Summary:
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:
Accidentally Engaged follows Reena and Nadim as they fall in love over their shared interest in food and cooking. Reena has been trying to escape her meddling parents for most of her life and even though she’s moved out of their house, they still find ways to try to set her up with men and try to convince her to come work for the family business. She’s sick of being compared to her perfect older brother and has a whole different set of issues with her younger sister. Nadim has a story of his own, one that we don’t really get until the big conflict of the story.
As a romance novel, I really enjoyed this book. I liked the romance between Reena and Nadim. They had great chemistry and hit it off right from the start. I really enjoyed their banter and their shared love of food and culture. I think I especially liked Reena’s friends and family, or the growth and development of her relationships with them. I genuinely was happy for Reena when she started to be more honest with her family, especially her younger sister (that was my favorite of the familial relationships). I thought the irony of everyone keeping secrets that everyone else already knew about was a good twist.
Overall, as a romance novel, I liked this book. I was easily invested in the characters. The cooking show was fun and creative. I cared about the romance and rooted for them to be together. But I do want to mention the Muslim representation because it’s mentioned right in the synopsis. I am not a Muslim, nor am I affiliated with any religions (read this review and this review by Muslim reviewers!) But it’s pretty obvious, even to me, the things that these characters do go against their religion. I’m not here to say whether it’s good or bad representation because it’s not me being represented. But I did want to mention that there’s an excessive amount of drinking mentioned, the characters engage in premarital sex, there’s talk of some of the Muslim characters gambling, which are all things that Islam forbids. So, if you picked this one up for the Muslim representation, just know that much before you read it.
Keep on reading lovelies, Amanda.
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