Author: Elena Armas
Kindle edition
Catalina (Lina) is a Spaniard who lives in NYC. She is happily working as an engineer at InTech. Her life seems to be going well. There is only one problem: her sister is getting married soon and she told her family that she is taking her boyfriend with her to the wedding. Well, there is no boyfriend. Lina told this little lie to get her family off her back. The thing is… the best man is her ex. The groom’s brother. And things didn’t end well between them because reasons. So the last thing she wants to do is show up there alone and have her family looking at her with pity in their eyes.
In comes the hero: Aaron, her colleague, who she dislikes immensely because she overheard him telling their boss on his first week that he would work with anyone, but please not HER. Well, that is certainly a reason to dislike someone. But… he, out of the blue offers to be her date for the wedding as he overheard her talking to her best friend Rosie that she has no one she can think of that could go with her. Well well well, hell no!
Yeah, well, hell yes. She has reached desperation status. After striking a deal where she will accompany him to a gala as his date and he will reciprocate by being her plus one at the wedding, things start to change.
Let me start by saying that I understand the hype about the book. It is a sweet enemies to lovers romance and you pretty much see that all that “lady protesting too much” hides an intense attraction to Aaron (well, duh, he is a Henry Cavill lookalike who she even calls Clark Kent) and you pretty soon understand that Aaron has been in love with Lina the whole time. He is a cinnamon hero hidden under the grumpiness. Lina’s family is a hoot, the situations they get into are funny and entertaining but there are two things that rubbed me off the wrong way a bit:
Lina acts a a little too teenagerish in a good part of the book. I understand that she has been burned back at home and she is definitely skittish and weary and has a hard time trusting people, but all that inner monologue started to annoy me a bit.
And, people, be aware: this is a SLOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOW burn romance. I mean Mariana Zapata level of slow. I think they finally get together around 80% of the book. If you like slow burn, you will definitely love this one. If you don’t, you will scream “GET ON WITH IT ALREADY!!!” a few times. You will still like the story because it is a really well written book, but you will get a little antsy. I was definitely surprised to see that this is a debut novel considering how well written it is.
Aaron Blackwood is definitely book boyfriend material. A keeper.
So, yeah, this is definitely worth a read.
