Series: The Long Game #2
Also in this series: The Long Game
Published by Simon and Schuster on 30 July 2024
Genres: Contemporary, Fiction, Romance
Pages: 432
Format: eBook
Source: Bought for Myself
Goodreads
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 the absentee father who kept her existence a secret until very recently. So when her father decides to announce his retirement with a splashy magazine piece about the family, Josie realizes her romantic history is a complicated PR issue. Matthew Flanagan is in the mud, literally. Not only has he been fired from his job, but also the tires of his car are stuck in the muck after taking a wrong turn as he enters Green Oak, North Carolina. So, he grabs a duffel with his essentials and goes in search of a place to crash until he gets his life back on track. But instead, he finds his best friend’s sister, Josie, greeting him as her fiancé. What starts as a big messy misunderstanding quickly turns into an arrangement with Matthew playing a new role as doting fiancé. A fifth engagement—and a stunt, at that—makes Josie’s stomach turn, but every dilemma requires a choice between equally undesirable alternatives, and Matthew doesn’t seem to mind becoming one more number in a colorful list of grooms-that-never-were. Despite the ring on her finger, Josie knows this is only temporary, even if the rest of the small town believes that the fifth time’s the charm.
The Fiancé Dilemma marks Elena Armas’ second foray into Green Oak, North Carolina. We were introduced to both Josie and Matthew in The Long Game where they were great secondary characters. So how do they fare helming their own romantic comedy of errors?
I was intrigued by Josie from the first time we met her. Mayor, coffee shop proprietor, and a four-time ex-fiancée. When we found out she was also Adalyn’s long lost half sister my interest was piqued even further. Josie is fun. She’s a little bit eccentric (but I feel like everyone from Green Oak is a little unconventional) and you can tell how much she loves her town and the people who reside there. Matthew, Adalyn’s bff from the city, was more of an unknown but we saw enough to know this was going to be an interesting trip following the two and whatever antics they got up to.
I do enjoy Armas’ writing. She has captured the romance novel style perfectly. There’s enough drama, romance and action to keep things interesting and almost make you feel like you’re in a rom-com movie.
But I found it difficult to deal with the initial premise for this story. Long lost daddy decides your personal life is an embarrassment to him and in order to show his absence from your life didn’t mess you up about men (taking into account your four broken engagements at the alter) you get engaged for a fifth time. To a man you’ve never physically met before. I mean it makes an adorable meet-cute but it also begs the question of why.
That said, once I ignored the premise – I loved this story. I loved the characters and how everything leant into the quirkiness of small towns and the relationships between community members. This is a book that couldn’t have been set anywhere else. The Green Oak-ness of it all is vital to Josie and Matthew’s love story. The chemistry between the two leads was electric and it developed at a slow burn but one which felt perfect for them. I did wonder if Matthew was perhaps a little to perfect. Don’t get me wrong – he’s the perfect book boyfriend but you do get to a spot where something is too shiny and wonderful you wonder what’s he really hiding.
All in all I loved this book. Elena Armas is an auto-buy author for me now because I know what I’m going to get. A fun love story wrapped up in the perfect amount of drama and exciting rom-com style antics. The Fiancé Dilemma is no exception and I think it might be my favourite of her books to date.