First of all, I absolutely love this gorgeous cover. I really like the indigenous representation. What I didn't like was Ember. I didn't like her character and that made it difficult for me to get through the story.

I think the author shows great promise and there's definitely an audience for the book. It just wasn't for me.

Thank you Berkley for my copy! All thoughts are my own.

When I first learned about The Truth According to Ember by Danica Nava while scrolling threads one day, I was so excited to see it. First of all, one of my gateway romances was a workplace romance. It’s a trope I don’t always lean towards but every time I read it, I’m reminded of how much I love it. The tension! It’s unmatched. Secondly, since I read so much Romance, i’m thrilled to add an Indigenous author and story to my shelves. Love is a universal feeling, so everyone should be represented in the genre.

Overall, I really liked this book. I think the opening scenes were so great at setting it up. I didn’t vibe with some of the pacing but I think it balances the more difficult moments that are necessary to the story with the swoony rom com moments. I highly recommend reading the author’s note at the end. There’s a lot of pressure to the “first” and I’m glad the author was able to tell a story authentic to her.

Synopsis:

“Ember Lee Cardinal has not always been a liar—well, not for anything that counted at least. But her job search is not going well and when her resumé is rejected for the thirty-seventh time, she takes matters into her own hands. She gets “creative” listing her qualifications and answers the ethnicity question on applications with a lie—a half-lie, technically. No one wanted Native American Ember, but white Ember has just landed her dream accounting job on Park Avenue (Oklahoma City, that is).Accountant Ember thrives in corporate life—and her love life seems to be looking up too: Danuwoa Colson, the IT guy and fellow Native who caught her eye on her first day, seems to actually be interested in her too. Despite her unease over the no-dating policy at work, they start to see each other secretly, which somehow makes it even hotter? But when they're caught in a compromising position on a work trip, a scheming colleague blackmails Ember, threatening to expose their relationship. As the manipulation continues to grow, so do Ember’s lies. She must make the hard decision to either stay silent or finally tell the truth, which could cost her everything.” —NetGalley

What I Liked:

The Tropes—I love a workplace/office romance and I haven’t read one in so long! I love the tension this trope creates and there was definitely a lot at stake in this story.

The Characters—I really could identify with Ember’s need to present herself as someone she wasn’t. It took me a long time to accept that my journey is my own and my worth isn’t reflected by my accomplishments. I obviously I have privileges discussed in this book, but the core of her struggles made me feel seen.

The Conflict—I thought the conflict was very realistic which is great as a reader but very sad and difficult to read about as a human. But, it all made sense and moved the story along.

What Didn’t Work for Me:

Some Romantic Moments Felt Forced—I just wanted a little more depth, but I think it’s because this started with a little insta-love/insta attraction and sometimes that’s hard for me to buy in to.

Character Authenticity: 4/5 Spice Rating: 2/5 Overall Rating: 3.5/5

Content Warnings:

racism, racial slurs, cultural appropriation, abandonment, classism

Even after sitting with it for a few days, this is an easy 5 stars for me. It's strange to think that we needed to wait until 2024 to get our first traditionally published Native American romance, but I'm glad the time is here and that Danica Nava is blessing us with this delectable story.

The Truth According to Ember has so much I love in a romance: a protagonist that feels like a friend (even when you yell at her for the decisions she's making), chemistry and tension that leap off the page, discussions of real-world issues that don't feel heavy-handed, people and situations that feel authentic, and of course, some hot scenes.

Plus, that scene in the supply closet?! It's what my romance dreams are made of!

This is such an easy recommendation that I shared it with at least a dozen people within 24 hours of finishing it.

I loved this one! Ember takes a while to learn her lesson but the story is so enjoyable. Danuwoa is so kind and gentle and patient with her. They have great chemistry. Some of the comedy does lean towards outdated. This novel does read closer to women’s fiction than romance. Can’t wait to read more from Nava!

The Truth According to Ember is a fantastic debut romance that celebrates love, family, friendship and community. I really loved Ember and reading about her journey. The romance between Ember and Danuwoa was really sweet and fun to read about. This is definitely an upcoming release that should be on everyone’s radar this Summer.

I saw something that said this is the first romance by an indigenous author published by a major publisher. It’s about time! I loved the representation in a contemporary story that isn’t centered on trauma (not because I don’t want to hear that but because all people should be multidimensional). This says some things about marginalization and how to treat people without being overbearing.
As for this as a contemporary romance, it’s a cute story with likable characters. It includes some of the usual tropes and wording, but it’s well written and has a satisfying ending. I’ll be looking for the followup that’s teased at the end.
Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the arc!

I enjoyed this book and I loved seeing the native representation. The story revolves around Ember, who lies to get a job where she meets the mmc, Danuwoa.. Ember continues to lie which STRESSED me out. I just wanted her to be honest with the mmc since he was so sincere with her the whole time. Overall, I really enjoyed the novel.

this was a super fun debut and while it did suffer from the usual too-quick plot wrap up in the third act I otherwise had a great time reading this! Ember was a strong narrative voice and the chemistry between her and Danuwoa was well done. so cool to finally see an own voices Native American romance from a major publisher, now give us more of them!

I know many buzzy romance novels dropped this year, but I hope one of this year's buzziest will be discovering that readers have gotten their first Native American rom-com. This novel is entertaining and offers readers a fresh perspective on workplace dynamics and the challenges Native Americans face in contemporary society.

Ember is in her twenties and struggling financially. Now rejected for her 37th time for a job, she decides to fabricate her education and job background to land a corporate position that will finally give her a leg up. Along with these subtle shifts in her work history, she also answers the ethnicity question on applications with a half-lie checking the box for white instead of Native American. These omissions and adjustments do land her a promising job interview for an accounting position that could change the trajectory of her financial life as long as her struggling vehicle can get her there.

Through a comedy of errors on her way, she meets a handsome man named Danuwoa, who works at the same corporation. With one swoon-worthy hair tuck behind his flowing braid, Ember is smitten with the IT guy.

However, the company's strict policy against workplace romances means she has to quickly give up pursuing a romantic relationship with him as feelings escalate in the office.

This novel offers many laugh-out-loud moments as she navigates the weird corporate culture, from not understanding "all hands on deck" to never knowing what they do in the company due to their vague website description. I laughed so hard that I got a few weird looks from my family members as I poured over these relatable corporate scenes.

What sets this novel apart is its authenticity. Nava draws from her experiences to paint a vivid portrait of modern Native American life, from everyday microaggressions to deep-seated fears. Somehow, it easily navigates that tricky terrain of becoming one-note or preachy by embedding natural moments that I found eye-opening as a white reader.

As the couple are from different tribes, navigating their language differences offered an extra layer of charm for readers that I had not considered until reading this book.

Sometimes, characters in their twenties don't feel relatable, but Ember's messiness is endearing. I laughed out loud at the shenanigans while admiring her scrappiness in trying to get herself out of a difficult financial position. I am excited to see what this author writes next because I can see this novel being a massive success.

Can you root for a character without necessarily supporting all their actions? Because that’s how I felt about Ember. She struggles a lot, often through circumstances that are partly of her own making, but the other causes are systemic and that is something that I actually found pretty relatable as a BIPOC. Women of color are human too, and are imperfect, and Ember really reflected a flawed, yet relatable individual. It really made her three dimensional.

I absolutely loved Danuwoa as a love interest. He was so charming and regularly left me squealing out loud even when he wasn’t outright flirting. He’s supportive and understanding, having a shared background with Ember, but when it comes down to it he has reasonable boundaries and when he is upset and becomes estranged from Ember in the third act, not only did I understand his reasoning I kind of agreed with him. But because of Ember’s circumstances I couldn’t completely condemn her either, and I felt the narrative did a good job showing the nuance in their situation.

The workplace conflicts were understandably frustrating, even moreso since they resembled real life and I appreciated seeing such experiences be represented, and it acted as a way to bond not only Ember and Danuwoa, but also those characters to the reader.

I really liked that Ember’s solutions to her problems, besides her personally apologizing to Danuwoa, involved connecting with her community. It showed that while many problems are systemic and not individual, there are solutions that are also not just individual but communal.

I really appreciated the specific setting of Oklahoma and centering Indigenous characters. There were a lot of cultural details that I thought were neat to see as someone who isn’t from that region, that contributed to making the story its own.

Overall, this book was laugh out loud hilarious, with fun tropey scenes and pop culture references that worked so well in the story. I loved Ember, who is scrappy, down to earth, and relatable. The forbidden workplace romance was well executed with plenty of spicy moments, and the chemistry was off the charts! I adored Danuwoa, who had an instant connection with Ember, especially the way he teased her.

In addition to the romance, the story also focused on Ember's experience with office politics and racism, as well as her struggles with trying to find a job as a Native American woman. Although Ember feels that she has to lie in order to be successful in her new role, it's still easy to feel sympathetic based on her situation. Ember also has to deal with challenging family dynamics while trying to handle everything on her own.

The supporting characters are great too. I loved the inclusion of an out and proud bisexual character, and Danuwoa's little sister was so cute!

I fully recommend this book and would love to read more by this author.

This was such a great rom-com! My favorite part of this book was Nava's incredibly hilarious prose and lovable characters. Despite feeling a bit anxious about Ember's lies getting out of control and waiting for all of that to blow up, I felt like she was still so relatable. As a people-pleaser myself and as someone that is continuously working on creating boundaries, I really saw myself reflected in her. The character relationships were also so fun to folllow and I really enjoyed their banter and dialogue.

Most importantly, this story had such much diversity, particularly Native representation. I'll say it now and I'll say it always - WE NEED MORE REPRESENTATION IN LITERATURE. I loved seeing Native people and culture in this story, and I thought the author did a great job tackling themes of racism, systemic oppression, sexism, and bigotry incredibly well.

Highly recommend this book if you're looking for:
✨ workplace romance
✨ great character relationships
✨ complex family dynamics
✨ a Native Daddy
✨ only one bed
✨ a bit of spice

Thank you to @NetGalley, @Berkleypub, and @danica_nava for an e-ARC of in exchange for my honest opinion.

The Truth According to Ember has great Native American representation, humor, and is all in all a fun ride. It’s one of those where you know the protagonist isn’t thinking of the consequences of her actions, and it’s hard to watch… but the fall out is not as cringey as I feared it would be. I loved the heroine and hero, and there’s a great cast of secondary characters as well. I definitely will read more from this author! Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the e-arc.

A fun and flirty romance between Ember and Danuwoa, two very lovable characters. Ember is sick of not getting hired for entry-level jobs and desperate to get real work outside of the bowling alley paying low wages. She and her best friend Joanna come up with a (ill advised!) scheme to get her work — fib about her experience, forge a degree, and make her best friend her reference… and say she’s white in her application. When she’s hired, she’s thrilled, but the lies keep coming — even when she meets the extremely handsome Danuwoa, who happens to work at the same tech company that just hired her. Their chemistry was great, and I especially loved the parts of the story that give us a peek into their supportive families and communities. Some of the lies stressed me out, I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop and that definitely made me anxious! Overall a fun and engaging romance, and I look forward to reading more from this author.

In the acknowledgements (which are so heartfelt and thoughtful and I highly recommend reading them even if you don't normally!), the author said that she "set out to write the goofy, heartfelt Native American romantic comedy" and I think that was fully accomplished with this book! This book manages to have a really light-hearted and fun vibe, but still calls out specific microaggressions and gives a
perspective I've not read before in a contemporary romance!

Her characters feel fully fleshed out and I especially loved Ember's relationship with her best friend Joanna. Their back and forth banter felt so real and fun and I *believed* that these characters had known each other for a long time. The familial relationships in this book are top tier for me! The sibling dynamics between Ember and her brother (Sage) and Danuwoa and his sister (Walela) felt very realistic and well-written and I also loved the interactions with Ember's Auntie.

I fully think the issues I have with this book are more a *me* thing. This book felt a lot like a early 00's romcom, which I love but I think I also may be growing out of. As you can probably tell from the title, Ember's relationship with the truth is tenuous. It's hard for me to read a book and get attached to characters when I am anxious and just waiting for a house of cards to fall and dreading the inevitable. Also, one of my personal icks is when two characters have fully formed, sentence-long conversations with nothing but eyes/eyebrows/expressions/etc and this happened a few too many times (more than zero lol) for my tastes.

It's a 3.5 for me, and I am absolutely certain others will have a great time with this book and I think this book is important definitely worth a read!

While I liked the story and I loved the Indigenous characters, this book gave me so much anxiety. The whole time I was waiting for everything to fall apart. That, I think, was Danica Nava's intention but it makes the book a more complex than just a romance. I hope that this is marketed correctly and deliberately.

Thank you to NetGalley and Berkley Publishing for this absolute delight of a debut novel.

The Truth According to Ember is a romantic comedy that handles generational trauma and cultural appropriation in a way that I do not think I have seen represented in a Native-told story before. The author remarked "Where are all the native romances?" and I asked the same thing. Nava lays out the story using a single POV (honestly not done often enough in the romance genre) from Ember. The main character has applied for jobs to try and move on up in the world to prove herself. After rejection after rejection, she concludes that maybe it's her on paper that is stopping her from getting where she wants to be. So begins the lies. Ember lies her way into her dream job and then some. Not to mention the literally Native Daddy of her dreams. But at what cost will her lies be? At what point will it be too much? The author mentions at the end of the book that a lot of what Ember went through was actual things she dealt with in her life. Reading this at the end of the book hit me with maximum impact. It's awful and it's real. Big congratulations to Nava on her debut - I can't wait to see what's next.

Themes: forced proximity, happily ever after, he falls first, forbidden romance

This is long overdue in the romance space, but it is thrilling to see a Chickasaw author published by a major publishing house!!!! I’ve never read a romcom between Native characters and I’d like more please!

💜 fresh, funny, and romantic slow-burn, friends-to-lovers, workplace romance (with a very kind and dreamy MMC)
💻  wonderful characters navigating a balance of real-world Indigenous, gendered, and class dynamics with humor, delightful antics, and a HEA
🚙 a funny and sweet story that also touches on the real trauma that indigenous communities face, as well as examples of everyday racist and sexist microaggressions + harmful cultural assimilation

Ember dreams of leaving the de-clogging of bowling alley bathroom toilets behind and becoming an accountant in Oklahoma City! But after her brother skipped bail (demolishing her college savings), the dream of financial stability through education now seems like a distant mirage. After 37 job rejections, Ember decides to …embellish… her resumé and stretch the truth a tad. This little white lie lands her a job in downtown OKC, and she is quickly thrown into a toxic corporate workplace full of hostile, bigoted, cutthroat conditions. To make matters even more complicated… there’s the (devastatingly hot) IT guy, Danuwoa (who is off-limits). How is Ember going to keep up with the web of lies??? When is she going to STOP lying!?

This story had the charm of a sweet YA coming-of-age story but with a couple of steamy scenes full of very adult spice! I loved Ember; she is so strong and relatable, and it was quite a trip to witness her navigate the workplace politics of her first office job (which strongly resembles the sadly all-too-familiar toxic environment that we’ve all been in). Danuwoa was the perfect book boyfriend, even as loveably-frustrating Ember’s fibs snowball into an avalanche.

Pre-order the first OwnVoices Native American romcom to be published by a major publishing house, out August 6!

Thank you to NetGalley and Berkley Publishing for an e-ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I loved the representation in this one! It was SO refreshing and I definitely will read more by this author in the future. But sadly the FMC tendency to lie got a bit out of hand and distracted me from the rest of the story. That aside, it was a fun read!

This is definitely a solid debut which puts my rating at a 3.5. The Truth According to Ember is a single POV funny romcom featuring Native American protagonists in Oklahoma. The female main character Ember is stuck in an underpaying job with unfinished college credits. She feels backed into a corner to lie about her ethnic identity, work experience, and college degree on her job applications to be approved for a interview. When she makes it into a corporate job assisting in the accounting department she meets the man of her dreams, Danuwoa. Ember feels overwhelmed though as her amount of lies increase and she can't keep her story straight, but she feels compelled to share her ugly truths with Danuwoa. As Ember wrestles with her flaws and past family trauma, she seeks to find stability and let herself love and be loved by her community.

The book shines with a great cast of characters and intriguing use of existing tropes like forced proximity, etc. A huge standout is Ember's eccentric best friend Joanna. Also, the book strikes a great balance between romcom absurdity and realism. There are a lot of moments that speaks to Indigenous, female, and class experiences that are coupled with the absurdity of great joke or just hilarious circumstances brought on the nature of Ember's lies. This also speaks to the book as two romances - one with Danuwoa and one within Ember herself. Ember has to love herself before she can love Danuwoa. There are a lot of themes and moments that more or less get their moment within this book, but with further iterations of the author's work I believe they will have the opportunity to focus on less and flesh these themes out more regarding parental abandonment, community responsibility, presentation outside of your ethnic community, etc.

There's only a couple things that I struggled with the book - one, I believe this book needs a prologue and two, the propensity of "show telling". The main reason I believe this book needs a prologue is that Ember brings a lot of past trauma to our entry point as readers. When we meet her she has a tumultuous relationship with her brother Sage that occurs before the story begins. Because, we never see the actual moment that leads to Ember and Sage's falling out and how it derailed her career and personal goals, it skews the readers viewpoint of their interactions on the page. Most times I felt that Ember was too harsh with Sage. Many times I felt that there was no love at all in their relationship as siblings up until the epilogue. At times, Joanna or Ember's Auntie would point out her harsh perception of Sage, but she never apologizes or considers the hurt that she's impacting on him even when she reveals that he cannot change her viewpoint until he pays her back (an act that will take a long time/she doesn't think he will able to do at all). I believe seeing and feeling the emotions Ember goes through when Sage betrays her that I will be on the journey with her to trust Sage again. On the note of "show telling" is a trend I see in a lot of debut authors because their intended audience is very broad at the beginning of their career. What I mean by this term is that for example in this book it will show you a bout of misogyny and then explain what misogyny occurred, why it's pervasive, and how the audience should see this interaction. This is only a problem for me is that I'm bringing my own experiences to this book that may have experience these moments the author is explaining, so it comes off redundant. I gave those moments grace for the reasons I previously stated but it does hurt the momentum I had reading the book.

All in all, I love the fun, crazy energy of this book. At moments, I wanted to give Ember a hug and other times just throw a sock in her mouth so she would stop lying. It's been awhile I've read a single POV romance, but I didn't find myself missing the male POV at all. It was refreshing to get a cheesy romcom that had all the stress and tension of real-life problems thrown into the mix. Can’t wait to read more from this author!