Sleeping With the Frenemy by Natalie Caña

Sleeping With the Frenemy by Natalie Caña

Published by MIRA ISBN 9780778305460

Trade paperback, $18.99, 352 pages

I truly enjoyed getting to know the Vega family in Natalie Caña's first two novels- A Proposal They Can't Refuse and A Dish Best Served Hot- and I was so happy to discover that the third book in the trilogy, Sleeping With the Frenemy, is just as wonderful as the first two.

Leo Vega is recouperating from a gunshot wound from a year ago and is secretly trying to get strong enough to get his job back as a firefighter. In the meantime he is working at his soon-to-be brother-in-law Leo's whiskey distillery creating craft cocktails.

When his his sister Kamilah's best friend (and his secret on-again, off-again lover) Sofi returns to Chicago from Paris, Leo wants to pick up their affair and make it public. Leo wants Sofi to acknowledge them as a couple, something Sofi reluctant to do, fearing it will complicate her already rocky relationship with her best friend Kamilah.

While Sofi fights her growing attraction to Leo, he pulls out all the stops showing her what she is missing. When they end up living in the same apartment, sparks and more fly. Caña writes spicy scenes just about better than anyone. You may need to crank up the AC as you read these sexy scenes.

I love that once again, as in the first two novels, Leo's grandfather works overtime to get two people together, this time along with Sofi's grandmother.  I also liked that we circled back to Kamilah and Leo, the couple from the first Vega Family novel, as planning for their wedding plays a big part in the story.

I also get to brush up on my Spanish language skills reading these novels, and I like the feeling of community you get reading about this proud Puertominican neighborhood in Humboldt Park. I highly recommend Sleeping With the Frenemy and all of the Vega Family novels. I hope we get to see more of them in the future.

Vega Family Love Stories:

Book 1: A Proposal They Can't Refuse (my review here)

Book 2: A Dish Best Served Hot (my review here)

Thanks to Harlequin for putting me on the Fall 2024 Blog Tours.

A Dish Best Served Hot by Natalie Caña

A Dish Served Hot by Natalie Caña

Published by MIRA ISBN 9780778333500

Trade paperback, $18.99, 352 pages

Last year I read and loved Natalie Caña's first novel in her Vega Family Love Story series A Proposal They Can't Refuse. I loved it so much, it earned a place on my Most Compelling Books of 2022. (see post here.) Two grandfathers scheme to get their grandchildren to fall in love, which of course they do after much ado. The characters and story drew me in right away, and it was steamy.

Her second book in the Vega family series is A Dish Best Served Hot. Saint Vega is single dad raising his young four year-old daughter after the death of his wife. He discovers that his daughter's new teacher is Lola Leon, who was his high school love.

Saint left to join the Marines and Lola moved away with her mother and the two never had closure to their budding relationship. Each believes the other was responsible for the ending of their relationship. 

Saint's grandfather and Lola's grandfather (who raised her) are "mortal enemies" who live in the same assisted living facility. The pranks they pull on each other may amuse each other but as they escalate, Saint and Lola are being called constantly to come to the facility to deal with the men. If they don't behave, they will be forced to move out.

Now Saint and Lola are being thrown together, sparks begin to fly again. Can they reignite what they had years ago? Lola's family is very different from Saint's- her father and brother are in prison, and Saint's family are very close, upstanding members of the Puertominican community of Humboldt Park outside Chicago.

Lola volunteers for the community center that not only houses a school but also a shelter for LGBTQ+ youth, a cause close to Lola's heart. When Saint's family gets a construction contract from the company that bought the center's building and plans to kick the shelter out, Lola and her friends mobilize to stop the demolition. This puts Lola and Saint on opposite sides, until Saint offers to help the shelter find a new home.

A Dish Best Served Hot takes on some timely social justice issues which elevates the book from the usual romance novel fare. Of course, Natalie Caña's steamy scene (or two) heats up enough to fog up your glasses as you read them. Characters from the previous Vega novel make some cameo appearances, but this book belongs to Saint and Lola, and once again Caña mixes the right blend of heart and heat to the delight of readers. I recommend it.

Thanks to Harlequin for putting me on their Fall 2023 Blog Tours.

The Most Compelling Books of 2022

Reprinted from auburnpub.com

It’s the time of year for the Most Compelling Books of 2022. These are books that I still think about even months after I finished reading them, books with unforgettable characters and writing that takes my breath away.

Barbara Kingsolver is a writer whose works I never miss, and her new novel, Demon Copperhead is her best one yet. She takes on a classic- Charles Dickens’ David Copperfield- and sets her story about an orphan boy in Appalachia, as she tackles the topics of addiction, poverty, the foster care system, and the beginnings of the opioid crisis. I am not the only reviewer to pick this as the best book of the year. 

I read a great deal of historical fiction, and Adriana Trigiani’s moving epic about the importance of family stories The Good Left Undone, takes the reader from WWII Italy, France, and Scotland as Matelda, the matriarch of the Cabrelli family, shares her mother’s long-lost love story with her children and granddaughter so that it will not be forgotten. Every detail here is perfect. 

 

Anthony Marra’s Mercury Pictures Presents is also an epic about a young Italian woman who flees WWII to Los Angeles where she ends up working in the motion picture industry. Marra’s characters are so well-drawn they feel real, and his story is engrossing. 

Melissa Fu’s Peach Blossom Spring is set in 1930s China as Japan’s aggression forces Meilin and her young son to flee their home. They become separated from their family and Meilin does anything she has to in order to keep her son safe. When he grows up, he moves to the United States but Meilin stays behind. It’s a powerful story of a mother’s sacrifice for her son.

John Searles’ superb suspense novel, Her Last Affair is set at an abandoned drive-in theater as a blind widow rents out a cabin to a mysterious man, and a married woman reconnects on Facebook with a high school boyfriend. How Sayles cleverly connects these three characters at the end had me gasping. 

Another book that connects its characters in a clever manner is Fiona Mozely’s  brilliant Hot Stew about a group of people who are affected when a developer decides to sell a building in Soho in London to put up luxury condos. The tenants, including two women who run a brothel there, band together to defeat his plan. 

Matt Cain’s charming The Secret Life of Albert Entwistle is the feel-good book of the year. Albert is a lonely postman facing retirement in a small English town. He decides to confide in his coworkers about his life and makes a friend in a young single mom on his route. This beautiful story restores your faith in humanity. 

Jennifer Close’s Marrying the Ketchups is a wonderful story about a family who owns an Irish family restaurant in a Chicago suburb. When the patriarch passes away suddenly, there is a void and a decision about who should run the restaurant- the cousin who has been doing most of the work or the daughter who returns home from New York? I love a good Irish family story and throw in a family business and I’m in. 

Another foodie-novel I liked is Natalie Caña’s romance A Proposal They Can’t Refuse about two grandfathers who play matchmaker with their grandchildren- Kamilah, who is trying to save her family’s Puerto Rican restaurant, and Liam, who runs his family’s brewery next door. I love the combination of food, family businesses, and hot romance in this enemies-to-lovers novel. 

I read two nonfiction books that are outstanding. Laura L. Engel’s heartbreaking You’ll Forget This Ever Happened is a memoir about her experience after becoming pregnant in high school in the 1960s. She was sent to a home for unwed mothers where she was forced to give up her baby and it scarred her for life. It’s a searing book. 

Vanity Fair writer Marie Brenner was given unprecedented access as she wrote The Desperate Hours about the beginnings of the COVID pandemic in New York City as seen through the eyes of doctors, nurses, administrators, and patients on the front lines at New York-Presbyterian Hospital. It’s a harrowing story well-told. 

Three books I read in 2022 to look for in 2023- Amy Poeppels’ charming The Sweet Spot, Lauren Willig’s fantastic historical novel, Two Wars And A Wedding, 
 and Mary Beth Keane’s amazing novel The Half Moon. 

I wish you all a very happy holiday season.

A Proposal They Can't Refuse by Natalie Caña

A Proposal They Can't Refuse by Natalie Caña

Published by MIRA ISBN 9780778386094

Trade paperback, $15.99, 336 pages

Natalie Caña's first novel in her new romance series, A Proposal They Can't Refuse is a charming introduction to the Vega family in a Chicago suburb. Kamilah's grandparents opened their Puerto Rican neighborhood restaurant fifty years ago. 

Kamilah's parents now run the restaurant, never changing anything in fifty years, from the menu to the decor. Kamilah is a trained chef and has some great ideas to modernize things to attract the new people moving to the neighborhood, but her family is adamantly against it.

Liam Kane's grandfather founded Kane's Distillery next door to Kamilah's family restaurant, where Liam now works. His grandfather and Kamilah's grandfather are best friends and live in the same assisted living facility, where their hijinks continually cause trouble. Liam and Kamilah grew up together and dated a little in high school, but now they are more like frenemies.

The two men have concocted a plan to get their grandchildren together in a plan that will allow Liam and Kamilah to make the changes they want to the family businesses. All they have to do is get engaged- what could go wrong?

A Proposal They Can't Refuse has everything that makes a great romance novel- enemies to lovers, friends, secrets, exes, misunderstandings, and steamy sex scenes. I loved learning about the distillery business, and I always enjoy a book set in a restaurant, as my husband and I used to own a fast food restaurant.  The descriptions of Kamilah's food has me drooling. Learning about the Puerto Rican and Irish cultures was interesting, and you get to practice (or learn) a little Spanish. 

I can't wait for the next installments of the Vega family stories in subsequent books. I highly recommend A Proposal They Can't Refuse. 

Thanks to Harlequin Books for putting me on their Summer 2022 Rom-Com Tour.