The Spanish Love Deception by Elena Armas
Genre: NA Realistic Fiction
Blurb (on back of book): A wedding. A trip to Spain. The most infuriating man. And three days of pretending. Or in other words, a plan that will never work.
Catalina Martín, finally, not single. Her family is happy to announce that she will bring her American boyfriend to her sister’s wedding. Everyone is invited to come and witness the most magical event of the year.
That would certainly be tomorrow’s headline in the local newspaper of the small Spanish town I came from. Or the epitaph on my tombstone, seeing the turn my life had taken in the span of a phone call.
Four weeks wasn’t a lot of time to find someone willing to cross the Atlantic–from NYC and all the way to Spain–for a wedding. Let alone, someone eager to play along my charade. But that didn’t mean I was desperate enough to bring the 6’4 blue eyed pain in my ass standing before me.
Aaron Blackford. The man whose main occupation was making my blood boil had just offered himself to be my date. Right after inserting his nose in my business, calling me delusional, and calling himself my best option. See? Outrageous. Aggravating. Blood boiling. And much to my total despair, also right. Which left me with a surly and extra large dilemma in my hands. Was it worth the suffering to bring my colleague and bane of my existence as my fake boyfriend to my sister’s wedding? Or was I better off coming clean and facing the consequences of my panic induced lie?
Like my abuela would say, que dios nos pille confesados.
The Spanish Love Deception is an enemies-to-lovers, fake-dating romantic comedy. Perfect for those looking for a steamy slow-burn romance with the sweetest Happily Ever After.
MY OPINION: ******
My apologies for this late review, as I have been inundated with work my senior year and have not had the time to read or write reviews lately, which I find quite unfortunate. Hopefully, second semester will be better!
I adored this book. I had high expectations for it and for once, those expectations were met. One of my favorite YouTubers, Steph Bohrer, absolutely loved this book and I knew that I had to read it immediately, since most of my favorite books have come from her recommendations. This book did not disappoint. I loved the characters, the plot, the romance, everything.
Aaron Blackford and Catalina Martín are coworkers who don't really get along. The entire book is told from Catalina's perspective, which I wasn't the hugest fan of but really helped add to the overall angst and tension in the story between the two characters. I was dying to see Aaron's perspective of the various events in the book, from the office love-hate relationship to the final wedding and the meeting of Catalina's family.
Catalina's sister is having her wedding in Spain and Catalina needs a date fast. The groom's brother and the best man is her ex-boyfriend who has since moved on with a fiancee and a loving relationship, and Catalina's pride cannot let her show up alone to the wedding as the maid of honor. Her ex-boyfriend truly affected her and has caused her to have strong trust and relationship issues, so it's important that she not show how much he has affected her life. She lied to her family and said she would be bringing her boyfriend, who is none other than her workplace enemy, Aaron.
I would like to point out that the hatred and "enemies" aspect of this book is mostly one-sided. Catalina is strongly biased against Aaron after one incident months (or years?) ago when they first met, and has never forgiven him since. However, despite her exaggeration of his interactions with her, this man definitely did not hate her in any way. From the first page of the book, I could tell this man was head-over-heels, incredibly in love with her and it was hard not to see it, though I guess if you're Catalina, it's impossible. I LOVE books where the man falls first, and this one was no exception.
Aaron is everything you could ever want in a man. He is kind but also sarcastic, flirtatious and sweet, and just a touch arrogant, which I adored. Even reading from Catalina's biased perspective, you could tell just how much this man cared about her, from the fish tacos to the granola bars. Aaron has definitely made it into my top ten favorite fictional men list (if I had one); he is literally perfect in every way. On top of that, he's attractive, athletic, AND intelligent, all of which are just added pluses to his already-beautiful personality.
Something that I loved about this book is that it hit every single one of my favorite tropes and it did it well. I have a few guilty-pleasure, secret-favorite, automatic-five-star tropes, and this book just HAPPENED to have all of them. While it may be a TAD unrealistic, I simply do not care because it made it so GOOD.
For example: enemies to lovers. YES, it may be one-sided in this book, but to Catalina's eyes, she thought he didn't like her either, which gave it that E-T-L vibe. The "there's-only-one-bed" trope. LOVE. Forced proximity is always a favorite. Everything about it adds to the tension and slowburn buildup of a relationship and this book did not fail. Unrequited love. This man was so obviously head-over-heels dying for this girl in love for the entire book and while it thankfully didn't STAY unrequited, the way it was written for the first half of the book was SO good.
The wedding itself was so beautifully written. I loved that it wasn't a one-day, two-chapter event and instead spanned a good amount of the second half of this book. I loved how we got to see the relationship between Aaron and Lina develop even more throughout this event and getting to see the family's reactions to their relationship. I LOVE the trope someone tells the oblivious heroine that "he's been watching you all night" and this book did not hold back.
The ending was a different kind of pain. While I understand Catalina's actions, it still hurt. I also absolutely hated Daniel and everything about him. He gave off creepy, annoying, shut-up-please energy and I wanted to kick him in the face for the few short moments that he was present.
Everything about this book was godly. I would give anything to be able to reread it again for the first time. I cannot wait to read more from this author. It is definitely a true comfort read, and I can see myself coming back to it soon in the future. I haven't read a six-star read in a long time and I'm glad I found at least one for 2021. I would strongly recommend this book to anyone looking for a slowburn romance novel. I'm honestly crying thinking about how good it was and how much I loved it. Please go read it right now <3
Main Character: Catalina
Sidekick(s): Aaron <3, family, friends, etc
Villain(s): Obliviousness, hatred, misunderstandings, etc
Realistic Fiction Elements: The events of this book could happen in real life.
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