Read this if you like: Enemies to lovers, fake dating, coworker romance, traveling stories

Catalina Martín desperately needs a date to her sister’s wedding. She told her family a little white lie about having an American boyfriend. Now everyone she knows including her ex and his fiancée will be there and eager to meet him. She only has four weeks to find someone willing to travel to Spain with her.

Enter Aaron Blackford. He is her tall, handsome, condescending colleague who surprisingly offers to step in. He is the bane of her existence so she would rather not take him. But she is desperate, and as the wedding draws nearer, Aaron looks like her best option.

This book has been on my tbr for far too long. I liked it. It's very similar to the Hating Game. I am a big fan of enemies to lovers. I loved the workplace dramatics. Aaron and Catalina had a lot of chemistry. This is a the slow burn and honestly a bit slow, in general. It was way too long in my opinion. There was so much that could have been cut out. Overall, this story was good and I'm excited to read the second book. I recommend this one!

Big thank you to NetGalley, the author, and Atria Books for the gifted e-book!

For as much hype as this got, I preferred the American Roommate Experiment. This one felt a bit toooo far fetched.

This was absolutely amazing. I loved the drama, the slow burn, and the workplace conflicts. While the story really wasn’t essential until the Spain trip, I loved the auction element; personally, I think it could be a story of its own. This was a great story overall, but I could see it being two entire stories.

I absolutely loved this book! I love the mix of fake dating and workplace rivals to lovers!
I loved the travel aspect of this book as well and can't forget the bed situation!
Absolutely loved and cannot wait to read more from this author!

The writing was bad and the jokes were not funny. The dialogs were odd and repetitive. The author tried to make the characters 'quirky' but they just ended up being weird and annoying. I'm about to go into details with characters so buckle up.

Although this one took me longer to get through than I anticipated, it was a fun read. It gave me Hating Game vibes.

This book has been extremely popular on BookTok, and since I liked The Hating Game, I figured I would probably like this one too due to its similarities with it being a workplace and enemies-to-lovers romance. Unfortunately, I did not enjoy this book.

I did not like either of the main characters, and found that the enemies-to-lovers aspect was very weak. I also found that the story had a lot of "fluff" which could have been excluded to reduce the length of the book. Overall, I was just disappointed.

Thank you Atria Books and NetGalley for this arc in exchange for my honest review.

This book was great! Enemies to lovers is one of my favorite tropes. Spice was perfect amount. The banter was too notch. Overall I really enjoyed this book.

It was fine, but not as good as the hype had me anticipating. The main character felt underdeveloped, and I never really connected to her. It felt like there was a sudden switch in personality halfway through, rather than a gradual, natural change.

What could I possibly say about this book that hasn’t already been said? I just hope to convey how much I ADORED The Spanish Love Deception (as in I was secretly reading on the playground while I’m supposed to be watching my kids 🫣). When you get down to it, the hero, Aaron freaking! Blackford, is what makes TSLD so good. I think if you could roll all of the perfect boyfriend characteristics into one perfect specimen of a male, he would be it—and Elena Armas gets that. What makes Blackford the perfect hero?
-He is an observer. He watches, knows, and understands Catalina better than she perhaps knows herself and picks up on everything.
-He is the physical description of Tall, Dark, and Handsome™️ and the nerdy Clark Kentish vibe is completely working. (Again perfection in physique)
-He is confident, but in a silent way that never brags and is patient even when Catalina is at her worst.
And then there are all the nods to romance tropes: ONE BED (with a hilarious scene—seriously top 5), Fake Dating, Enemies-to-Lovers, Work adversaries…I mean, TSLD has it all. And through it, Armas keeps you flipping pages and wanting to read more. So if any of the above appeals to you, please read The Spanish Love Deception and then go check out Armas’s next book that features Rosie, Catalona’s best friend!
Thank you to NetGalley and Atria Books for this ARC in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.
[Review has also been posted to Amazon—awaiting approval]

2.5 stars
I think this book was too hyped up, which is why I was underwhelmed by it.
Also, the beginning of this book was so abrupt for me; I struggled to understand what was happening until they stopped being strange, I swear.

Main Character was a bit too erratic for me, and the ML was ...alright. I know this trope; I have loved it, but only when it works, and I'm sorry, but this did not work for me. It bothered me how prolonged it was or drawn out; for example, the phone call when she mentioned Aaron as her boyfriend was like pulling teeth.
It just did not work for me.

Highly readable and charming.
Many thanks to Atria and to NetGalley for providing me with a galley in exchange for my honest opinion.

⭐️ The Spanish Love Deception by Elena Armas

I wanted to love this book. I had heard so many good things about it on social media. Enemies to lovers, fake boyfriend…yummy! But…I couldn’t do it. I made it to Ch. 12 (which is about page 160) and had to unfortunately close the cover for good.

First, the chapters were woefully long. Excessively long. I would often have to pause in a chapter because I couldn’t get to the end in order to finish it. I would flip the pages to see how close I was and I would never be close.

Second, Catalina (Lina) was not a likeable character for me. I could see where she had the potential to be appealing but she was very obnoxious, unfascinating, and dimwitted. Nearly every thought was cringy and her compatibility with Aaron was unbelievable and unworkable.

Third, there seemed to be so many words in this book. It was just word, after word, after word, wordy. I felt like many of the passages were repetitive and drawn out. At about 160 pages in, she hadn’t even made it to Spain with her fake boyfriend…which was the point of the book!

I’m so sorry to give this book such negative feedback. I feel like Ms. Armas has the potential to be a good writer and storyteller…this just wasn’t it…for me.

Thank you to NetGalley, the author, and the publisher for providing me with an ARC of this title for review.

Thank you net galley for the advance reader copy of this novel. This was a contemporary romance about two colleagues Lina and Aaron who go from enemies to lovers. Thisstory had all the usual tropes for this genre. It took a while for the story to develop and I felt like there was a lot of repitition of dialogue, plot points, etc. I didn't like the sex scenes and skipped those. The ending felt rushed and didn't really resolve well. Overall an ok read but wouldn't recommend based on the swearing or sex.

A PERFECT fake dating arrangement! Love it with all my heart, and wish to get an Aaron Blackford for my birthday.

I’m going to start by saying I have a lot of conflicting thoughts about this one! Did I enjoy it? Absolutely! But unfortunately there are two things I could just never get over when gathering my thoughts. I’d been hesitant on reading this one for a while because of the crazy amounts of hype I’ve seen around and sadly I was expecting just a little more. The second thing was that for myself personally, I never prefer RomComs to be almost 500 pages!

With that out of the way, let’s get to the good stuff!

This was definitely a bit of a slow burn but it was bursting with some sizzling chemistry and the eventual steam and built up tension was worth it!

Fake dating and enemies to lovers are always my favourite tropes but they need an entertaining amount of fun witty banter to work well for me and this one had the absolute perfect dosage!

All in all, a solid read and I’m really looking forward to reading the next in the series, The American Roommate Experiment!

I was excited to read this book because I've heard such positive reviews. Personally, this wasn't the book for me. I felt like the storyline was very drawn out which made it hard for me to get into.

Thank you to NetGalley and Atria for a copy in exchange for an honest review!

This has been on my radar for a long time, and I’m grateful I have finally had a chance to read this. Overall, I enjoyed the story. It was a great beach read, and had me laughing so hard my mom was wondering what I was reading.

Though it was great to spend so much time with the characters, I did think that the book was a bit too long. Due to the length, I felt that several plot points were a bit disjointed and too long. It kind of felt like whiplash going from one scene to another, as if they were in the story to extend the length, rather than contribute positively to character development.

Despite that, I am excited to see what else Elena Armas has in store.

“I’ll give you the world…The moon. The fucking stars. Anything you ask, it’s yours. I’m yours.”

Wow, this book… I totally understand why it’s as hyped as it is!

Not going to lie, the pacing felt a bit off in the beginning and I felt myself just wanting and waiting for the plot to pick up. Like in the first 20% where Lina kept going back and forth with accepting Aaron’s help. But once it picked up and they arrived in Spain… that was everything I wanted!

The slow burn… the enemies to lovers… the fake dating… “It was always you” vibe… It not only has all the best tropes and they were all executed in a great way!

My heart went out to Lina and I felt so bad for all the crap she had to go through. Lina cares so much about her job and it was nice to see that her relationships never interfere with her work. We love to see a career oriented female main character!

Lina and Aaron had such great banter and I enjoyed everything about them. Ugh I can’t get over the fake dating! Aaron is so in love with Lina and it made my heart swoon!! It was so beautiful to read, my heart melted every time he smiled at her. His love for her truly blew me away! I love the way physical touch was described and it shows Aaron’s love language. It was done so perfectly!

“If you get any more perfect, I’m going to believe you were made just for me.”

Thank you to NetGalley for the ebook in exchange for an honest review!

Literally 10/10, The Spanish Love Deception is SO good. You are going to fall in love with the main characters, the banter and the plot line. It reminded me a little bit of the Hating Game but with a different backdrop and it was unique all in it's own way. Loved it!!!