The Spanish Love Deception | Elena Armas | Book Review

CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT: 4/5
ROMANCE: 4.8/5
PLOT AND NARRATIVE TECHNIQUE: 4.5/5
LANGUAGE AND WRITING STYLE: 4/5 
ENTERTAINMENT: 4.5/5
THEMES: Romance Novel, Fiction, Contemporary Romance

“You are all that, Catalina. You are light. And passion. Your laughter alone can lift my mood and effortlessly turn my day around in a matter of seconds. Even when it’s not aimed at me. You… can light up entire rooms, Catalina. You hold that kind of power.”

–       Elena Armas, The Spanish Love Deception

Aaron Blackford, what have you done to me? This man has just climbed up my Top 10 list of book boyfriends, and I intend for him to stay there no matter what. 

While I was very reluctant about The Spanish Love Deception, it made me reminisce about all the good romantic novels that I had read during my Wattpad days. In a way, though, I had already predicted what the outcome of the story will be like – boy meets girl, girl meets boy, and boom they fell in love – but this did not stop me from thoroughly enjoying the book. 

I like that it comes with a lot of add-ons and entertainment and not just a simple plot where it is only about the man and the woman. I mean this book takes you to Spain and New York. How cool is that? Travelling between the pages of a book is something I have always enjoyed and more so when I can see it from my two favorite characters’ pov. 

The Story as It Goes

It’s the big great wedding in the family and Catalina Martin now needs a date to shut up all the gossip mongers and the inquisitive relatives in the family. Her white lies about the so-called American boyfriend are now beyond control, and now everyone and their mother (including her ex-boyfriend) are waiting to meet this new guy in her life.

Except that such a person simply does not exist. Now, she has exactly four weeks to find a man who will agree to fly with her to Spain and help rescue her from the mess that she has got herself into.

Enter Aaron Blackford, handsome, tall, albeit a little condescending who agrees to fill in. Cataline hates this man, after all, he is so annoying, pretentious, and simply insufferable. But she really doesn’t have a choice, does she?

Let’s talk about the characters

Coming to Aaron Blackford – he is a Greek God in every sense of the word. The man is molded with perfection even though he can be a little uptight at times. But, hey! Who wouldn’t want an Aaron Blackford in their lives? I certainly would. 

The slow burn or the enemies-to-lover trope between Catalina and Aaron is something that I have a love-hate relationship with. At times, I cannot stand the cheesiness but 90 out of 100 times, I live for those little Blackford moments and how he has set the bar so high for what a man is really supposed to be like. 

Boyfriend material to the extreme but even more so, he is a definite ten out of ten husband material. Catalina is so lucky to be able to pull Aaron without even trying. 

Toward the end of The Spanish Love Deception, I came to realize that this book is a lot more intense than I had anticipated it to be. 

In this world, we see lots of toxic relationships. We see men behaving like beasts with a mission to kill any prey (women) that they could get their hands on. This is one of the many reasons why women are scared to blindly trust or give in to a man. We just don’t know what we are getting ourselves into. 

Even with Lina’s past, we can see how much society is on the man’s side. Men can do no wrong as far as they are concerned. It’s no surprise that we do live in a man’s world, and society is nothing but patriarchal. 

When a woman commits something wrong, she has to face the consequences ten folds unlike a man who can leave her high and dry when the tiding gets rough, and without any hate comments from society.

This is something that I find so deplorable. We need all the help that we can get, and if even the men that we trust are not on our side, then what will become of us, and of this world?

This is where Aaron Blackford comes in. He is the epitome of perfection, not just physically but emotionally as well. If you have read the book, you will realize how protective and on-guard he is when it comes to the people that he loves. He feels like home, a safe haven for a woman to be herself and let go of all the tensions of the outside world. Can we even find men of his caliber in this day and age? 

I had been immersing myself in all the flawlessness of Aaron Blackford without thinking about his past experiences and what led him to become the person that he is now. My heart breaks for what he had to go through and how he was taught to do so. Behind all those extraordinary features, he is a man who is deeply bruised and scarred. He is human after all, and though he does not like to admit it, he also needs a shoulder to lean on from time to time. 

The part after Spain: 

For some reason or is it only my pessimistic self, I had anticipated that their ruse will blow up in Spain because I cannot imagine that it will go smoothly. I was sure that something wrong was bound to happen. But, oh boy, it only made me thirst for more and cheer along the sidelines screaming for Lina and Aaron. I have never been so engrossed with two fictional characters. I sometimes forgot that they are not real because in Aaron Blackford’s words “this is as real as it gets”. 

Though I did not really get the climax that I was hoping for, I did get a well-deserved ending. It made me so emotional that a few tears were able to escape my eyes. The story of this book is not something that I haven’t read before but it is something. I cannot get it out of my mind especially the last few pages where everything starts to fall into place, and the world is a little bit kinder to our dear protagonists. 

I am so glad that I decided to pick this one up, though it was quite a random choice. It was a good decision and a good start to the month. I also hear that there is going to be a movie adapted from this The Spanish Love Deception, and I cannot wait. Aaron Blackford and Catalina Martin on screen? Let’s hope this movie comes sooner than later, and I hope they do not butcher the book. 

Happy Reading!

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