The Spanish Love Deception

Moderate spoilers ahead for anyone still interested in reading the book!

TLDR Rating: 3.5/5

Came for the enemies-to-lovers trope, stayed for the situational rom-com antics in the middle, but left with a different feeling once the story wrapped up. Since I'm not that well-read with romance fiction, SLD was my first foray into the genre. I came into it pretty much blind, except for the few clips of reviews I saw about it (or, the few people raving about the enemies-to-lovers trope itself). In the end, it was a decent read, and there were hints of enemies-to-lovers, but it wasn't as fleshed out as I'd hoped.

While the draw for the story is two co-workers pretending to be in a relationship for a wedding, the story doesn't truly start until two-hundred pages, or fifteen chapters, in. There's a subplot surrounding the main character, Lina, having to organize an open house for new clients that doesn't really add much to the story other than offering tense situations between her and the love interest, Aaron. There's a black character whose only purpose in the story is to provide more backstory for Aaron. There's also hints of sexism and workplace harassment with one of the older male co-workers, which is fine, but it's handled in a way that feels loose and, again, only serves to prop up Aaron's character in my opinion.

Once we get to Spain, things take off and the story gets better, but to me, the transition from enemies to lovers is handled with little friction or challenge. It's nice getting comedic scenes with family, such as Aaron and Lina having to pretend that they were about to have sex to explain a broken bed frame to Lina's cousin, Charo, but in this sense, the book leaves much to be desired as far as actual enemies having to figure out how to keep up appearances for family. In the end, it's actually Aaron, who goes all in on "pretending," when in reality he's actually liked Lina all this time and is treating everything as real. So in this case, it's more like a hint of unrequited love with sexual tension, I'd say.

Even the handling of personal drama, such as Lina dealing with her ex, Daniel, and Aaron revealing his mother dying from cancer, and eventually his father getting cancer feels like an afterthought. Lina and Daniel's relationship, which is the whole reason for this new situation with Aaron, is handled in a handful of paragraphs, while Aaron's backstory is dedicated to the last three or four chapters of the book. It made me wonder why the first two-hundred pages of the book were spent running around before the actual plot, when it could have been used to build on character and relationship, and sowing the seeds for when the enemies would really become lovers.

There's more that could be dissected from the book, but at the end of the day, my belief was suspended for the most part and I still enjoyed the story as a whole. After being in a reading slump for a while now, this was the book that held my attention and interest the most. I was also glad to explore a different genre and read a book that, while not the greatest example of the trope it was exploring, was still an engaging read with likable-enough protagonists.