Accidentally Engaged | ARC Review

Synopsis

Reena Manji doesn’t love her career, her single status, and most of all, her family inserting themselves into every detail of her life. But when caring for her precious sourdough starters, Reena can drown it all out. At least until her father moves his newest employee across the hall–with hopes that Reena will marry him.

But Nadim’s not like the other Muslim bachelors-du-jour that her parents have dug up. If the Captain America body and the British accent weren’t enough, the man appears to love eating her bread creations as much as she loves making them. She sure as hell would never marry a man who works for her father, but friendship with a neighbor is okay, right? And when Reena’s career takes a nosedive, Nadim happily agrees to fake an engagement so they can enter a couples video cooking contest to win the artisan bread course of her dreams.

As cooking at home together brings them closer, things turn physical, but Reena isn’t worried. She knows Nadim is keeping secrets, but it’s fine— secrets are always on the menu where her family is concerned. And her heart is protected… she’s not marrying the man. But even secrets kept for self preservation have a way of getting out, especially when meddling parents and gossiping families are involved.

Review

This book had lots of really fun moments that were intertwined with the mediocre story. The characters really shaped this story for me and influenced my rating quite a bit.

Reena was an interesting main character. I could feel that we were going to see a big change in her in the book, but she didn’t change quite like I thought/as I’d hoped. Although she learned quite a bit in this book about herself, her family, and how she wanted to live her life, I felt like she was still making the same mistakes at the end. I didn’t expect her to be somebody completely different, but she was still doing things she had pointed out were wrong earlier in the book.

Despite these things, I appreciated Reena’s passion for bread and baking in general. And the unbashful way she loved and celebrated her culture. I loved that Nadim also shared this love and excitement for celebrating their culture. Specifically, It was fun for me to learn more about foods common to their culture.

Nadim was an interesting love interest. He was flirty from the beginning which made it hard for me to know if he actually liked Reena or just liked to flirt. Also, sadly, the more I learned about Nadim, the less I liked him. He had some cute moments, but those didn’t outweigh everything else for me. Not loving the love interest really impacted this book for me.

One relationship I ended up really enjoying was the relationship between Reena and her sister. The rekindling of things between them really pushed me along at some points during this book.

Despite these things, I loved how real this book was. The characters weren’t perfect and made mistakes all throughout the book. I think things could have been presented better, but I appreciate that this book tried to be more realistic than cutesy (although there were still some cute moments).

Overall, I wish this book could have been better, but it wasn’t bad. There was humor, romance, and honesty (and lots of bread. Literally). We see a lot of different relationships represented here and get to ride on this crazy roller coaster with Reena and co. 3.5 stars from me.

Disclaimer: I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

Rating

To check out my other reviews, click here. Or to check out more books by Farah Heron, go to her Goodreads profile or visit her website.