✨Book Review✨

The Fiancé Dilemma
By Elena Armas

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
I’ve never been more excited than when I saw this hit my NetGalley shelf! I’ve been looking forward to the release of this book and it didn’t disappoint.
The Fiancé Dilemma can be read as a standalone but you meet Josie and Matthew in Elena’s previous book, The Long Game. Josie finds herself in the middle of a media storm due to the discovery of who her prominent father is. She’s had 4 broken engagements and is need of a fake fiancé to help her image. Enter Matthew. Matthew is jobless, homeless, and has just moved to town to be by his best friend. This book gives Runaway Bride meets 27 Dresses vibes.
Josie is hilarious and awkward and Matthew is supportive and charming. I was giggling throughout and the ending had me tearing up! The Fiancé Dilemma is out July 30th!
Tropes:
💜Fake engagement
💜Sister’s best friend
💜Small town

Thank you @netgalley and @atriabooks for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

First off, I want to say thank you Netgalley and Atria books for providing me with the ARC in exchange for my honest review.

I absolutely devoured The Long Game and I was so excited to dive into the sequel featuring the two supporting characters that intrigued me the most: Josie, Adalyn's recently discovered half-sister, and Matthew, Adalyn's funny and supportive best friend. Unfortunately, this one missed the mark for me.

What I love most about a fake dating trope is that as the two characters spend time together, we understand their backstories and what motivates them. They also share moments where they become closer to the point that fake dating becomes real. I didn't get any of that until the last third of the book. The two characters are thrown together with little to no explanation and the majority of their interactions felt forced. I didn't really understand any of their motivations outside of a weird PR crisis that didn't make much sense to me.

I really wanted to know Matthew more. He's super supportive and also a bit of an alpha behind closed doors which is so intriguing. Matthew clearly has feelings for Josie but for the majority of the book we have no idea why or when they came on. I think maybe because the entirety of the book (with the exception of the last chapter) is from Josie's POV, that we, as the audience, miss a lot of what drives Matthew and who he is outside of what Josie experiences.

Josie was so great in The Long Game but here I felt she was so different. In The Long Game she was fun and outgoing but that seemed to disappear. She eventually opens up but it isn't until the last third of the book so it's confusing to understand her reasons for her past and current behavior. I also wish there were more details about all her past ex's, not just two of them. It seemed like such a big plot point that was glossed over.

This is also a very slow burn - so many almost kisses that it was a little much. I love a slow burn if there is tension but something was just missing here. I will say that once that last third of the book kicked in where there was some drama, more dialogue about each other's past and they finally leaned on each other (emotionally and physically), it was everything I wanted and expected from Elena Armas.


Tropes & Elements:
➶ Fake Engagement
❤️ He Falls First
🏡 Found Family
🔥 Slow Burn

My rating: 2.75 out of 5 ⭐️

Josie and Matthew are soulmates. Plain and simple. Josie definitely has issues stemming from never knowing her father. Her father, Andrew Underwood, is just awful, but we already knew that thanks to Adalyn. There's plenty of comic relief and sweet moments. Hello, wise words from 11 year olds. I wouldn't have minded if this was dual POV(i don't count that last chapter) like The Long Game. I enjoyed this story and it was nice to have Adalyn and Cameron be a part of it.

Thank you NetGalley and Atria Books for my ARC 💕

To be clear, I haven’t read the previous book in this loosely interconnected series. But I spent a lot of this book feeling confused and like I had missed something. I’m still not sure what portion of that was having not read prior book(s), or if the writing was just unclear. But I really think you should read The Long Game first.

My biggest issue was a lack of motivation (on both sides, frankly) for the fake engagement premise. Especially for the MMC, I had no clue why he was in town let alone agreed to this sham. Again, I just felt like we were missing some intel. Was I supposed to know something about him from the prior book that would help explain his willingness to pretend to be engaged to someone he had never met IRL?? And the FMC’s motivations felt flimsy too — I just wasn’t buying into the daddy issues and why she would care enough to pretend to be engaged.

This one is spicy 🌶️ and I loved the small town, but the lack of motivation for the characters and general confusion I felt throughout couldn’t make up for it.

Oh boy where do I begin? I don't think this worked for me. I haven't had luck with Armas novels since Spanish Love, which was 5/5 for me. I just felt so disconnected to the main character and plot. It was a fast read and I did like the overall premise as a novel but I just dont think it worked for me.

Thanks to NetGalley, the publisher and the author for the ARC in exchange for a honest review.

Thank you netgalley for the chance to read this! I would give this a solid 2.5/5 stars, rounded up to 3.
As a side note that didn't contribute to my rating: this was incredibly steamy. Way above the steam level I'm typically comfortable with, but I knew that going in from Armas, so it's not part of my stars rating. If you like steam: you'll love this. If you don't...maybe skip.
I struggled alot with this for three reasons:
1) I don't fully understand Josie's character development. She is a serial engagement breaker but we really don't fully understand why. We don't empathize or really get glimmers into what happened, just a sort of tangential connection to daddy issues. But that's not enough to really make you feel for her, OR make her feel like she's grown in any way by the end of the story.
2) Josie and Matthew's fake-engagement to real-love arc is a bit baffling. The pacing just felt really REALLY off. Don't get me wrong: their chemistry sizzled. But I really needed to feel a connection that drove them so strongly down a path for love and for me it just felt kinda all over the place, even with the 'twist' on Matthew's feelings at the end
3) Most importantly: there is a part at the beginning that says this is stand alone, even though it lives within the realm of Armas' previous book. I find this completely untrue. I think you NEED Adalyn's story to make a lot of Josie's make sense. I didn't read the first so I felt like I was missing key interiority nuggets that would have made alot of this feel more real.

This book!!!! Made me laugh, made me cry, I just loved Matthew and Josie so much. The characters were so likable and I loved the small town/found family feel.

Elena Armas is my own personal fairy god mother, weaving these precious tales for me to devour. I LOVED this one

4.5 ⭐️!!!!!
Everyone who knows me knows that I LOVEEEEE Elena Armas. She is one of my auto buy authors and I am constantly recommending her books to the romance book community. Elena has an amazing way of bringing her characters to life and she has outdone herself with this book. Josie and Matthew have one of my favorite love stories ever. Josie's small town personality was so adorable and I feel like I barely read about FMCs that are from small towns!!!! Her feelings are so relatable and, because of that, it was so easy to connect to her on an emotional level. I was rooting for her the entire book. Matthew was the perfect balance of goofy, charming, and protective. I am telling you, if you love a protective man, you're going to love him!!!! Going into this book, I hadn't read the synopsis because I would even read Elena's grocery list. I am so glad that I didn't because everything came as a total surprise!!!!! The only thing that I wish I would have gotten more of is Matthew's family. I would've loved to see Josie meet Matthew's sisters!!!!!!
Thank you so much to NetGalley and the publishers for giving me the honor of reading this ARC! I LOVED IT.

Since her debut with “The Spanish Love Deception” I have consistently loved and devoured Elena Armas’ wonderful romances — “The Fiancé Dilemma” continues that streak for me. The universe of her last book, “The Long Game” is extended in this novel. Josie was a character in “The Long Game” (a story about Adalyn and Cam) but it isn’t necessary to read it first — this romance is delightful from the start and fills in the background quickly — Josie just recently found out her absent father is a sports mogul in Miami and now, to avoid the negative PR of abandoning a child, he wants to butt into her life. Like holding a spectacular wedding for her. However, the four-times engaged Josie doesn’t have a boyfriend right now, but she deftly recruits Matthew, a text group acquaintance, to annoy dad. Of course, sparks will develop!

Again, Ms. Armas delivers a wonderful, quirky romance that will entrance you! If this is your first or fourth connection to her books, you’d love this one! 5 stars!

Literary Pet Peeve Checklist:
Green Eyes (only 2% of the real world, yet it seems like 90% of all fictional females): YES Cameron has green eyes.
Horticultural Faux Pas (plants out of season or growing zones, like daffodils in autumn or bougainvillea in Alaska): NO A wedding bouquet does get stomped on.

Thank you to Atria Books and NetGalley for an advanced reader copy!

I have been on an Elena Armas kick and was thrilled to be able to read and review her latest for netgalley! The characters are a delight and I love checking in with our last couple. I almost wish there was more soccer in this one though......at least there are goats and a sweet little piggie! Matthew and Josie are so sweet together and had me rooting for them in such a major way. Sweet, but not sickeningly so, and adding the right amount of spice.....Armas is a master of realistic romance.

Elena Armas did it again! I loved The Long Game so much and was super excited for this one! Although I didn’t love it as much as The Long Game, it was still a great read!

Josie was a very complex character. She has many issues she needs to work through, but I loved her romance with Matthew. They truly balanced one another out.

I loved the cameos from characters from The Long Game! Adalyn and Cam are still so amazing! The writing style is still just as great as it was in the previous book.

Overall, I really enjoyed this book. Josie deserved her own happy ending! Thank You Netgalley and Atria for the arc. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

I love book series that have multiple stories set within the same universe of characters, and The Fiancé Dilemma is one of those stories. It’s technically a standalone, but you get a little more out of it if you read The Long Game first. That said, I hadn’t actually read any stories by Elena Armas when I requested the ARC for this book, I’d just heard of her books a few times and thought this looked like a fun story. I ended up going back and reading The Long Game before reading this one, and it turns out I didn’t like it…at all. 😬 So then I wasn’t really looking forward to reading this one next.

The Fiancé Dilemma ended up being pretty fun, though! It was a pretty solid 4 star read for me through the first half, which I was very pleasantly surprised by, after disliking The Long Game so much, but then it started losing steam toward the end. I’m always more interested in reading dialogue versus internal thoughts, and the last bit was a loooot of confusing internal rambling, which didn’t hold my interest super well.

It’s worth mentioning that The Long Game is dual POV, and this one is only the female POV, but that worked well for it up until the end. Overall, it was a fun read, and Matthew is a really likable MMC, who really held this story together for me, but it just felt like the plot wasn’t fully fleshed out all that well.

Thank you to NetGalley and Atria Books for the ARC of this book!

Elena Armas is always a must read for me and having the chance to return to one of my favorite characters from The Long Game?!?! Seeing josie grow and thrive was the best gift and I loved every minute of this story!

Olvidé que Elena no le da povs a los protagonistas y es una lastima porque me costó darme cuenta cuando Matthew empezó a tener sentimientos por Josie, cuando él le contó como y cuando se enamoró tuve que volver a leer para ver esas interacciones con otros ojos y aun así me costó.

Para el tipo de trama le sobran por lo menos 100 páginas.

Pequeño spoiler ⚠️->. Me indigne cuando Josie acepto que el inútil de Andrew la llevara al altar y no el abuelo Moe.



Thanks to NetGalley, the publisher and the author for the ARC in exchange for my honest review.

I have read all of the books that Elena Armas has written, and while I always enjoy them overall, I find that they always seem too long for me. Honestly, this book would have been much easier to digest if the chapters would have been shorter. This book can be read as a standalone, but I do suggest to read The Long Game first to set up the small town vibes, cute baby farm animals (hello--there's a baby pig named Pedro Pigscal???), and the characters we love and adore. Unfortunately, I really struggled to get into this book (it's entirely possibly that I'm just dreadfully bored of the fake dating trope right now), but I wasn't interested in this book until around the 35% mark. Once I got there, I couldn't put it down. Josie and Matthew had great chemistry and their spicy scenes were great. The ending did seem a little abrupt (and predictable), so I docked a star for that.
Many thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for an advanced copy of this book!

Another Elena Armas book to love! It begins with a lie that snowballs into a wedding. Pushed by a ruthless PR person, backed by her absent her whole life father, Josie is thrown into all of it with her half-sister’s best friend Matthew. Josie has four failed weddings already. She vows Matthew will not be number five. She hopes she and Matthew will walk away friends but nothing ever goes the way you plan it.
I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

i think i’m going to give this a 3.5 but since i can’t do half stars, it’s a 3. honestly, it was nothing spectacular (#tome.) the relationship felt very, i don’t want to say forced because there was chemistry, but out of no where? they went from strangers to i have deep feelings for you only 3 days into this fake engagement. i did like it enough to finish it lol!

I want to start by saying I have loved this author’s previous books, The Long Game was five stars for me. This book however was disappointing. The first half of the book felt very messy. I had no conception of who these characters were and I had no idea what Matthew’s reasoning for going along with the scheme. I didn’t understand how their best friends (Adalyn and Cam) just accepted that they were engaged after barely knowing one another. (Maybe it was just me who doesn’t get it). We finally get Matthew’s POV at the end which felt too late (this book may have benefited by being dual POV) and we get his reasoning for going along but it felt lackluster. The concept of this book had so much potential but it fell flat for me.

Another favorite by Elena Armas! I loved the FMC Josie. She felt so real and flawed but with a quiet strength. This is not your average fake dating/marriage. The MMC felt a bit more mysterious to me throughout most of the book but he never wavered in his support of Josie. This had me swooning from the very beginning. I loved the way all the characters were integrated from The Long Game truly felt like a continuation of all their stories. I could only hope somehow we get another addition to these stories!