Blogmas Day 3: A Proposal They Can't Refuse by Natalie Caña

We love a great debut and A Proposal They Can’t Refuse turns up the heat on my heart, as one of my favorite Fake dating romances of the year! Natalie Caña is the star of today’s blogmas entry, with her fun friends to enemies to lovers fake relationship romanc

Check out my previous read How To Date Your Dragon by Molly Harper

Genres: Contemporary Romance
Publisher: MIRA
Publication Date: June 7, 2022
Source: Library
Format: Audiobook/e-book

Natalie Caña turns up the heat, humor and heart in this debut rom-com about a Puerto Rican chef and an Irish American whiskey distiller forced into a fake engagement by their scheming octogenarian grandfathers.

Kamilah Vega is desperate to convince her family to update their Puerto Rican restaurant and enter it into the Fall Foodie Tour. With the gentrification of their Chicago neighborhood, it’s the only way to save the place. The fly in her mofongo–her blackmailing abuelo says if she wants to change anything in his restaurant, she’ll have to marry the one man she can’t stand: his best friend’s grandson.

Liam Kane spent a decade working to turn his family’s distillery into a contender. Now he and his grandfather are on the verge of winning a national competition. Then Granda hits him with a one-two punch: he has cancer and he has his heart set on seeing Liam married before it’s too late. And Granda knows just the girl…Kamilah Vega.

If they refuse, their grandfathers will sell the building that houses both their businesses. With their futures on the line, Kamilah and Liam plan to outfox the devious duo, faking an engagement until they both get what they want. But soon, they find themselves tangled up in more than either of them bargained for.

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“We started out this life being best friends, and we’re going to finish it being partners in every sense of the word. This isn’t my journey. It’s ours.”

What do you get when you put two meddling grandfathers together that are determined to see their grandchildren happy and together? If you answered with A Proposal They Can’t Refuse, you’d be correct! This debut tells the story of Kamilah and Liam, two polar opposites who used to be the bestest of friends growing up until they weren’t. After a shocking blow of news, Kamilah and Liam find themselves blackmailed by the two people they love most in the world. So what is a chef and a brewmaster to do? Run a fake engagement of course!

Cana absolutely nailed this one, and it was such a fun time getting to know each of these characters and watch them grow and fall for each other. There were so many moments while I was reading this, where I couldn’t stop myself from chuckling or grinning from ear to ear. Cana just delivers a great feel good romance.

The chemistry between our FMC and MC is angsty and absolutely bursting with flavour (ha see what I did there?). I even enjoyed the connection and relationships between our leading cast and our side characters. The only thing I wish I got was a bit of resolution between Kamilah and her best friend, but that is me being absolutely nit picky.

Overall though, this was just a fun and hilarious contemporary romance with outstanding diversity/own voice representation. I gobbled this up and would highly suggest you start gobbling this one up too!