3.5/5 The Spanish Love Deception has been and still is Elena Armas' best book...

This book had its ups and downs. To start with what I loved: the cinnamon roll MMC was easy to fall in love with, "The Runaway Bride" movie feels, great slow burn, really well written spice (as always with Elena Armas), good representation of a panic attack, Bobbi Sharks growth, the nickname the MMC gave the FMC, and my personal favorite thing about this book: no second act break up!! It was refreshing having a different issue then a break up due to bad communication in a romcom book.

Some things that could have used a little more developing: the FMC could have used a little more personality than quirky and abandonment issues - she fell a little flat sometimes. I was hoping for a little bit more of the town characters to be in the book (like doesn't she have friends other than her sister around), but thats personal nit picky things. And a little less of a cliche father, I get he had to be the big bad and he had massive flaws, but I hoped for a little more creativity with him than the common bad father who only cares about his own reputation.

Overall, this book was a good, fluffy read with cute pets, an easy to root for romance, and heart warming vibes, it just wont be in my personal favorites list.

Tropes: Fake Dating, Small Town, Slow Burn, Runaway Bride
Spice: 3/5 - has an open door scene written well in the end and a lot of slow burn teases leading up to it.
Trigger Warnings: Panic Attack, Death of a Parent, Abandonment, Grief

Thank you NetGalley, Elena Armas, and Atria Books for the advanced copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Talk about cuteness overload.

"The Fiance Dilemma" is everything you'd expect from an Elena Armas book.

With swoon-worthy characters, small town vibes, unrequited love, he falls first, and fake dating, there is something for everyone. The book was at times humorous as well. I think a lot of people will relate to Josie and add Matthew to their book boyfriend list for sure.

Thank you NetGalley and Atria Books for this gifted ARC. I enjoyed it.

I hated how her dad was and tried to control everything. I hated how wishy washy she was. Like girl come on it’s definitely a you problem and you had 4 engagements to figure out that you didn’t wanna be married. 🙄 and then of course the guy you want you don’t even wanna marry him! 😤

This was a super cute love story. I enjoyed it immensely! The characters were both witty and quirky and the way their story unfolded was both perfection and hilarious.

This book was so cute and wholesome!! I loved being back in Green Oak! This time with the essence of one of my favorite tropes (marriage of convenience) except this was an engagement! Matthew Flanagan! The sweet, caring and considerate man he is I absolutely loved how he loved Josie! Speaking of Josie… the main plot focusing on her not one, not two, not three but four failed engagements and the fifth time being the charm with Matthew was so fun to read and seeing her shine after so many losses! I laughed and I swooned and really enjoyed this one!

I love a small-town cozy romance, especially if it has fake dating! The Fiance Dilemma was a cute, fun time that I really enjoyed, and if you like Elena Armas's other book, you will enjoy it. I will say it wasn't my favorite of hers, but till a delightful time

This was a fun, cozy romance that we have come to expect from Elena Armas, but not my favorite book she has written. I feel the story dragged a bit in the second half, and that the MC's kept going back and forth about their feelings for each other, when a single conversation would have resolved the issues without detracting from the story. I also found the flip-flop from the dad and his assistant being the bad guys to be a bit shallow. Like, I'm not sure of any parent who would think it was okay to behave the way the FMCs dad behaved at his daughter's wedding, whether he thought it was a real engagement or not.

Sweet Matthew! My heart! This is actually my first book from this author and it will not be my last! Thank you so much for the free book!

Elena Armas has been one of my favorite authors since her indie era, and she has just gotten better and better. Her newest novel, The Fiance Dilemma, has to be one of her best yet. It has all our favorite things about her: a small town with fake dating and some fantastic banter. I finished this in one sitting, and I adored the storyline; it got annoying at parts, but that is just my love for this author. No matter what, I will read her.

Tropes:
-Small Town
-Opposites Attract
-Fake Dating

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ The Fiancé Dilemma by Elena Armas. Thank you @netgalley for the ARC!

What a cute cute story! Set in a small town, with fake romance, slow burn, and him falling first, I was instantly sold.

I absolutely loved Matthew and Josie, their chemistry and spice was impeccable! This is my first Armas book, and I definitely will be going back and reading more!

🏷️
#netgalley

This book was disappointing.
I missed having Matthews's perspective; I think including it would have added clarity to the story and a sweet side that the book needed. You are left wondering why he is going a lot with this scheme and not understanding his feelings for Josie.
I wanted to love this book, and after the first in the series, I was looking forward to it, but I was greatly disappointed after reading it.
I've enjoyed Elena's previous books, and I hope this is just an outlier. But if she doesn't bring back her old way of writing, I might stop reading her books.

I'm not even sure how to start this review book I just didn't overall enjoy this book. There were some fun scenes, but as a whole I found myself uninterest and not looking forward to reading this. Regardless, I did finish this, so you will be hearing my thoughts :)

To start, the concept of this book just didn't make sense to me. I didn't understand why Josie was going through this whole fake engagement for her father, a man she barely knew and who had done nothing to try to make a relationship with her. He quite frankly referred to her as a "misstep" in his life, so why is she going through this for him???? I genuinely couldn't understand and therefore felt that this whole engagement was unnecessary.
Secondly, I felt that Josie and Matthew's relationship was so rushed and quite literally came out of nowhere. Like Matthew had literally never met Josie in person before he agreed to do this fake engagement with her. They had never physically interacted and suddenly they were having these moments of chemistry and calling each other pet names? We definitely skipped some steps here and unfortunately; I felt a lack of interest for the book because of it.
Lastly, I just didn't feel any connections to any of the characters. I did read the first book (the long game), so I was already introduced to these characters, but unfortunately, I think the combination of the odd plot and rushed relationship just left a disconnect. (That being said, Grandpa Moe was my favorite part of the book).

I really did try to like this, but it just wasn't for me.

This was the second book in The Long Game series. This one follows Josie and Matthew. After a strange series of events, Josie and Matthew end up fake engaged. Throughout the story you see them learn to get to know one another, while obviously falling in love. This was a single POV, which sometimes I really love, but in this instance, I wish I got both POVs.

I also feel like this book did a lot of telling, but not showing. Josie spent the whole book telling us that Matthew was really funny, goofy, and silly, but I honestly didn't see any of that until maybe the last 15-20% of the story? He was pretty serious throughout most of this. It was a cute story that I had fun with while I was reading it.

This was absolutely amazing. I loved being back in Green Oak with Josie, Adalyn, Cameron, Maria and so many other characters. I loved the writing, falling in love with the characters the minute I started reading. Elena's books get better and better as she keeps writing. I loved Josie and Matthew's relationship, the way they supported and truly loved each other. Adalyn and Josie's bond was beautiful and so strong throughout the whole book. This was fabulous.

I wanted to love this so so badly and while it had bright moments, on the whole it missed the mark for me. I normally love a fake engagement trope but this one was just too over the top and unbelievable for me to jump on board. If you are fully willing to suspend disbelief I think you could really enjoy this story. I have loved other book by Armas in the past and will still pick up her next one!

I have found my book boyfriend and his name is Matthew Flangan. I’m obsessed with him. Don’t read this book. I want to keep him to myself.

EDIT: My fellow club members have informed me my perfect 4 sentence review is not in fact sufficient, so if you must read this book, here’s what to know. This is the stand-alone follow-up to The Long Game, set in the small town of Green Oak in the NC mountains. FMC Josie has a heart of gold and a mouth that moves faster than her sense. When she becomes news as the secret daughter of a Miami billionaire, her past history of a Runaway Bride (yes, the Julia Roberts kind) makes her a PR liability to said father billionaire. When said issue with her mouth creates an imaginary fiance, she grabs a loose acquaintance and her new sister’s bff, Matthew into her web of deceit. What follows is a good old fashioned fake fiance tale set amongst the most charming of small town vibes. And with a MMC that I have declared as a perfect specimen of the “respectfully obsessed” archetype.

Josie is the queen of broken engagements with four under her belt. To make matters worse, she finds out her long lost father is being featured in a magazine article for his retirement, causing the daughter he kept secret to enter the spotlight, sordid dating history and all. To circumvent the PR nightmare, she pretends the next man she runs into is her fiance. Matthew, confused and down on his luck, plays along and before long they are planning their fake wedding.

The premise had me really intrigued, but unfortunately this story just didn’t reel me in the way I hoped. I was a bit confused at how easily Josie let her absentee dad and his PR team dictate her life out of the blue, and it felt like it was dragging at times. This story is definitely a very slow burn, and I wished it was a bit faster paced. There were some cute scenes that I really enjoyed, but I don’t think this one will stick with me long term.

Thank you to Elena Armas, Atria Books, and NetGalley for the advanced digital copy in exchange for my honest review.

Ok, so I really tried with this. I didn't realise that this was part of the long game series (which I didn't particularly enjoy either).

I just found this quite bland and boring, and think I just don't mesh well with this author's writing.

Have you ever read a book that you loved so much that when it came time to write the review, you weren’t sure what to say? This is one of those for me.

Y’all, I have so many quotes highlighted in this one. It’s borderline ridiculous.

I just love it so much.

At a glance:
- Engagement of convenience (fake engagement)
- Small town
- She’s been engaged four times before.

Some notes I made while reading this (but, again, I absolutely adored this one, so this is just a glimpse of what I loved about it):
- This is absolutely delectable/delicious
- I love a man in glasses
- 🥵🥵🥵
- Did I highlight nearly an entire scene featuring a phone conversation? Yes. Yes, I did. *stops to fan self*
- I love, love, love his patience with her
- And the way he categorizes her smiles
- And how they discuss fear
- And how they truly see each other
- Swoon

Select quotes (a sampling of favorites, if you will):
“Then I finally saw her. In the flesh. And as much as I tried not to build her up in my head, as much as I’d told myself not to be a fool, that there aren’t such things as soul mates, or fate, or love at first sight, there she was.”

“…Josie had always been Technicolor in my head.”

“‘That f***ing sound,’ he all but growled. ‘The things I’d do for it. The things I’m doing, Josie. The things I’ll do if you ask.’

“God, I was going to cherish this woman as long as she let me. As hard as I could.”

“‘I’m yours,’ I whispered. ‘I’m yours. I’m yours. I’m yours.’”

“‘You once told me perfection is subjective. Remember?’…. ‘This moment, right here, right now, is perfect for me.’”

“The sight of him standing in the middle of my room, smiling, was like a punch to the heart. He looked so right. So very mine.”

Thank you, Atria Books, for the advance copy. All review opinions are my own.

I read “The Spanish Love Deception” by the same author and didn’t love it, but hoped that this book would be better. Unfortunately that wasn’t the case for me. I found the writing style goofy and immature. I thought the characters were annoying, the plot was so obvious that anyone could know what was going to happen, and it felt to me like the book kept going on and on and on. Definitely not for me.

I received an eARC in exchange for an honest review. Thank you to NetGalley and Atria.