Elena Armas published her debut duology The Spanish Love Experiment in 2021/22. Her follow-up duology began with The Long Game in 2023 and continues in THE FIANCÉE DILEMMA. The book is set in the same small town of Green Oak, North Carolina but focuses on the best friend and newly discovered sister of the female main character from The Long Game. Josie Moore owns the coffee shop in addition to acting as Mayor and Chair of all the festival committees in her small town. Her newly discovered wealthy father publicly declares her a misstep in his life since he abandoned her and her mother after a one-night stand back in his hometown. When he surprises her with a scary public relations specialist to spin the negative publicity for his company’s benefit, she panics and creates a fake engagement with her sister’s best friend Matthew who is living in town temporarily. Josie convinces Matthew to go along with the plan but the situation goes viral once the media learns Josie has four prior engagements that ended with her as a runaway bride. As the wedding date gets closer, attraction and feelings grow between Josie and Matthew but will it be enough to change the fake relationship to a real one that will finally have her walking down the aisle? This is a slow burn, he falls first romance that turns spicy in the last 15%. Although I enjoyed the build, the characters could have been developed with more depth. The book can be read as a standalone but does contain significant interaction with Cameron and Adalyn from The Long Game.
Josie Moore has given the opposite sex-and love-plenty of chances. Four exactly, if you count all her failed engagements, and five if you include her no-longer-absentee father. Nonetheless, when the influential man decides to announce his retirement with a splashy magazine piece and Josie learns that her romantic history isn't great PR for the family, she jumps at the chance to offer a solution.
Matthew Flanagan is in the mud. Literally. Not only has he been fired from his job, but after taking a wrong turn on his way to Green Oak, North Carolina, his car is stuck. So, he grabs a duffel bag with his essentials and goes in search of a place to crash until he gets his life (and vehicle) back on track. But instead, he stumbles upon his best friend's sister, Josie, greeting him as her fiancé.
What starts as a big misunderstanding quickly turns into a fake engagement, with Matthew playing the role of the doting fiancé as he and Josie are swept into a PR whirlwind. The ring on Josie's finger makes her stomach turn, but she knows this is only temporary. They have rules in place, and one of them is that no matter what, there will be no exchange of “I dos.” But that's easier said than done, as lines soon start to blur, and the rest of the small town comes to believe the fifth fiancé is truly The One.
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