One thing I can say is that The Proposal has a pretty unique start; I don’t think I’ve ever seen a misguided public proposal be the catalyst for a successful romance with another man.

Thankfully, Carlos and Nik had much better chemistry than Alexa and Drew in The Wedding Date – I definitely believed they were attracted to each other, at least. And Guillory seemed to pull back on the spice a bit; there are a lot more allusions and less clumsy details, and that does work to her advantage, but I still found the dialogue to be very stilted. The conversations are almost too perfect, as they politely discuss work and family and painful memories with little to no effort.

The hardest part to overcome here is how delusional Carlos and Nik are about their relationship. They see each other multiple times a week, go on dates, help with errands and emergencies, get to know each other’s friends, have sleepovers, and are in almost constant contact. I’ve described a relationship, and a pretty clingy one at that, but they’re saying this is a casual, friends-with-benefits situation. The fact that they’re openly admitting how much they want to spend time together but are denying that there are any feelings involved is asking me to suspend too much disbelief.

The Proposal may have been marginally better than The Wedding Date, but not significantly. Adding on the fact that I don’t have any interest in the characters in the next book, I think I’ll pass on the rest of this series.