Catalina “Lina” Martin needs a date for her sister’s wedding back in her hometown in Spain. The best man and groom’s brother happens to be her ex, and he has recently announced his engagement. Her family and friends have seemed to look at Lina with pity since their breakup, which causes Lina to lie and say she was bringing her boyfriend to the wedding weekend with her.

The only problem is that she doesn’t currently have a boyfriend or any prospects that would be willing to come along. 

Her nemesis at work, Aaron Blackford, unexpectedly offers to help her out and pretend to be her boyfriend.  Lina is so desperate that she ends up taking him up on his offer.  They spend a little time together and she realizes he might not be quite as bad as he seemed, and then they fly together from New York to Spain for the wedding weekend to try to fool her family.  He ends up doing a great job acting as her boyfriend, but she begins to wonder if maybe some of it isn’t acting, and also begins to appreciate him a little more with every encounter.

The Spanish Love Deception is a slow-burn hate-to-love rom-com. Elena Armas does a great job building the tension between Lina and Aaron that made me want to keep turning the pages to see when it would start to click with Lina that she was falling in love with Aaron. The story is told entirely from Lina’s point of view but I was left sometimes wanting to know what was going on in Aaron’s head.

It was an excellently paced enemies-to-lovers tale that will be enjoyed by romance readers.

The Spanish Love Deception is available in the library as a book and an OverDrive audiobook.