2.25 out of 5 stars

Thank you to NetGalley and Berkley Publishing Group for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I truly wish I enjoyed this book more than I did. I do think representation is important (that is the definite pro of this book). However, I feel that this book could've been executed a bit differently. I had to suspend my disbelief a LOT. I had many issues with the way the book portrayed situations in the workplace. I read the whole book waiting for the other shoe to drop. I think the story was written to lean more towards a YA sound but the FMC was 25 years old. I think this is good for representation but I definitely struggled to finish the book.

Closed door mods for other people like me: Chapter 25,27,28

I mostly picked this up because of the accounting aspect and in that regard, I was very pleased. All the corporate accounting nonsense is very accurate. As for the rest of it, something about the writing style didn't quite work for me, and while the romance was cute, they were a bit too horny at work for my tastes.

Oh Ember, one little white lie turned into a web of lies and honestly it felt like it became natural to do it. I was hoping that she would fess up but it just kept getting worse. I'm not sure if this was romance or a rom com but I do think passing and make decisions to survive makes people make thse types of decisions.

Fun read! I enjoyed getting to know Ember and watching her find her footing and thriving in her new environment and roles. The chemistry between her and Danuwoa was evident from the start and their fun banter made me fly through this book. Her lies, big and small, however, seemed unnecessary and, while a crucial part of the novel, made me so anxious for her throughout. Otherwise, I loved the story, the representation of Native Americans, and the ending, which was perfect for the situation.

I was absolutely thrilled to have the first indigenous romance traditionally published and pick it for my HYPE bookclub at the bookstore. This books was so much fun, and very real. Ember is fueled by her frustration of being denied, itching to take back what was taken from her by using the system against it. It was more than her just checking Caucasian off on her application. That was the least of her problems, she just wasn't qualified for the job at all, but she was more than willing to figure it out as she went. I loved that she was flawed and a little chaotic, and Danuowa was of course the sweet and spicy MMC of our dreams.

Ember Lee Cardinal had plans to finish her accounting degree at a community college. When she paid her younger brother's bail and he was a "no show" for his hearing, she lost all that money. Now she has to try to find a good job so she can save up again and finis her education. Her job hunt is now going well. Every time she marks the box for Native American being her ethnicity, she doesn't even get a chance for an interview. She is part White so she marks that on her next application. That little lie leads to another one when she claims to have a background in accounting. She does get the job.
The first day Ember starts her new job she meets Danuwoa Colton. He isn't afraid to show his Native background, even with his hair. He is a fabulous IT guy and is in hot demand with everyone in the company. She is instantly attracted to her. There is a no dating policy at work. Despite this, the two start to see each other in secret. Will a work trip bring Ember and Dan closer together or will a work colleague cause their world to come crashing down?
The setting is Oklahoma City where bigotry and prejudice seem to be alive in corporate workplaces despite laws and EEOC. The author even shared in her notes she was often looked over when she checked Native American. There are some obvious "villains" in this story. They ring all too true with the way modern society is even today.
Ember makes some decisions that aren't truthful, but you can see how she only wants to move ahead. She shows love for her brother even though he has dashed her dreams.
Danuwoa has to use the name Dan at work to fit in with his white co-workers, even though they depend on him so much. He feels a certain affinity to Ember beyond their Indigenous link. The romance brewing between them was fun to read.
This is Danica Nava's debut novel. I was thrilled to read a novel about Indigenous people written by an Indigenous woman. I read have a good many books and seen a fair number of movies and series regarding Native Americans. They were well done, but ultimately sad. This rom-com is really overall uplifting and a joy to read. The copy I read had an excerpt from the author's next novel. I'm looking forward to reading that in the future.
@berkleyromance#Berkleybesties

As an okie and a Native American (Choctaw + Cherokee), I was excited to read a debut romance so entwined with my roots. Unfortunately, this one fell flat for me. The FMC was supremely unlikable, to the point I didn’t even want to root for her. Lying for lying’s sake then claiming you’re “a good person overall” doesn’t work for me. I also think the premise of changing your race on job applications to increase your prospects was heavily watered down by all the other lies she told to get a job. And (mild spoiler below) ending with celebrating Thanksgiving felt bizarre, knowing Native American history. Overall, I didn’t hate the book but also won’t be adding this author to my “ones to watch” list.

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/6049885461

Very cute debut novel! I enjoyed being inside Ember's brain - it felt like I was reading from the POV of a friend! Def recommend for anyone looking for a sweet romcom that involves a FMC who's trying to balance work, life and family.

Thank you to NetGalley, the publisher and the author for this eARC in exchange for an honest review!

This book was good! I had a good time from start to finish. I have started moving away from romcoms and being more picky with them but this one was still pretty good. I liked the humor through the entire book and yet the author did so well in handling tougher subject matter with respect.

I want to read more OwnVoices romcom after this book. We need more of them in the world.

I'm giving this one up. I was so excited to find a book featuring Native American main character...then I ended up HATING her.
The lies
I can't.

Ember isn't going to let life push her around anymore. A few little white lies nets her dream job, but all is good since she's been doing well in her accounting position. But there are the microaggressions of a big corporate environment and she does get a taste of how cruel and racist the world can be.

When she meets the hot IT guy, they have to keep their relationship a secret because of the company's non-fraternization policy. I really liked these two together but I wasn't a big fan of them hiding things. Ember is good at blurring the lines of right and wrong.

I really liked this #OwnVoices rom com. It took me to a new place and new people that I have not experienced before and I liked that. I also liked the realism of how Ember justified her actions and learned from them as well.

Overall, a satisfying rom-com and very nice debut.

Did Ember stress me out with all her lies? Yes. Would I wholeheartedly recommend this one? Yes.

The premise of this one was absolute perfection. It was simultaneously a social commentary, with Ember resorting to identifying herself as White on her job application instead of Native American to finally get an interview, while also being utterly chaotic, given the fact that Ember builds her application on bending the truth. Part of the (highly entertaining) stress of this book was seeing what Ember would lie about next. While you want to give her a good shake, you can't help but sympathize with her.

I absolutely adored Ember and Danuwoa's dynamic. First, it must be said that Danuwoa is charming (and hot) as hell and I absolutely loved him. But what I loved even more was how wonderful the couple's chemistry was. I was rooting for them from start to finish, and it was so satisfying when Ember stopped trying to ignore her feelings and finally allowed herself to pursue happiness with Danuwoa.

The supporting characters in this one were absolutely lovely, but a special shout out goes to Walela and Sage. Walela was an absolute icon, I was so obsessed with her. While I was so angry with Sage on Ember's behalf, he won me over so quickly with how sweet his interactions with Walela were.

Overall, I highly recommend checking this book out, and I cannot wait to read more from this author.

Unfortunately, I did not enjoy this book.

I was so looking forward to the Native American representation in this book, and while I enjoyed the cultural aspect of it, everything else… I just didn’t. Ember acted like a child, and it was disappointing to read about a woman who was essentially a pathological liar. The writing was juvenile, and I had no idea why the MMC liked Ember.

I really enjoyed this book/audio!!!

I know it’s labeled a rom com but it’s so much more? Ember really took center stage as she matures and grows up and faces all these challenges - from familial issues to work/college related.

I would say ember is just a girl 😩 haha. But she’s in her 20s trying to just do it without any help. She ends up at a job she’s technically unqualified for and starts snowballing lies.

Eventually we know how it goes, and the lies fall apart. But even though Danuwoa is the romantic interest… he didn’t really do much for me. He was drawn to her and wanted to be with her. But nothing stood out about him.

So I would classify this as almost a women’s fiction with some romance. I would recommend it to anyone who loves a quirky silly FMC still trying to find her place in the world especially as a Native American. 💖

While I didn't love this one, I didn't hate it. I enjoyed the premise and the secondary characters and well as Danuwoa the hero. It's just that Ember spent most of the book driving me insane. I think I would have liked it more if we hadn't gotten some of Danuwoa's point of view. I mean I get why she did what she did to get the job. But the other lies she kept telling didn't sit right with me. I started liking her back the last few chapters. But I will read more by the author. As I want to read more books with Indigenous authors and characters.

Thank you so much to Berkley Romance for a copy of this!

I am not sure how we made it to 2024 without ever having a contemporary romance starring a Native American but also written by a Native American. I truly hope that this opens up to other Native American authors to get published because we need more.

This was such a cute romance that I found myself laughing quite a bit at Ember's antics. I do not understand how she could get away with what she got away with for so long! When she first met Danuwoa he was onto her from the very beginning but he never really pushed her or questioned her. I know some reader friends said they had such anxiety of the juvenile actions Ember's were doing which understand how it could be hard to read but it did not bother me. I think because as a reader you know everything will eventually come to light and it all did spill out.

I did feel like like the romance came out of left field. I truly loved Danuwoa's character and loved the relationship he had with Ember but there was no flirtatious build up. It was just like oh I like you, let's kiss and then it happened. He was such a good guy and sometimes I thought that he was too good for Ember but at the same time they just worked so well together. Also the time they were in the supply closet WHEWWW.

I also really enjoyed any time the side characters were featured. I loved Ember's best friend/roommate Johanna. I thought she was hysterical. I also loved Danuwoa's sister as well as the time they were at the bowling alley.

I am looking forward to reading more from Danica in the future!

Check this book out if you are looking for a mildly spicy workplace romance filled with off the wall moments!

4.5

While I really enjoyed the love story in this book (obviously), I really loved watching Ember come into her own. Her emotional arc as a character was so satisfying, and I really appreciated her growth. Looking forward to reading what Danica writes next!

I'm excited about more Native rep in romance novels, but I had a tough time with this one.  Most of the plot tension is driven by Ember being a pathological liar, which meant I found her ridiculous and unlikeable, and Ember's idea that she would be fired if she dated a coworker, which was just dumb.

This book is first person present tense POV, and Ember is not someone I can easily empathize with.  She has terrible judgment and makes mistake after mistake, digging herself into a deeper and deeper spot.   She lied to get her job, and she went on to tell more lies, and make mistakes at work, and make poor assumptions, and tell more lies to cover up the mistakes, and I think it was meant to be funny, but I never found it funny.  I cringed so hard I could barely keep reading.  I'm so busy cringing at all the bad decisions that I can't even focus on the romance.   I found I didn't care at all if she hooked up with Handsome Dan or  not, I just wanted her to stop making bad decisions.

The entire “oh no we can’t date because we are coworkers” theme was ridiculous. The HR rep never specifically said there was a “no dating policy” and it annoyed me every time Ember thought it or mentioned it.  

In addition to all that, Ember herself has gone NC with her father, and is completely fed up with her brother, <b>because THEY keep making bad decisions</b>.  So she has no patience with other people making bad decisions, while she continues to make her own bad decisions.  That makes her a hypocrite as well as an idiot, which means I found her completely unlikeable.  (I have no idea what Danuwoa saw in her - he's kind, funny, sexy, easy-going, and has his financial shit together - he could be with any woman he wants, why does he choose this particular hot mess of a woman??)  And that means I could not enjoy this book.  I really need to LIKE the protagonists in a romance novel.

My thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an advanced, uncorrected copy of this book.

Thank you to Berkley Publishing Group for providing this ARC through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review!

Overall Rating: 3.5 / 5 (rounded down to 3)

I would recommend this book to those that are fans of work place romances that take time to highlight the injustices for minorities in the corporate world.

Overall I found this to be a very fun and easy to read book where we dive right in to Ember’s life as she’s trying to make it out of her low-paying and unsatisfying job at a local bowling alley. She makes a plan and executes it to a land a job as an accounting assistant, stretching the truth to help ensure her resume looks great. As she’s learning on the job she finds herself growing close to Danuwoa, despite the no dating coworkers policy. She quickly moves up in her job and finds it harder to manage the lies she has been telling to survive the corporate environment.

My biggest issue with this romance was it felt a bit too fast paced for me. With how quickly Ember’s life was changing, it became hard for me to feel the chemistry between her and Danuwoa and it became hard for me to connect with how she felt as she moved up in her job. The banter between the two of them did have me rooting for them but it did feel a bit like a “love at first sight” situation and that trope is not for me. Also, while I haven’t worked at a start-up company, I have worked in corporate environments so it was hard for me to grasp her getting the higher position in such a short time.

Despite that, I really enjoyed how the author handled the topics of navigating work environments that are white male dominated. Ember was a force to be reckoned with and learned to really find herself and her voice. It was empowering to watch moments where she stood up for herself and others rather than just trying to brush off racist or sexist comments. Her growth was neat to read, especially when it came to how the major conflict wrapped up.

**Many thanks to Berkley and Danica Nava for an ARC of this book provided via NetGalley!**

"It it always better to speak the truth...unless, of course, you are an exceptionally good liar." - Jerome K. Jerome

Ember Cardinal may not be an EXCEPTIONALLY good liar yet...but let's just say she's been getting a LOT of practice lately. Working in a bowling alley is pretty far from her dream job...but at least she's got her buddy Joanna as a boss. As a Native American, she's had her fair share of trouble getting her foot in the door, and she hopes that taking accounting classes at the community college will be the first step to getting her foot in the door somewhere worthwhile...and get her FAR away from plunging toilets. Frustrated with the rejections she has received after identifying herself as Native American on her job applications, she decides to check the box marked "White" one day and see if it makes a difference (and she MAY also have exaggerated her past experience, saying that she actually COMPLETED a degree and worked as an accountant for the bowling alley...but in for a penny, in for a pound right?)

So when she gets a phone call asking her for an interview for an accountant's assistant job at an IT start up, Ember can hardly contain her excitement. The small fact that 90% of her application is fabricated? Well...it can all be smoothed over with a FABULOUS interview, right? Ember does manage to ace the interview, hide her junky car from her co-worker's eyes, and finds out she will be getting a salary exceeding 50k - and the stars seem to finally be aligning. Throw in a budding flirtation with the smart, handsome, and charming IT extraordinaire Danuwoa, and she's nothing short of elated. But when the CEO's executive assistant decides Ember would be the perfect candidate to take over while she goes out on maternity leave, Ember is under even MORE pressure to keep up the ruse that she knows EXACTLY what to do. With the tasks piling up, and some toxic men in positions of power at the company on a quest to trip her up (AND spoil her potential office romance with Danuwoa) can Ember manage to keep ALL the balls in the air...AND get the guy? Or will her elaborate house of cards tumble to the ground, leaving her right back where she started...only without the reference OR the romance?

This is Danica Nava's debut, and first off, I LOVE to see this sort of Native American rep in romance. Nava mentions its importance in her author's note, and it truly cannot be overstated. She even includes a glossary at the back of the book with some of the words used in the book, which was MUCH appreciated by a reader like me...although it would have been nice to know about while I was reading rather than discovering it at the end. Although I never truly know if some of the racist epithets and insults hurled at the characters are REALLY as commonplace and as aggressive as they are portrayed to be in a book like this (from random interactions in a bar, for instance) I usually try to give the author the benefit of the doubt and assume there are really people out there that are just that vocal about their prejudice.

But as much as I appreciated some of the themes in this book (primarily, the role that discrimination bias plays in the hiring process, which IS appalling) I spent far too much of this book rolling my eyes at the unfocused, juvenile, and senseless behavior of our 'can't stop lying, even when I'm trying' MC, Ember.

Sadly, so much of this book read YA to me SOLELY for this reason. I kept having to remind myself this character was in her 20s, because to be honest, she had all of the common sense of a heartsick, impetuous teen. I know this is part of the point, but it was hard to believe that everyone at the company would BELIEVE Ember at all based on the sort of flimsy, slipshod excuses she would give as to why things weren't done or done properly, and that NOBODY would question some of the basic knowledge she was lacking. Not only that, one of her coworkers who HARDLY knows her essentially wants to give her a promotion after she worked for the company for about 15 seconds. Not to mention that promotion is to not just be ANY Executive Assistant, but one to the CEO!? Granted, this is a small-ish start up tech company...but as an admin myself, I can tell you that most 20 somethings with no C-Suite administrative experience wouldn't just be handed a job like that...even temporarily.

And then there's the ENDLESS cursing. If Ember wanted to save up enough money to buy a new car, I'm pretty sure all she had to do was keep a swear jar in her bedroom for a year and she'd be able to buy a Bentley. There are examples of this on nearly EVERY page, and after a while, it just got to be a lot. I get that she's young (ish) but as someone hoping to move up in the professional world, I think some of the best advice I could give her would just be to focus on building her vocabulary. Ember also has a PROBLEM with her allergies, and basically implies that cats are the devil MULTIPLE times. I mean, I have allergies...and allergies to cats, dogs, and the like. And what do I do? I take....allergy medication when needed. The fact that Danuwoa's CAT was almost a dealbreaker for her on more than one occasion was just a bit silly. Her allergies weren't life-threatening: her reaction was just bonkers and frankly, over the top...and as a cat lover, let's just say it rubbed me the wrong way.

There's also just the odd juxtaposition of Ember being, at times, such a hot mess...and Danuwoa being NEARLY perfect from start to finish. I don't mind a bit of 'too good to be true' in the male MC in a book like this one, but I guess it was hard to believe that these two would actually WORK as a couple. It's rare that I say this, but I WANTED there to be more conflict on Danuwoa's side...or maybe even a time where EMBER was considering giving HIM the brush off for one reason or another. The fact that she acts so completely head over heels for him at all times just took away some of the realism: even the best guys have flaws, or things they do to 'give you the ick' (as I think the kids still say.) This just felt like a missed opportunity to give his character some much needed depth and personality traits beyond his dashing good looks, IT smarts, and fondness for Peter Gabriel. (I mean those things ARE all swoon-worthy to some extent...so I get it!)

The last third of the book also went a bit off the rails for me. It's hard to discuss without spoilers, but let's just say the comeuppance wasn't aimed at the parties I expected...and that left me feeling a bit unfulfilled as a reader. Sure, a bit of penance was required...but some people sort of got off scot-free, and I just didn't want that for them. At the end of the day, Ember DID get the job and ostensibly learned a lot there...but again, no spoilers here: you'll have to evaluate the end of her journey on your own. After a such a strong stance against the blatant discrimination she faced initially, it almost felt like backtracking for Ember's story to end the way it did...and in a world that already is stuck in the past on these issues, I couldn't HELP but want more for Ember (and all of us!)

And while I can't tell you whether or not Ember learned her lesson FULLY, I can leave you with this:

You should never, EVER underestimate the underhanded brilliance of ANYBODY who works in IT.

3 stars