Recipe for Persuasion by Sonali Dev

 

Title:  Recipe for Persuasion

Author:  Sonali Dev

Narrated by:  Soneela Nankani

Publisher: HarperAudio

Length: Approximately 13 hours and 45 minutes

Source: Checked out from the Kewaunee Public Library through Overdrive.  Thank-you!

 

Would you participate in a reality cooking show?

Recipe for Persuasion is the second book in the Rajes Series.  There are shared characters in both books, but you can definitely read it as a stand alone novel.  I think of this series more as Austen inspired rather than a modern version of the Austen novel.  The overall theme of the Austen novel is here, but really nothing else.  The theme of Persuasion is second chance romance.

Chef Ashna Raje is trying to keep the restaurant she inherited from her father, Curried Dreams, going, while also trying to avoid her overbearing mother, Shoban.  Shoban wants Ashna to return to India.  Ashna decides the answer to her problems is to participate in the reality cooking series, Cooking with the Stars.  Once she starts the show, she discovers she is paired with good looking soccer star, Rico Silva.  Their first meeting goes viral.  Little does everyone know, but Ashna and Rico were high school sweethearts that had a messy break up.  How will the cooking show work with the two back together?

I love second chance romance and thought this was a great book.  I like how both Ashna and Rico have to deal with decisions they both made in the past and work through them.  I also really enjoyed that mother Shoban got a back story.  It told the tale of how she became the woman and mother that she was.  There was a lot of mult-layered family drama in this novel an I loved it!

Narrator Soneela Nankani was a good narrator and this was an enjoyable audiobook.  The audiobook switched between Shoban, Ashna, and Rico’s perspectives.

 

Pride, Prejudice, and Other Flavors by Sonali Dev

Trisha Raje is a young gifted brain surgeon.  She has grown up in California as part of a very close family… and her father just happens to be royalty back in India.  The Raje family is tight knit, even more so now that Trisha’s younger brother Yash is running for governor.  The family has never forgiven Trisha for an event that occurred in the past that is the one thing that could derail Yash’s career.  Will Trisha be able to win her family back and will she be able to find a life outside of work?

DJ Caine is a chef who has moved to California to take care of his sister who is sick with cancer.  He is trying to get a break and has started to cater to the Raje family.  He is offended by the brusque Trisha at an event, and is even more surprised to find that she is his sister’s doctor.  Will he be able to put aside his prejudices and do what is best for his sister?

This novel has a title that sold me on it being a Pride Prejudice related novel, but it only has a hint of the Pride and Prejudice story.  It is not a modern retelling in the strict sense.   It is a gender swap with DJ Caine in the Elizabeth Bennet role and Trisha Raje as the proud Mr. Darcy.  Mr. Wickham makes an appearance in the form of Julia Wickham.  Julia is Trisha’s old friend that has a sordid past with Yash.

It’s this sordid past that I found troubling in the novel.  The treatment of rape did not sit well with me at all.  The family blaming Trisha for it as it was her friend that she had brought into the family also distressed me.  Trisha didn’t know her friend was sadistic and I don’t think her family should blame her for that.    I was glad that Trisha was able to find her way back to her family in this novel, but I felt she never should have been pushed away.

Other characters from Pride and Prejudice did not appear in the novel and it missed the charm and humor of the original.  I did enjoy the Raje family and the story, but it missed the mark for me.

Favorite Quotes:

“One Step at a time.  That’s how you changed the world.”

Overall, Pride, Prejudice, and Other Flavors was an interesting novel, but I wasn’t feeling the Pride and Prejudice chemistry in this novel.

Book Source:  Review Copy from William Morrow Books.  Thank-you!