ARC provided by the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.  

Tropes:

baby swap, marriage of convenience, slow build

Steam level: none

I started reading romance books when I was a teenager, borrowing the ones my mom owned. Most of those were from Harlequin, but the characters never looked anything like me. It honestly blows my mind a little bit to find a Harlequin romance with a hijabi character featured prominently on the cover.

I really enjoyed this. Like most Harlequin romances, this had more telling than showing, but the romance was a sweet, slow build. The plot is pretty much exactly what you'd guess based on the title, so nothing that happened really surprised me. The story takes place in Uganda rather than somewhere in the US/Canada, which was also refreshing.

I liked the Muslim representation for the most part, and that both characters were Somali. I'm not sure how religious Bashir is, there were some off-hand mentions about dating, not going to the mosque often, and having experience with sex that made me wonder about that. Yusra prays frequently, is described as wearing modest clothes, and wears a hijab, so we get to see more of her practicing. I like this kind of portrayal, though, because it's the small details sprinkled throughout the book that made me truly feel that I was reading about Muslim characters.