The Spanish Love Deception- Elena Armas

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"Book-tok" has the ability to fit certain book titles in your head and you surely end up reading them because hello, fomo?? The Spanish Love Deception is one of those books that gives so much away from the title itself but you have to give it to Elena Armas for creating so much more with the simple and steaming trope of enemies to lovers. Armas has the capability of enriching the plot with her writing, especially with a trope that is so common and a big cliche which makes it an absolute gamble to play with. 

Catalina or Lina is a hardworking Spanish woman who is unbelievably cheerful for an engineer (sorry but it's true). While all aspects of her life, and especially her career are absolutely thriving, her love life seems to be in the opposite direction and possibly moving towards a dead-end. What makes things even worse for her is the upcoming wedding of her sister where the best man is her ex with whom things ended on an extremely sour note. A call with her mother takes a disastrous turn when she lies about having a boyfriend whom she will also bring to the wedding (god! so basic). 

Aaron Blackford is the dreamy man who doesn't open up that easily and carries an air of mystery around him. While obviously, he is the perfect man (a male character written by a woman equals chefs kiss), Lina and Aaron are always throwing daggers at each other thanks to the rocky start of their relationship. As things proceed, the two broker a deal and are suddenly thrown into a truce that ignites confusing feelings of warmth and love between the two which further brings them closer than they could have ever imagined. 

The trope is so basic and predictable that reviewing the book seems to be a hard task. This only increases my respect for Armas and her writing because bringing a certain level of nuance and quality to a romance novel in which the story always ends in the most predictable way is a huge challenge. Armas provides stark competition to all Colleen Hoover novels as she absolutely wings character development and builds the story in a way that you cannot put the book down until you finish it (she also doesn't steal the steam). The novel proves to be a great comforter with gorgeous characters making it a steamy romance and one of the better novels with the enemies-to-lovers trope. 



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