's best. I cannot wait to read the next book in the Vega Family Love Stories series.

What I really liked was the pro mental health approach. Sure people have meddling families and savior complexes but do they address them?? It was also spice free if that's your thing.

Cuter than I expected based on the title. Nice to see that even when both characters are very much in love with each other and have been most of their lives, that the story of them realizing that for themselves and each other is so satisfying. Wasn't sure how it would all end but was glad to see how it progressed.

Cute premise, but I just could not get through this, the female MC's family was incredibly mean to her, it was hard to read. Too much about family drama and not enough about the relationship.

This was just a shocker hit for me! I loved the chemistry, some decent spice, and some actual depth to the male character. Usually I struggle with families that seem to me overbearing and nosy but this one didn't get to me too much. I will definitely be following this author :)

Did I finish this book in one day? Yes, yes I did! The banter was just so fun to read. The first half was much more light hearted than the second half. I really appreciated reading about all of the culture included. I didn’t love all of the miscommunication that occurred towards the end. However, I did enjoy it and I’m really happy I read it.

I received an ARC in exchange for an honest review.
Very cute book! I highly recommend to people who loves the fake relationship trope. I felt that the story was entertaining. It was so sweet and funny. I also loved the heroine, and I am anxiously waiting/hoping for the next book.

Kamilah and Liam are blackmailed by their prankster grandfathers into getting engaged. Though they’ve been enemies for years, they give in to save their family businesses—they just hope they can’t get out of the engagement before they have to follow through with the marriage.

Themes & Tropes:
🇵🇷Puerto Rican food & Irish whiskey.
🇮🇪Friends to Enemies to Lovers
🇵🇷Second Chance
🇮🇪Matchmaking grandfathers
🇵🇷Fake Dating/Engagement

// Other thoughts:

I wish we would have had a bit more explanation into what happened between Kamilah and Liam that turned them into enemies. Very minor criticism as we do ultimately know what happened, I just felt this aspect could have been made stronger.

🌶 Ok, because I heard multiple times that this book was closed door or fade to black (which I don’t really agree with) I did not expect some of the moments and lines. Caña proves that we don’t need explicit sex scenes in romance books to make the book great (or hot). So, please don’t let that deter you, the chemistry and tension between the characters is perfection!

This book came at the right time because I had just finished a huge fantasy novel and feeling burnt out. It was nice to follow Kamillah and Liam as they tried to figure out their relationship and their lives. This book had all the tropes: second-chance romance, enemies-to-lovers, fake relationship. There was even a scene where there was only one bed! It was funny, relevant, and made me tear up at the end. I knew I would enjoy this one the moment Kamillah punches Liam in the nuts in the very first scene. I also am a huge food person, so the description of Puerto Rican fare alongside the delicious whiskeys made me crave both. I'm glad to have read it!

For readers who loved the Beauty and Baker movie on Netflix, this is an A+ followup to read. A solid plot and characters, I wish that it was spicier.

I really enjoyed the story, how Natalie explored family relationships, the complicated dynamic of trying to make your family proud, and the process of grief.

Also, it was beautiful to see how Liam and Kamilah got to reconnect their friendship and how it becomes something more, something that had always been there.

Cannot begin to say how excited I was to get this copy! I absolutely loved this premise so fun and clever. Fake dating/engagement and between two people in the food/beverage industry and a backdrop in Chicago? I just ate this up. This was such an entertaining read and I highly recommend for anyone who enjoys fake dating/enemies to lovers.

Absolutely delightful! I switched back and forth between the audiobook and the ebook and no matter the format, I thoroughly enjoyed it! I loved Kamilah and her enthusiasm, determination, and heart. And as someone who loves to cook, the descriptions of the food? YUM! There was a little more language than I liked, but overall, it was a winner.

This is book number one in the series and I can't wait to see what the next book brings!

Full of delicious tropes and heart, romance readers will rejoice and cheer all the way through Natalie Caña’s A Proposal They Can’t Refuse!

Kaamilah and Liam used to be friends. That’s what happens when your grandfathers co-op a space and run their respective businesses side by side for decades. But after Liam’s granda announces he has cancer, he follows that right hook with an ultimatum: get married, or the building and businesses are being sold.

Not to be outdone by their scheming octogenarian grandfathers, Liam and Kaamilah embark on the scheme of all schemes: outfox their grandfathers and dupe their families by pretending to go along with the farce. After all, Kaamilah’s future is just as much on line as Liam’s.

There’s just one minor problem: these former best friends cannot stand the sight of each other.

Definitely full of heat and spice, A Proposal They Can’t Refuse has the following lovable elements:

- interracial / multicultural relationship
- schemes
- fake dating/ arranged marriage
- one bed
- forced proximity
- hilarious family dynamics
- one bed
- childhood friends to enemies to lovers
- silent and stoic /chaotic and messy
- opposites attract
- family business in danger

I did not finish this book so can't really rate it. The meddling families drove me too crazy - I just couldn't stand the lack of boundaries so apparently this book wasn't for me.

Friends to enemies to friends to lovers has and always will be one of my favourite tropes. Second chance romances always give me all the feels, and with a little culture injected into it - *chef's kiss*. No, literally because it's about food.

I'm a big fan of meddling families forcing two people together and the awkwardness that ensures - our main characters were all incredibly well written and possessed all the depth and tone needed to make a book successful - no Mary Sue's here guys.

All in all, a great read. Thanks for the ARC.

Rating: 4 stars
Spice: 3 chili peppers
Genre: Rom-Com
Representation: Puerto Rican, Irish-American
Content Warnings: grief, death of a parent, abandonment, cancer (side character)

Description
Kamilah Vega is a passionate chef who desperately wants to keep her abuela's restaurant alive in their increasingly gentrified neighborhood in Chicago. Her plan? To spiff up the place and enter it into the Fall Foodie Tour. There are a few problems...her family doesn't really take her or her plan seriously and her abuelo is planning to sell the building along with his bestie. The only way he and his best friend will agree to not sell is if she and Liam Kane get married.

Liam Kane's granda and Kamilah's abuelo are dead set on this marriage and he feels like he doesn't really have a choice when he finds out his granda has cancer. He is all Liam has left aside from his family's whiskey distillery. Liam has spent years trying to update the distillery and he and his grandfather are focused on winning a national competition. If he wants to have that chance to compete and get his granda to agree to cancer treatment, Liam has to give in to his demands.

Their futures are on the line but Kamilah and Liam are repelled by the idea. They used to be best friends as kids but now, it seems, they can't stand one another. The two agree to fake an engagement to get what they want from their grandfathers but the plan isn't as easy as they'd hoped...

Review
This book was addictive! Kamilah and Liam had awesome chemistry and the food descriptions were delicious. I went back and forth between the audiobook and the print (as usual) and loved both. The narrator Valentina Ortiz did a wonderful job and I felt so seen. The pacing was perfect because I almost didn't want to put the book down to go to sleep, except for when the inevitable fallout hit.

Something I really appreciate about this book and After Hours on Milagro Street by Angelina M. Lopez is that each of the MCs got a moment to confront their families about the dismissive attitudes they've had towards these women. I'm not sure if this is just a Latine(x) thing, but I've also noticed this within my own family. Women are held to higher standards in the family and if you have ever screwed up, you'll never hear the end of it. Yes, they love you, but rather than being more positive, they will question your ideas every step of the way and remind you of every mistake you've made. It's so demoralizing! I'm glad Kamilah called her family out on this.

I rooted for Kamilah and Liam all the way through! While this was not a hot and heavy book right out the gate, the tension between these two made the spicy scenes more satisfying.

In A Proposal They Can’t Refuse by Natalie Caña, the grandfathers of two former best friends—who have drifted apart becoming enemies/foes—blackmail them into agreeing to marry. So, Puerto Rican chef Kamilah Vega and Irish American whiskey distiller Liam Kane pretend to be engaged. Caña’s debut is a funny, poignant, heartfelt, and entertaining family-centered romance about two friends finding their way back to each other, themselves, and their dreams. I love her use of language, colorful dialogue, and vivid description that makes you feel like you are right there with the characters. Another of my favorite parts of the novel is the cultural aspects Caña sprinkles throughout her narrative. Caña weaves Spanish into the dialogue to blend smoothly with the English. Her descriptions of food make you long to jump into this book. However, I do not advise reading while hungry!

Kamilah and Liam’s relationship, their sunshine heroine/grumpy hero dynamic, and the crackling and fiery tension sparked by their lifelong friendship turned into faux enemies are wonderfully developed by Caña. I love their funny, snarky, sweet, intensely emotional, passionate, and chemistry-filled banter, interactions, and love scenes, which barely mask Kamilah and Liam’s underlying attraction/connection. While they are complete opposites, they complement each other, balancing one another’s lives. An incorrigible dreamer and optimistic force of nature, Kamilah is a bold, fearless, stubborn, and demanding social butterfly. Liam, on the other hand, is an anti-social loner and hermit burdened by past trauma and loss. Yet, he’s also sensitive, sweet, caring, generous, supportive, loyal, and dependable.

Close familial bonds drive them to continue their family legacies. Liam and Kamilah also are burdened by family pressure and keeping secrets, preventing them from following/achieving their dreams and finding happiness and peace—also distancing themselves from loved ones. Liam and Kamilah have deep emotional ties that still draw them to each other despite their attempts at denial and pretending otherwise. Yet another secret stands between them about why their friendship suddenly broke off just when they were verging on becoming more. Bitterness and anger about this feed their animosity.

Though Liam and Kamilah try to fight their attraction and deny the emotions and the connection/bond that still exists between them, spending time with each other, living together, and pretending to be engaged while planning a wedding brings all those feelings to the surface. They encourage each other to be their best. Kamilah and Liam struggle with being comfortable with who they are and living up to family legacies that are important to them but can also be a burden.

The Kane and Vega families are hilarious, especially the abuelos with their scheming and troublemaking. But also, the interactions between the Vega siblings, their parents, and Liam and his grandfather are too.

Kamilah loves her family’s Puerto Rican restaurant and believes the only way to save it in the wake of the gentrification of their Chicago neighborhood is to enter the Fall Foodie Tour. But first, she must convince her parents and family to go for her ideas, requiring them to change things up at the restaurant. But, unfortunately, her Abuelo won’t let her change anything in his restaurant unless she marries the one man she can’t stand: his best friend’s grandson—her former best friend.

After a decade of working to turn his family’s distillery into a contender, Liam and his grandfather are on the brink of winning a national competition with a prize-winning brew. But unfortunately, Liam’s Granda reveals he has cancer, and his heart is set on seeing Liam get married before it’s too late, but only to Kamilah. Their grandfathers threaten to sell the building housing both family businesses if they refuse to marry each other.
So, of course, Kamilah and Liam do what any former best friends would do under the circumstances. They fake an engagement. Things become way more complicated than either one expects as their lives once again become entwined.

A Proposal They Can’t Refuse is a sweet, funny, steamy, angsty, fun ex-friends-to-lovers, fake dating, and second-chance romance about friendship, forgiveness, guilt, first love, following your dreams, taking risks, sacrifices, and family.

CW: childhood trauma, loss of loved ones

Advanced review copy provided by MIRA Books via Netgalley for review.

I liked this, but didn’t love it. A PROPOSAL THEY CAN’T REFUSE was a poignant, dual-pov romance novel that explored complex family dynamics, identity, and the dissonance between passion and duty.

Though a standalone in a trilogy of companion novels, this book very much felt like Book One in a series. Lots of page time was spent info-dumping the backstories of various family members. I enjoyed the scenes with Kamilah and Liam together - so much so that I wish there were more of them. I love books about big families, but this needed a better balance between side characters’ back stories and (much needed) context about the actual main characters.

I thought both narrators were neurodivergent-coded: Kamilah with ADHD and Liam with autism. This wasn’t bad, per say, but this could have provided more context to the characters’ (re)actions. This was especially interesting considering Kamilah’s brother had an on-the-page ADHD diagnosis. Also be warned: the third act breakup in this was VERY intense.

I liked this enough to continue the series! I’m hoping to see improvement with pacing in future books because I see potential.