The Finance Dilemma is Elena Armas' best book yet!

There's something amazing about Elena's brain that makes her books alter your brain chemistry, swoon, blush and wish that the fictional men writes are real and Matthew Flanagan is officially my absolute favorite book boyfriend from the Elena Armas-multiverse.

After finishing the long game and finding out that Josie and Matthew would be the next book with a fake dating trope, I knew that this book would be an instant hit and I was correct. This book was the easiest 5 stars and one of my absolute favorite books this year. There's something about a blonde man with glasses thats a little bit nerdy, can banter, witty and he's down so bad-boy obsessed with his love interest that made Matthew the perfect man. One thing I loved is that with every book by Elena we always get some hilarity and light hearted moments that just snowball and turn into something fun. Josie is such a fun and quintessential Elena Armas female main character. She's a bit silly, awkward and funny but she has such a big heart and I loved how complex Josie is. Behind the easy going facade is a girl that will do everything to help someone but who helps her? I loved how Matthew advocates for her, to voice her needs and protective of her. Matthew is just so perfect. The way you can see gone is for her, protective, caring, sweet but this man had me blushing, sliding down a wall. He is the definition of cinnamon roll with a filthy mouth. I loved that we see Josie and Adalyn develop a sister relationship and lean on each other, become each others family and how funny the small town is and every character being such a key part of the story. The Finance Dilemma is a swoon romantic comedy that is a bit emotional, angsty, tackles on topics that are a bit serious but Elena Armas will always deliver. If you love fun and swoony romance and two dorks falling in love, This book is a must read! I promise that this book will have you in love!

This was my second book by Elena Armas and I think she just became an auto-buy author for me. I'm obsessed with Matthew and Josie; these characters are going to stick with me for a long time. There are a few scenes that were off page that I would love to have read, but overall, I had so much fun reading The Fiancé Delimma. This book takes fake dating to the next level without making miscommunication the plot driver (hooray!). I will definitely be recommending this one!!

I am so in love with this book and this author!! I have been hooked from The Spanish Love Deception, still one of my most favorite books! Josie and Matthew just melted my heart. There was no part of this book not to fall deeply in love with. Read in less than a day and wish I could unread to do it again. Will add this one to the others to revisit often.

I voluntarily reviewed a copy of this book provided by NetGalley

Elena Armas hit it out of the park with this book!

The Fiancé Dilemma follows the story of Josie and Matthew and their interesting predicament that they find themselves in. Josie, a serial runner after fleeing from four prior engagements, invents a lie on the fly that she and Matthew are engaged in order to keep the press from releasing any further bad PR about both herself and her absentee father. The events that follow are nothing what Josie and Matthew could have expected but ultimately are life changing for both.

Elena told such an amazing story of a small town that makes you want to visit Josie’s coffee shop, the farm with the adorable animals (including a teacup Pig) and watch some programs with Grandpa Moe.

I absolutely loved this book! I enjoyed how well Josie and Matthew balanced each other, the hilarious side characters, the overall unique story and the beautiful message behind it all. Also, I will never hear the word ‘bootylicious’ again and not think of this story.

The ARC was provided by the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. 

Thank you to NetGalley and Atria Books for the opportunity to read this book!

The main characters it follows is Josie and Matthew. The story starts out with Josie in the kitchen trying to use strawberry jam to get her ex’s engament ring off her hand. As she’s covered in head to toe in strawberry jam her doorbell rings she reluctantly goes and answers it. Standing on her doorstep is a woman name Bobbi shark that works for her father Andrew wood, who by the way was basically a dead beat dad, he is a wealthy business man and word got out he had a daughter he dipped out on and is now trying to save his reputation and do damage control over the situation. As Bobbi is talking to Josie she notices an engament ring on her hand and assumes Josie is engaged again! Btw she’s been engaged four times and left each man at the alter. Bobbi decides this is the perfect thing Andrew can help with to save his reputation for abandoning his daughter and starts asking Josie a ton of questions about this faince who doesn’t exist. Out of panic when Josie sees her sisters best friend walking down the road and pretends he is her fiancé and Matthew plays along with it. The book develops into watching them plan their fake wedding they are going to call off but end up slowly starting to fall in love. The ending was nothing I was expecting and absolutely loved it. The book was beautifully written and perfectly executed in my opinion. This book was a 5 star read for me I can’t wait to read more books by this author!

Josie is having a rough day when her estranged father’s publicist hounds her about her past relationships and failed engagements. A misunderstanding and Matthew appearing at just the wrong time results in a fake engagement. Josie and Matthew barely know each other, but that changes quickly when they must pretend to be engaged to save Josie from a PR nightmare.

I am a huge fan of Elena Armas, and I was honored to receive an early copy of this book! It is now my new favorite from her. I loved the runaway bride storyline and the soulmates/love at first sight type of romance is just perfection for a romantic like me. Josie is the sweetest character and Matthew is funny and kind toward Josie but protective of her outwardly. I found myself just smiling at how sweet of a couple they made, the chemistry and spice was perfect, and I couldn’t get enough! Do yourself a favor and grab this one as soon as you can.

Thank you to Elena Armas, Atria books, and Netgalley for the arc and opportunity to be an early reader and reviewer.

Elena Armas has done it again! I am completely in love with all of her books, I'm convinced she could write a 100 page book about a trash can and I would still rate it 5 stars. I love Elena Armas works because they are funny, cute, and cliche and it bit cheesy. Theyre proper romcoms and I love it!
Having met Matthew and Josie in "The Long Game", I was very excited to read their story! Considering how big a fan I am of Elena Armas' works, I had high expectations for this one, and let me tell you, it did not disappoint!

really fun and romantic book.

The setting and the plot in whole was interesting and developed greatly. At the same time, i wish book was shorter. some chapters were not necessarily.

i loved Matthew, he is such a good male character. nicknames, behavior, personality and how he talked to Josie…soo cute

why 3.5 stars? again, the length. it was long and i skipped a few pages, i wasn’t really into Josie, i don’t really understand her behavior in some moments. in general, good romance for easy and fun read! definitely will recommend to new readers

Thank you so much NetGallely and Atria Books for approving my request

I enjoyed the long game so I when I saw there was a sequel I couldn't wait to read it. This one is the story of Josie. She was shell shocked at the end of last book to learn Andrew was her father. Now, the media is having a field day digging into her past with four failed engagements and it is proving to be a public relations nightmare for her father.

Josie lies and says she is engaged to Mathew. He willingly plays along. Mathew is adorable with how he places her first and reassures her and calms her down when her anxiety spikes. It is beautiful to watch the relationship grow from fake to real.

I like how Adalyn and Cameron were also in this book. This book makes you laugh and also has some good advice for staying true to yourself.

Fake Dating, Forced Proximity, Family Drama, Small Town Romance this book checked all the boxes.

Elena Armas has done IT again! I could NOT put The Fiancé Dilemma down. It was the most perfect rom-com I've read in a long time. Everything played like a movie in my head. I love the fake relationship trope and this definitely lived up to the hype. This is going to be the book of Summer 2024. The perfect read for the beach, a boat, the plane, wherever you may go. I was lucky enough to receive a free ARC of this, but all opinions are my own.

I’m sure I’ve said it in past reviews but Elena Armas is the queen of slow burn! I could not put this book down and loved the whole ride. Josie is fun and pure sunshine and Matthew is the knight in shining armor everyone wishes would be there for them. I cannot write enough words to express my love for Matthew. This book is just as good if not better than the Long Game and has moved Elena Armas to my instant buy list.

Okay, I wanna start by saying ...TAKE NOTES MISCOMMUNICATION TROPES DONT NEED TO BE A THING AND THIS BOOK PROVED IT. I was absolutely fucking terrified the entire book up until the 95% mark there would be some sort of huge misunderstanding, nope just a very healthy understanding and acceptance of boundaries.

The only thing I feel like this book missed was seeing more from Matthew's side ... but honestly I loved how all in the male character was and the female character was just playing catch up the whole time. I loved how every interaction they had could have easily gotten thrown out of proportion but it didn't. I saw nothing but paitence and healing which was very refreshing.

I was addicted to this couple thankyou

I was looking forward to this sequel to The Long Game and really excited when I was approved for the eARC (thank you Atria!) I enjoyed it but it took a decent amount of the book for me to get into it. I loved that it was set in the same town as The Long Shot but something just didn’t click for me. There were some abrupt endings and my desire for alternating POVs just had me not super interested throughout the book.

It isn’t a bad book by any means, I just think I enjoy her other books more!

Can Elena Armas do no wrong???

Characters who wear their entire hearts on their sleeves, who unapologetically love each other even when they don’t quite know how to, who learn and grow and change with each other and look good doing it.

(US Pub Date: August 13th ‘24)

Thank you @atriabooks for this @netgalley ARC!

Josie Moore has been given a lot of labels. Mayor, coffee shop owner, sister, friend, heartbreaker, misstep, flighty.

After four failed engagements - more than one of which ended nearly at the altar, and discovering that her long-lost-father has not in fact been lost but has just been pretending she doesn’t exist - Josie thinks she’s given men enough chances.

But when the woman in charge of cleaning up her father’s messes shows up on Josie’s doorstep ready to write her off as a disaster, Josie panics and reaches for the first safety net in sight.

Enter Matthew Flanagan - Josie’s sister’s best friend, newly minted aimless wanderer, and, with a little luck - also Josie’s new (pretend) husband-to-be.

But with the press breathing down their necks, and their pretend romance sending both of them stumbling, the two find themselves becoming fast friends and partners - and also maybe falling for each other… a little?

But both Matthew and Josie have pasts they’d like to forget, and people who have no interest in letting them do so. And as the very real wedding date for the very fake (or not?) couple approaches, they need to let each other in enough to decide whether they get to keep each other, or if the tangled mess they’ve created will end in another run the wrong way up the aisle.

dnfed @ 30%

after really enjoying the long game, i was so excited to have received an arc of this, but unfortunately i did not enjoy this one. i find that elena is a kind of hit or miss author for me and this one turned out to be a miss. i just felt no connection to the characters or the storyline, and at 30% in i expect to already feel that connection. really bummed about this one, it was definitely an anticipated release this year for me

I was honestly expecting something more but alas, it was an okayish book. The characters could have used a more mature take and better setting. It started off well but then the downhill. Overall, an average book by elena armas.

This was a fun read, but it really took a while to get into, and was somewhat disappointing given how much I absolutely LOVED Spanish Love Deception and the American Roommate Experiment (The Long Game was good, but not loved).
I’d love to read more from Elena Armas, though! Can’t wait to see what she writes next!

Absolutely peak wholesomeness, Matthew Josie are <333 the writing was really pleasant, and I loved that the third act was handled so well.

This book is very "How Did It End?" and "So High School" from TTPD 😭

I only wish we had more of Matthew's pov? But Elena has promised to write a Matthew chapter for the BN exclusive, I can't frickin wait.

-- ty to the author, the publisher and Netgalley for an advanced copy!

I really wanted to love this book and I think there was potential, but overall the story just wasn’t for me. My biggest issue was the fake engagement and the reason for it. It was super flimsy and far-fetched in my opinion. I think had there been more behind it, it would have worked better. I also felt like this book was super rapid fire and then end scene. Like something would be happening and then boom the chapter ended and we pick back up two days later. Josie was a lot and Matthew had two different personalities in my opinion. I didn’t understand what Matthew was getting out of the arrangement and his weird insta love which I still feel like was never really explained In a way that made sense. It wasn’t a bad book, but it was just lacking and could have been so much better. Thank you to NetGalley and Atria for the ARC.

I have been looking forward to Matthew and Josie's story since finishing The Long Game last year. My expectations were high, and, honestly, Elena Armas DOES. NOT. DISAPPOINT.

I was laughing from chapter 1. Josie is a wonderfully hilarious and beautifully written FMC. And Matthew is absolutely everything I look for in an MMC. The book was written so well with so much tension, hilarity, and top-tier spice.

I could not put this book down, and ended up finishing it in one day. It is absolutely amazing, and I will be trying to convince everyone I know to pick up this book in July!