Score: 5/5 Bookmarks

Steam rating: 🍆🍆 /5

Thank you to Forever Publishing for gifting me a review copy of Accidentally Engaged by Farah Heron. This was one of my most anticipated reads of 2021 and it didn’t disappoint!

Reena is 31, the middle child who often feels a bit unremarkable, she’s just been downsized from yet another company, her sourdough starter is refusing to cooperate, and her family keep meddling in her personal life—it feels like nothing is going right for her lately.

When her parents try to set her up with yet another eligible, Muslim bachelor, even going so far as moving him in across the hall from Reena, she is determined to have nothing to do with him.

I don’t want to spoil any of the delicious (pun intended) things that happen in this book so I’ll just tell you that the characters were all so amazing, both the main and the supporting ones. They felt like people I could have known for years, and they were an absolute delight to read about. The story is fun, and sweet, and includes one of my favorite tropes…fake relationships!

Plus, between Brian the uncooperative sourdough starter, and Nadim the brown Captain America with a British accent and a smokin’ caboose, there’s plenty to snack on. This book was really sexy without being explicit, so even though you could feel the sizzle of chemistry between these two it was closed-door, or maybe slightly ajar. It gets two eggplants on my steam-meter.

You’re 100% going to want to binge this book once you start, so clear your schedule, grab your favorite beverage (and definitely some freshly-baked goods) and prepare to lose yourself in this fabulous book. Get yourself a copy via the button below, or get the audiobook here.

Synopsis:

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.