The Truth According to Ember

In the past several years, I’ve been reading a ton of romances, but something I’ve never gotten to read yet? A romance starring Native American characters. Mysteries, thrillers, and literary fiction, sure, but no romances. So I was excited to learn of not one, but two new romances out this year by Indigenous authors and about Indigenous characters. The first just came out this week: The Truth According to Ember by Danica Nava.

Set at a tech startup, it’s about a Chickasaw woman, Ember, who is tired of not being able to get hired. So she tells some little lies just to get her foot in the door, and starts working at Technix. She and her IT colleague Danuwoa hit it off right away, but it’s against company policy to date co-workers. This just adds to the many lies Ember’s been telling lately… but lies have a way of coming out eventually.

Tropes & Narrative Devices:

• Workplace romance
• Forbidden romance
• Friends to lovers
• Only one bed
• First-person POV (Ember’s only)

What I Liked:

• Native American protagonists: Ember and her love interest, Danuwoa, are both Indigenous. She’s Chickasaw; he’s Cherokee. I loved getting to know them and their family and friends, learning about their culture and language, and seeing how they push back against racism.
• “Native Daddy” (IYKYK)
• Navigating the corporate world, workplace dynamics, and difficult relationships with colleagues. (Co-worker friends? Angering your boss? Blackmail?!)
• The snowball effect of Ember’s increasing lies… and how she survives the aftermath.
• Family relationships. Ember and Danuwoa both have younger siblings to look after in some way. Ember also has a close relationship with her aunt and a troubled one with her parents. I especially enjoyed seeing how she and her brother Sage overcome their recent issues.
• Danuwoa’s cat Patches. He’s right: Ember should learn to love cats!

What Didn’t Work for Me:

• Nothing, this book was fabulous!

Final Thoughts

The Truth According to Ember is a smart and fun romance. I loved the characters, and even with Ember’s constant lying, she’s likable and easy to root for. There’s a lot in this book that is relatable and rings true for me, and I enjoyed getting to know more about Chickasaw and Cherokee cultures. This is a book I’ll recommend far and wide, and I’m already excited to read Danica Nava’s second novel, Love and Other War Songs.

Special thanks to the publicists at Penguin Random House, Berkley, and NetGalley for providing me with an ARC of this book!

Get the Book

You can buy The Truth According to Ember here – it’s available as a paperback, ebook, and audiobook.

The Truth According to Ember by Danica Nava
Audience	Adult
Genre	Contemporary Romance
Setting	Oklahoma City
Number of Pages	384
Format I Read	Ebook (NetGalley ARC)
Original Publication Date	August 6, 2024
Publisher	Berkley

Official Summary

A Chickasaw woman who can’t catch a break serves up a little white lie that snowballs into much more in this witty and irresistible rom-com by debut author Danica Nava.

Ember Lee Cardinal has not always been a liar—well, not for anything that counted at least. But her job search is not going well and when her resumé is rejected for the thirty-seventh time, she takes matters into her own hands. She gets “creative” listing her qualifications and answers the ethnicity question on applications with a lie—a half-lie, technically. No one wanted Native American Ember, but white Ember has just landed her dream accounting job on Park Avenue (Oklahoma City, that is).

Accountant Ember thrives in corporate life—and her love life seems to be looking up too: Danuwoa Colson, the IT guy and fellow Native who caught her eye on her first day, seems to actually be interested in her too. Despite her unease over the no-dating policy at work, they start to see each other secretly, which somehow makes it even hotter? But when they’re caught in a compromising position on a work trip, a scheming colleague blackmails Ember, threatening to expose their relationship. As the manipulation continues to grow, so do Ember’s lies. She must make the hard decision to either stay silent or finally tell the truth, which could cost her everything.