4 stars

Thank you to NetGalley and Atria Books for providing me with an ARC in exchange for an honest review!

Josie Moore has a complicated history with love. Four failed engagements followed by a surprise revelation about her absentee father and some bad PR leave her in urgent need of a fiancé - one that she will actually marry. Enter Matthew Flanagan, the down-on-his-luck best friend of Josie’s sister, Adalyn Reyes (The Long Game). What starts out as a wrong turn ends up as a pretty presumptuous proposal as Josie asks Matthew to be her fake fiancé. Josie insists there will be no actual wedding, but Matthew knows in his heart that likely isn’t true.

Another solid small town contemporary romance novel from Elena Armas! I loved The Long Game and was so excited to see that Matthew and Josie’s story was on deck. I would have loved to have seen more from Matthew’s POV, and I didn’t love that Josie totally strong armed him into her fake fiancé scheme (Granted, she was also strong armed into said fake fiancé scheme) but those are really my only major complaints. A quick, light read perfect for fans of small town and fake dating!

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

The writing was as expected from an Elena Armas book. Fun, cheesy, and slightly cringey but in a fun way. Josie is a really fun yet over the top character and Matthew is great but I wouldn’t say he’s my favorite MMC out of all Elena Armas’s MMCs.

My only complaints is the set up for the plot and the ending. Josie is not a weak character and knows how to stand up for herself, and as a people pleaser, it makes sense that she wants everyone to be happy but what I don’t get is why she keeps bending over backwards for her father who is vaguely in her life and who she has never met in person. As for the ending, it felt rushed and I wanted more, which sounds vague but I also don’t want to spoil the ending.

Overall, I had to take this book with a grain of salt. Fake dating tropes are typically going to be over the top, rarely is this trope going to be realistic, however it was really hard sometimes to follow how Josie thought making up a fake relationship with Matthew was the best choice when she owed her father nothing and could’ve told Bobbi to hit the road.

That said watching the characters interact together was really fun and I really enjoyed that we got to read segments of the podcast, I’d definitely listen to Sam and Nick. Also can we talk about Grandpa Moe? Everyone deserves a Grandpa Moe and the man must be protected. His character alone is why I’m giving this 3 stars instead of 2.

All in all, I wish I liked this book more but it was cute and an easy read.

I want to start by saying thank you to NetGalley for the arc of this book. I haven’t yet read The Long Game, so I wasn’t sure if I should read this first, but I did anyway. Josie lives in a small town in North Carolina, and she has what she likes to call a “reputation” for leaving men at the altar. When her father comes back into her life, she’s thrown into the world of PR and cameras. After accidentally making people believe she’s engaged, again, she asks none other than Matthew Flanagan to play the part of her fiancé.
The romance is very sweet, and the tension between Josie and Matthew is done very well.
I needed a romance after reading so much fantasy, and this was the perfect romance.

Hands down my favorite Elena Armas book yet!! You can easily get completely lost in this and forget you were even reading. Like all her other books, Elena’s writing is entrancing and fast-paced with quick dialogue while maintaining a consistent deeper self-development plot. And who doesn’t love a fake-engagement trope? Matthew’s stoic softness paired with Josie’s chaotic word vomit had me audibly laughing only 3 chapters in and swooning shortly after through to the end. The Long Game character cameos were perfectly placed to not overshadow the current storyline and I will never get enough of the crazy farm animals. All in all a ~bootylicious~ read!

I really enjoyed "The Long game" and I was sure that another story could spring from it. And here, we can read Josie's story, Adalyn's sister.
Josie has always lived in her small town, Green Oak. Until recently, she didn't even know she had a familly. But she has. And her father is a finance mogul, really keen on appearing as perfect as possible. At least on social media.
So when Josie's life, and more particularly her tendancy to flee from the altar, is dissected online, she panicks and pretends she is engaged. For good. With Matthew, Adalyn's best friend. And then, troubles begin...

I have mixed feeling with this story, and here's why : we never have Matthew's point of view. He's fun, not afraid to say things that need to be said, and act as if he's fallen in love with Josie, but until the last chapter, we don't know. And so this story is a lot of Josie panicking and wondering, and falling for him, but how about Matthew ?
Of course, everything is revealed at the end, but I kind of missed it in the story.

I was told I didn’t need to read The Long Game prior to this, so despite having that ordered and on its way to me, I jumped right into the second in the Long Game series: The Fiance Dilemma. I made this mistake once before with a couple of books by a different author and apparently I didn’t learn my lesson. I kept reading stories about characters that I felt like I was already supposed to know. It’s like listening to a friend talk about their other friends like you know them, even though you’ve never met! But that’s a me problem, not something I’d hold against a book.
I love fake relationships as a rom-com trope, but I don’t understood the reason behind this one. I wondered if there was something from The Long Game that I had missed since I hadn’t read that yet, but I can’t imagine anything that would clear this up for me. She’s trying to fix four failed engagements with another (pretend) engagement so that it helps the PR of her biological father that she doesn’t really even have a relationship with?
Something I found quite distracting was the nonstop repetition of something that was thought or said immediately after it was thought or said. For example, If Matthew said something out loud that resonated with Josie, the line would then be repeated word for word in italics a second time, to emphasize them in her thoughts. Having this a few times sprinkled throughout the book is one thing, but it was CONSTANT.
That all being said, I do love Elena Armas’s writing, I found this book entertaining, and Matthew is right up there with favorite book boyfriends!

Thank you so much to NetGalley and Atria books for the arc and allowing me to share my honest opinion.

As a fan of Elena Armas and especially the Long Game I was super excited to read this book and dive back into the world of Greek Oak.

From the start Josie and Matthews story is CHAOTIC. Which was super cute and amusing but got confusing at times.

Between Josie’s quirky and rambling personality and Matthews confusing facial expressions to what she says that don’t really get explained, I spent a lot of the book feeling like I was missing something.

Overall, it was a really fun read and I loved the characters and can’t wait to read more. (anyone else feel like Robbie and Bobbi had chemistry? 👀)

I was provided an arc of this book from the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for my honest review.

Wow… this book has easily shot to the top of my favorite books of all time list. I want to say thank you to Net Galley and Atria for giving me an early copy. I had so so much fun reading this. This is a second in a series (although can be read alone as I haven’t read the first book in this series.) and it is fun and witty and full of real love. To be loved is to be seen and Matthew sees Josie. He loves her so fully and completely. They laugh and joke and grandpa moe is my spirit animal. It was like a slow burn but fall fast if that makes any sense. I loved Josie’s character so so much and she is so real, she has fears and worries that she will be left and that she’s not good enough. Things that everyone feels when they are loved and are scared to be loved. I will be telling every living soul to read this book. 1000000/5⭐️

In the sequel to “The long Game” it’s Josie’s turn to find love. But, with a mega rich dad and a tabloid podcast devouring her previous “runaway bride” stories, Josie is trying to figure out her path forward to love. Enter Adalyn’s (The Long Game) best friend Matthew who willingly/unwillingly becomes Josie’s fake fiance as a way to quell the press, wedding bells and planning begin in earnest. But with Josie’s history and the medias involvement will it work out for her this time?

My opinion: I feel that the friends/strangers to lovers and fake dating trope has been used a lot. Did I like it? Yes. But where “The Spanish Love Deception” was a huge splash I feel like each that have followed was a ripple in comparison.

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The way I was giggling and kicking my feet through this entire book!! I couldn’t read it fast enough, like I needed to know how things would play out so badly! This book was so freaking cute. My one and only wish for this book would be to have more chapters from Matthew’s perspective because it’s so clear from the beginning of their fake engagement how down bad he is for Josie- one at the end was simply not enough. I don’t care if he’s blonde, he’s the perfect shameless flirt with a heart of gold and I won’t hear any slander against him! Josie and her propensity for nervous blabbering and people pleasing made me love her from the get-go. I loved the dynamic between these two, and the way they actually talk through things and show each other support through it all is everything.

Thank you so so so much NetGalley and Atria Books for the opportunity to read this gem!

Armas tends to be a hit and miss author for me- I like some, dislike others, and for me, this one fell somewhere in the middle.
It’s a fake engagement, second chances, romance that centers on a fmc who has been through four engagements… but no wedding. Her story gets picked up by the media and while some of the details differ, this largely paralleled the plot from the movie “my best friend’s wedding”.
The story takes place in the same universe as the Long Game, but this is a standalone narrative. It’s a character-driven book, but we get little character development outside of the main characters.
It reminds me of a hallmark movie- if that is your genre, you might find this to be a favorite! 2.5 stars for me.
Many thanks to Simon & Schuster, Atria Books, and NetGalley for this e-arc in exchange for an honest review.

Elena Armas blew me away again!

This was such a great read—I was captivated from the first page.

Josie’s life is spiraling out of control when she finds out her dad is a billionaire. All of a sudden, her life is being broadcast to the world.

This had a “runaway bride” feel because Josie quite literally ran from previous engagements, and everyone knew!

She decided to pretend to be engaged to Matthew, her sister’s best friend, and it was oh so sweet watching this go down!

They had such real chemistry, and I didn’t want to put this book down! It drew me in from page one. I desperately wanted to know his thoughts, but I think the “wondering” is what made me so excited to keep reading. Sometimes when you have the MMC POV, there is little left to the imagination!

Thank you, NetGalley and Atria Books, for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you to NetGalley, the publisher, and the author for an arc of this book in exchange for an honest review.

This was one of my most anticipated reads this year and honestly it fell flat. I liked both of these characters in the previous book but when they got their own they just became really cringe and it became hard to follow them. This wasn’t really anything new. It felt like a very similar story to Rosie and Lucas. This is the only one of her books that I haven’t really enjoyed so I’m hoping the next one will turn out better.

First let me thank the publishers who provided me an ARC of ‘The Fiancé Dilemma’ by Elena Armas through NetGalley.

I was super excited to have the opportunity to read this e-arc because I really enjoyed The Spanish Love Deception that was also written by Elena Armas and The Fiancé Dilemma did not disappoint.

Let’s start with a synopsis. This is the second book in a series, I personally have not read the first one but I don’t feel as though I missed out on anything in this book or was spoiled for the romance in the first book though we do interact with that couple throughout this story. We begin by meeting Josie Moore during one of the silliest scenes I’ve read, wherein she gets covered in jam while trying to pull her ex-fiancés engagement ring from her swollen finger and ends up fake engaged to her sisters best friend Matthew who has shown up at exactly the right moment to rescue her from a scary PR lady who has just informed her that she is now the topic of a very popular gossip podcast thanks to her very rich father. She probably wouldn’t really be much to talk about except that Josie has been engaged before, four times to be exact, and has left three of those men at the alter. Now her and Matthew are committed to pretending that he will be her fifth and hopefully final fiancé as Josie tries desperately to “fix” her reputation that is being smeared through the mud.

Tropes you’ll find within this story are -
*sisters best friend
*soul-mates
*fake dating
*quirky heroine
*cinnamon roll boy
*he falls hard first
*single POV (last chapter in Male MC POV)

I really enjoyed this love story! It was fast paced and very cute and funny. Josie is a lovable character with complex feelings and Matthew was great book boyfriend material. I really enjoyed watching Matthew through Josie’s eyes and was caught off guard with some of the very romantic and sweet quotes dropped throughout their relationship. I 100% swooned at one point, it was just so good. There’s also a couple of Twilight references that caught me off guard and had me laughing out loud and making my husband patiently listen while I reread them aloud to him. Basically, a great read that had me hooked. Why four and not five stars? I think that for me it lacked a bit of substance and it time jumped a bit more than I personally prefer. I don’t doubt that some readers will enjoy the time jumps because it sped the plot along at a fast clip and kept things interesting but for me it felt a little rushed and I ended up wishing for Matthew’s thoughts and POV a little to provide some more depth to their love. Overall though, worth the read and definitely will be one I think about again.

This was a cute romance with lots of fun side characters. Matthew and Josie were great and I loved their interactions. Overall, I enjoyed their love story but sometimes I had a hard time connecting with them and really "feeling" their love for each other. It almost felt a little rushed towards the end of the book. I really enjoyed this book, I just wanted a little bit more out of their story.

Ok so I read The Long Game, which is the first book in this series, and I actually didn't like it at all. But I like Elena Armas, so I figured I would give this one a chance and I am so glad I did! It took me a little while to get in to. At the beginning I didn't like Josie, I found her a little annoying and her character came off as a little poor me. She also seemed like a completely different character from the first book with Adalyn and Cameron. Also I was really happy that there was very little Adalyn and Cameron because they were the worst in their book.

One of the main reasons I had issues getting in to the story in the beggining was that I didn't like the premise and how she felt forced in to creating this fake engagement. That part wasn't my favorite. But as the story went on, I found myself loving both Josie and Matthew and loved watching their relationship grow. Ugh Matthew, lovely Matthew. I really loved him from the beginning and it never changed throughout the entire story. I do wish that it had alternating viewpoints, because the book was only in Josie's viewpoint. And there were so many moments that I wanted to know what Matthew was thinking. I loved the ending and how it wrapped up.

Thank you to Atria Books & NetGalley for the arc in exchange for an honest review.

I loved returning to Green Oak- I love the small town aspect of this town! This was a classic fake fiance/but then fall in love for real trope. It kept me turning the pages. I didn't love it, and I didn't hate it-- but I really dislike Josie's father and her publicist and that whole part of the storyline. I think my favorite character in the whole thing, though, was Grandpa Moe. I'll continue to read anything Armas writes but this one was just okay for me-- 3.5 stars.

DNF@55%

This was my first Elena Armas and I really wanted to love it to spite all the mixed reviews towards TSLD and TLG, however I did not. The dialogue was the true villain here. Millennial humor has to be done perfectly to work and sadly, it was done sooooooo much here that it was cringey at best.

I also didn't connect to the main character, which is kind of a deal breaker for me. I don't have to love the FMC, but I have to at least connect with them and I didn't. I didn't think the MMC was bad, he was just a little too ready to go through with the world's most random fake engagement (that plot device was also not great to begin with.)

Thank you to the author and NetGalley for a free ARC in exchange for an honest review!

i was a little nervous going into this one because i dnf'ed The Long Game but this redeems her writing for me!! honestly, you can totally skip the first one and just read this one, because it can be read as a standalone.

this might just be my new favorite couple that she's written. like even with however far i got into the first one, josie stood out as being the best side character so i'm so glad we got to read her story because she really does it all. and MATTHEW is just too cute and supportive and he falls first and ugh the romance is so good. i didn't have a ton i disliked about this other than her father (andrew when i see you...) and bobbi being really obnoxious. i just didn't find the whole idea of them getting together to avoid this pr crisis being super believable - like you're telling me that your father's career and reputation could go up in flames because his daughter that he's not really been present for, has been engaged four times? this just would have been so much better if they had to fake their engagement for a different reason.

Ya know...if there's one author I can count on to write an absolute banger, I would def include Elena Armas in that list! IDK but all I can say is she has GOT to throughly understand the female gaze cuz every single one of her male main characters are some of the BEST book boyfriends in the game! And the SPARK between Matthew and Josie was soooo good! I mean the flirting, the texting, the nicknames?!?!? All of my FAV aspects of romance books but done SO well! And plus, the fact that the main trope of this book is fake dating/fake engagement doesn't hurt either!👀
I also LOVED getting to revisit Green Oaks, NC from The Long Game and getting to kind of pick up where we left off in the first book BUT ALSO getting to revisit Adalyn and Cam AND getting to not just see Josie and Matthew's storyline progress but also Adalyn and Cam's storyline too!
A great book for people who love Elena Armas and people who love fake engagements + great book boyfriends! I think we all need a Matthew Flanagan in our lives! 💖
Thank you SO much to Atria for an e-ARC of this book in exchange for an unbiased review!💕