Books 2024: The Spanish Love Deception

Romance July Book Review 2024: The Spanish Love Deception

Buy The Book Here (India)
Buy The Book Here (International)

Genre: Romance, Young-Adult Fiction
Ratings: 3.5/5

The Thriving Love Between The Lies

"They both are enemies but there's a saying, 'Keep your friends close but keep your enemies closer.'

The Spanish Love Deception by Elena Armas is a teenage dream—a perfect blend of slow-burn and enemies-to-lovers, that follows the classic fake dating trope.

I have always been a sucker for office romance, and if you throw in competition and head-to-head sassy banters, the book perfectly hits nostalgia for readers who enjoyed The Hating Game by Sally Thorne.

Catalina Martin, the Spanish hell-fire, holds a grudge against her co-worker Aaron Blackford. It's quite a long and silly one, but you can't help but relate to her. No one would love to be around someone who claims to find you unworthy.

But here comes the twist: Catalina's luck throws her a curveball, and she delivers it perfectly with the white lies of a lovey-dovey American boyfriend. In four weeks, she'll be flying back to Spain to attend her sister's wedding and she needs a date—more precisely, an "American boyfriend."

But who could be mad enough to fly across the ocean to attend a wedding with someone they barely know?

Here comes our Superman, the blue-eyed Clark Kent—the one and only Aaron Blackford, who according to Lina, has lost his mind to suggest that he's her best option. Not that he's lying.

So now Aaron has become a personal Superman for our Lina, flying with her to Spain as her American boyfriend. He's a man of his word, but with Lina and her family, no one knows when words get twisted, testing Aaron’s restraint in both situations and his growing closeness to Lina.

What I Liked about Aarlina and Elena:

Catalina took drastic measures by bringing her co-worker to the wedding to be her boyfriend. But beyond the clichés, let’s consider what real-world situations lie beneath.

In real life, women often take the brunt of fallout in relationships, even when both partners are equally involved. The breakup is by default blamed on the woman.

It becomes hard for them to move on when everyone either pities them or offers unsolicited advice on what went wrong. Meanwhile, men can often leave the mess behind, leaving women to sort it out. I related to Lina, who had to change countries not just to move on from a breakup, but from the aftermath that followed her every step in her hometown.

It gets hard to trust when you have a bad taste in what you once believed was a delight.

And then there’s Aaron—not just his physical stability and appearance make him a green flag, but also how emotionally available and stable he is, providing Lina with a shoulder to lean on, where she feels safe to be herself without guard.

Aaron wasn’t born perfect; his own experiences shaped him into the man we swoon over. He had his skeletons, and that’s what human nature is all about.

Everyone has skeletons in their closet, and that blend of reality is what appealed to me about Aarlina.

Armas perfectly and subtly adds human flaws and reality into the story’s world.

My Experience with The Book

At 468 pages, the book burned me out a bit. I found myself putting it down more than picking it up in the first half. Elena’s debut did well, but the story felt stretched until about page 239, when I finally summoned enough interest to continue.

I first got this book as a Valentine’s gift when I was 15, obsessed with Wattpad at the time. Elena understood the assignment well, and Aaron's piercing ocean-blue eyes certainly have their fanbase.

I drooled a bit (my guilty bookish secret) during Armas’s pages describing Aaron’s shirtless antics—something many readers who relate to Lina will understand.

This book is a good head-dive start for anyone wanting to test their toes in the romance genre and clichés. Prepare yourself to add Aaron Blackford to your never-ending list of swoon-worthy book boyfriends.

Follow me on IG