CBR17 Book 47: "Partners in Crime" by Alisha Rai

Page count: 400 pages

Rating: 4 stars

Buzzword Cover Challenge 25: Skyline

CBR17 Pie Chart Challenge: Diversity 

Yet again resorting to the official plot summary, because I finished this in mid-April and I just cannot remember all the of details of the plot anymore:

At thirty-five, with a stable job as an accountant, Mira Chaudhary wants nothing more than to find a boring man to spend the rest of her life with. Having had enough excitement in her younger days and desperately trying to escape her dysfunctional past, she turns to a matching app specializing in Indian American singles to help her find someone to settle down with.

Enter Naveen Desai. An English professor with an uneventful, normal, and—dare she say it, boring—life, Naveen is perfect.

But just when things are going well, Mira receives news that her aunt has died. Suddenly, a trip to Las Vegas to settle her aunt’s affairs turns into a mad dash to escape kidnappers, evade art thieves, and consorting with hackers who can decipher just what it was Mira’s aunt was involved with. Mira just hopes that Naveen isn’t chased away by the very same life of “excitement” that she’s been trying to get away from. But maybe, over the course of one wild night, Mira and Naveen will find the love connection that neither expected.

Mira is trying to be traditional and respectable, to distance herself from her family's less than savoury past. Naveen is trying to help his grandfather keep his lawyer's practice. The two of them have a past, and Mira broke up with Naveen via text message. Not exactly classy. He's right to be pissed off at her.

However, when they end up drugged and abducted together to Las Vegas, they try to figure out what the bad guys want from Mira's dad and aunt's pasts, before bad things happen to them (or people they care about, like Naveen's grandfather). They are forced to work together to stay ahead of their pursuers, and over the course of a whirlwind adventure in Vegas, they also get a chance to reconnect, reevaluate their past relationship and see each other honestly as the people they really are now.

Unfortunately, I don't remember a lot of details particularly clearly, but at the same time, I also don't remember anything that annoyed me while reading it, either. It was a fun read, and I finished it in less than 48 hours. 

Judging a book by its cover: Standard grumble about cartoon cover trend - but I do appreciate that both the characters on the cover look approximately as described in the story, and the scene in question, complete with fancy car and evening wear, does actually take place in the story. 

Crossposted on Cannonball Read. 

#CBR12 Book 62: "The Right Swipe" by Alisha Rai

Page count: 400 pages

Rating: 3.5 stars

Having been burned pretty comprehensively in the past, both in her personal life and in business, Rhiannon Hunter has now worked hard to make her dating app one of the main competitors on the market. Now she'd like to buy the large, successful, but nevertheless a lot less modern company of one of her competitors, and she goes to a big tech conference with that in mind. Unbeknownst to Rhi, the owner and co-founder of this company is very eccentric and also suffers from social anxiety. So instead of appearing at the conference herself, she sends her nephew to act in her stead. Rhiannon is dismayed to discover that the handsome man is none other than the man who she shared a very steamy night with a few months ago, and who then ghosted her, never to be heard from again. To discover that he is now a spokesperson for the company she wants to acquire, and seems very close to the owner means having to spend more time with him, and Rhi is not one to forgive and forget once she's been hurt.

Samson Lima is a former football pro who made himself very unpopular with a lot of fans and supporters when he quit in the middle of a major game because his best friend was seriously injured on the field and the only way Samson could protest the owners of the team risking his friend's life by putting him back in the field was by walking out and throwing the game entirely. Samson lost his father and more recently his uncle to CTE (chronic traumatic encephalopathy). He had no intention of ghosting Rhiannon after their hook-up but was told his uncle was dying and had to rush to his bedside. Since Rhi never uses her real identity when occasionally using her dating app to meet guys, and certainly hadn't given Samson her phone number, he had absolutely no way of contacting her when it became clear that she'd blocked him in the app. Now he's trying to help his uncle's widow to drum up publicity for her flagging matchmaking company by publicly looking for love. Of course, as soon as he sees Rhi at the tech conference, the only woman he's really interested in spending more time with is her.

Rhi eventually reluctantly gives Samson a chance to apologise, and some internet research proves that he's really not lying about his uncle's recent passing. Barely healed emotional wounds from her past makes it very difficult for her to trust men, but she can't deny the attraction she still feels for the handsome, charming, athletic, and obviously caring man. When Samson, after one disastrous first date where he can't take his mind off Rhi, suggests a series of social media videos where Rhiannon, the dating expert, coaches him on modern dating, to promote both the companies they represent, he has the perfect excuse to keep spending time with Rhi and slowly convince her that she's the only woman for him. 

This book has thousands of positive reviews on Goodreads, and I'd heard many good things about it on the various review sites I follow. Nevertheless, it never really connected with me emotionally, the way the best romances do. It was just ok, and now, about a month later, I'm struggling to remember plot details. I think this is a definite case of just the wrong book at the wrong time for me with this one. I've liked books by Alisha Rai before, and it's not like I have anything violently against it. I may even re-read it at some point, to see if I like it better a second time when my brain is in a more receptive place for the story it tells. 

There's a lot to like here - a strong, yet slightly prickly heroine, who has worked hard and faced a lot of adversity in a male-dominated and sexist industry. There's the close friendship between Rhi and her best friend, who was able to fund her business thanks to a healthy inheritance from her husband (the BFF is the heroine of the next book in the series). Samson is a very nice beta hero, who cares deeply about his family members and getting justice for other athletes facing the same problems that eventually killed his dad and uncle. All of these things make me pretty sure that I may just not have been in the mood for this book when I read it, but it fit into several of my reading challenges, so onto the list, it went. 

I may give it another chance in a year or so. Based on the sample chapter for the next book in the series, I'm very much looking forward to that one - a reclusive, plus-size ex-model and her handsome bodyguard. 

Judging a book by its cover: Another contemporary cartoon cover, this one almost Pepto-Bismol pink. At least the little cartoon heads of the protagonists look pretty cute. I don't think there can be any doubt that this is a romance novel, aimed firmly at a female demographic. 

Crossposted on Cannonball Read. 

#CBR10 Book 38: "Hurts to Love You" by Alisha Rai

Page count: 384 pages
Rating: 3 stars

This is the third book in a trilogy, and it's probably best to have read at least Hate to Want You first, to fully get the most out of the story. The central romance works on its own, but there are a lot of stuff in this book that works best if you've read at least the first book in the series.

Evangeline "Eve" Chandler has quietly suffered her father's verbal abuse for much of her life, and only recently started standing up for herself and choosing to do her own thing. She's quit her job working for the family's charitable foundation and has been secretly working as a driver for a ride share company, while doing research and planning to possibly start her own business. Struggling massively with self esteem issues, she's nervous about telling her beloved older brother about the idea, as he'd prefer it if she start working in the family company with him. Another secret she's been keeping, for much longer, is her years-long crush on Gabe Hunter, the tattoo artist who's her brother's best friend. She knows Gabe still sees her as a kid, but hopes that her brother's wedding may be a chance for her to show him that she's all grown up.

Gabriel "Gabe" Hunter grew up with the Kane family's children, since his adopted mother was their housekeeper. Then the Kanes and the Chandlers had a massive falling out (see my review of book one) and as Gabe was friends with Paul Kane, he didn't really feel he could have anything to do with the Chandlers anymore. Now Livvie Kane and Nick Chandler have buried the hatchet and are getting married. Both Gabe and Eve are in the wedding party, and end up spending quite a bit of time alone together in the week leading up to the ceremony. While Gabe has been trying not to notice, it's obvious to him that little Eve is a full-grown woman now, and she's not afraid to show her interest in him. It's not just the age difference between them or that she's a rich heiress and he's the housekeeper's son that could be problematic for a possible relationship. Gabe has secrets he's been keeping for most of his life, secrets that could impact both the Kane and the Chandler family and this wedding is certainly not the time he'd want those to come out.

OK, so first of all, it was super weird to be reading a romance with a hero called Gabriel when I now have an almost three month old baby with that same name. Thankfully, no one ever calls the hero anything but "Gabe", a nickname I will personally cut anyone who tries to attach to my child, so it could have been weirder. Secondly, while I really liked the first two books in this series (I know they didn't necessarily work for others amongst the CBR romance readers), this book failed to entirely work for me. I wasn't really convinced by the central romance, and towards the end, the big melodramatic family secrets that have been lurking in the background throughout the series were all revealed and overshadowed Eve and Gabe's story even further.

Nick and Eve's dad is quite clearly a class-A d*ck and I didn't care the slightest for the motivations behind his actions - there is no excuse for how he treated his children or Mrs Kane after the death of her husband and the way he kept the family feud going. He keeps trying to control his children, to the point where he comes to the rehearsal dinner and tries to get his son to break up with his fiancee - not cool.

This whole series has been a little bit too soap opera-y to my tastes, but it did put Alisha Rai on my radar, and since I'm not exactly great about reading diversely, that's not a bad thing. I will absolutely be looking into both her back catalogue, and for any new releases she has coming in the future.

Judging a book by its cover: Whomever is responsible for the cover art for this series has seriously been knocking it out of the park. On all three books, they've managed to find cover models who actually not only look more or less like the people described in the book, but they've dressed them in outfits that said people are likely to wear (or even described as wearing). While I didn't picture Eve's dress exactly like this, it's still a heck of a cover. Too bad about the man bun - can't stand those.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

#CBR9 Book 121: "Wrong to Need You" by Alisha Rai

Page count: 373 pages
Rating: 4.5 stars

Sadia Ahmed has been a widow for over a year. She works days in the little cafe originally founded by her late husband's family, and at night tends bar and enjoys regaling customers with the history behind the exotic cocktails she concocts. She is determined to provide the best possible life for her little boy, Kareem, and will not let anyone see just how much she's struggling to keep her head above water. Having disappointed her parents by dropping out of med school and eloping, she cannot admit to anyone that when Paul, her husband died, they were thinking about getting a divorce, that there are debts on the cafe that she's struggling with paying and that part of the reason she enjoys bar tending so much is because it gives her the opportunity to meet men and women she can hook up with, no strings attached, as she's so desperately lonely.

Jackson Kane has been travelling the world for the past ten years, after he was accused of a crime he didn't commit and felt abandoned by his family. Lured back to his home town after his sister pretty much emotionally blackmailed him, he's still reluctant to reconnect to his past, but he just can't stay away from Sadia, the woman he's always loved, long before she married his brother. When it becomes obvious that she's in desperate need of a cook in her café and generally someone to just help out, he fights the instinct to leave town again, even with a lot of the locals still viewing him with suspicion. Sadia offers him a place to stay above her garage, and he can't resist the temptation to be close to her. Deeply ashamed that he never answered any of her e-mails in his decade away, he now wants a chance to connect with his nephew. He doesn't dare hope that Sadia could ever return his feelings - she's his brother's widow, for heaven's sake!

I read my first Alisha Rai book in October, telling the story of Livvy Kane and Nicholas Chandler. That book also introduced Sadia and Jackson, as well as outlined the complex family dynamics between the Kanes and the Chandlers. For the first half of the book, Sadia, who was Livvy's best friend before she became her sister-in-law spends a lot of time telling people she doesn't have any idea where her friend has disappeared off to with her reunited lover. When Jackson suddenly reappears in her world, Sadia misses Livvy a lot, needing to talk to her to work through her feelings.

Sadia and Jackson were clearly also best friends for a very long time, with Sadia never realising that Jackson felt more for her than mere friendship. He never said a word when she got together with his brother during their senior year of high school and he never told her or his sister the truth about why he willingly let himself get arrested after the Kane/Chandler flagship grocery store burned down, shortly after Mr Kane died in a car crash with Mrs Chandler. Instead he left town, and despite Sadia sending him countless e-mails, never responded. Not when her child was born, not when she told him his brother died. Naturally, Sadia is deeply hurt by his actions, and Jackson is justifiably ashamed.

Sadia is used to picking up random strangers in the bar where she works part-time and satisfying her physical needs without any long-term consequences. She notices and lusts over Jackson for several days before she discovers who he really is, and is shocked by her reaction to him. Because she was married to his brother, and is still struggling both with survivors guilt because Paul died and because their marriage was coming apart when she lost him, she's very conflicted about her new feelings. Interestingly, once Sadia and Jackson actually act on their attraction for one another, none of their family members seem surprised or upset by the development.

While the complicated romance as well as long-nurtured family rivalry was front and centre in Hate to Want You, the strongest theme in this book is probably family bonds. One of five sisters, the daughter of successful immigrants who were both doctors, Sadia very much let her parents down when she eloped with her high school sweetheart and refused to take the path her family expected of her. Now both her elder sisters are successful doctors as well, married to other doctors, while her younger twin sisters are making their way through medical school. After the birth of her son, Sadia reconciled with her family, but it's clear that they never accepted Paul, her husband, or that he really wanted to interact with her side of the family. Now her sisters take turns babysitting her son while she works to keep the café afloat and providing Kareem with the best possible life, even as she's struggling. She doesn't tell anyone in her family about her loneliness, her financial troubles, the truth about her crumbling marriage before she was widowed - because she already feels like the black sheep of the family and why give them more ammunition to be disappointed in her?

Jackson also has a lot of complicated issues to work through with his mother. Clearly always introverted and uncomfortable in social settings, despite his size and build that might suggest otherwise, Jackson felt betrayed by both his mother and brother Paul after he was arrested for the shop fire, despite being completely innocent. He was promised that they would do everything to get him out quickly, yet spent weeks in prison. Having convinced himself that opening himself up to loving people will only lead to intense hurt, he's closed himself off from nearly everyone, never settling long in one place, barely even communicating with his twin, Livvie. Having been taught to cook by one of his grandfathers, he's trained himself into a top-level chef and now runs pop-up restaurants to great acclaim all over the world with his business partner, all the while keeping his own identity secret. Even back in his home town, it takes him a long time to go see his mother, because he's worried how both he and she will react to the reunion.

Both Jackson and Sadia need to work through their trust issues with one another, but much more importantly, with their families. Jackson is none too pleased that Livvie and Nicholas are back together, because he saw how deeply Nicholas hurt Livvy back in the day, and while Jackson barely allows himself to love anyone, it's clear he can't help but love his twin. While Jackson and Sadia's gradual change from long-time friends to lovers is a nice one, the bits that had me in tears were the scenes where Sadia finally breaks down and shows her vulnerability to her sisters, only to see just how much they love her and support her and don't at all see her as the family disappointment or failure.

The third book in this series is out in March next year (featuring Nicholas' younger sister and an old family friend) and I am already waiting for it with bated breath. Having read these two books, I can see why Alisha Rai is such a celebrated contemporary romance novelist. Both books in the Forbidden Hearts series are among the best in the genre I've read this year.

Judging a book by its cover: Very much in the same style as Hate to Want You, this cover features cover models that look pretty much like the descriptions of the protagonists. You are left in no doubt that this book will feature a diverse, non-Caucasian couple and while I don't think this cover is as sexy as that on the previous book, it's still a pretty great one.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

#CBR9 Book 91: "Hate to Want You" by Alisha Rai

Page count: 384 pages
Rating: 4 stars

Olivia "Livvy" Kane and Nicholas Chandler were teenage sweethearts, growing up as neighbours, heirs to the successful grocery chain their grandfather's worked together to found. Then a tragic car crash changed everything. Nicholas' mother and Olivia's father both died, and shortly after the funerals, Nicholas' father bought Olivia's mother's shares for far less than they were worth. Olivia's twin brother was arrested for suspected arson of the flagship store, and the Kane and Chandler families, who had been so very close  for three generations became bitter enemies. Nicholas broke Livvy's heart by breaking up with her, just as she was dealing with the utter chaos her life had turned into.

Not that Livvy has been able to forget Nicholas entirely. One night a year, on her birthday, they meet for one night of pure passion, never speaking of the gulf between them the rest of the time. Nicholas can't make himself tell Livvy that he clears his entire schedule and waits impatiently for her text message summoning him to each new encounter. Then, when Olivia turns thirty, there was no message. He waited in vain.

Now Olivia is back in town. Her mother is injured and Livvie is determined to do right by her, even if it means living entirely too close for comfort to Nicholas. He can't stay away from her, even as he knows his father will never accept them resuming their relationship. Can Nicholas atone for the hurt he caused Livvie in the past. Can the two work through their differences and rebel against their warring families' wishes to reconcile or are they both doomed to heart-break once more?

This contemporary romance take on Romeo and Juliet (with a decidedly better final outcome) has been very favourably reviewed on a number of romance sites I frequent online. It was a book club selection book at Smart Bitches, Trashy Books in August and is October's book club selection over on Heroes and Heartbreakers. Having never read anything by Alisha Rai before, I figured this might be a good starting point, and I was not disappointed.

Fair warning - while this book is very steamy (if the protagonists aren't having sex, or there are flashbacks to their previous encounters, they are probably thinking about having sex with the other person), there is also a serious amount of angst. This is a proper enemies to lovers story, where the couple were once so very in love, until their families' complicated intrigues caused them to be forced apart, leading to years of resentment and heartache. Apart from that one night of no-strings passion a year, there has been no contact between them until Olivia returns to her home town for the first time since shortly after her life imploded. For a number of reasons, it's not easy for her to be home, but she hides her pain behind a decidedly tough girl exterior. A talented tattoo artist, Livvie has been travelling the US and perfecting her skill in the past decade. She may seem like she's surrounded by an unbreakable shell, but if anyone can crack through her defences, it's Nicholas.

Nicholas is the chosen heir of a hugely successful business empire, feeling torn constantly between the loyalties to his grandfather and expectations of his domineering father. As both are the majority shareholders, who frequently disagree, Nicholas is caught in the middle, trying his best to keep the peace in the family. He's deeply protective of his younger sister and they both suffer through deeply uncomfortable family dinners weekly, hoping to avoid the worst of their father's angry outbursts. Nicholas doesn't know why his father approached Kane's widow and persuaded her to buy their half of the company for a pittance of what it was worth, neither does his grandfather. Nor do they entirely understand why Livvie's mother would give up her children's legacy without a fight. They are both trying to run the company in a way that honours both founders, even when this goes against the wishes of Nicholas' father.

As well as having a couple of protagonists with their fair share of complicated baggage and a family feud out of the most delicious soap opera, this book portrays depression very well. One of the secrets that Olivia was keeping from Nicholas, even before their youthful love was destroyed by the new rivalry was her occasional bouts of deep depression. After Nicholas broke up with her, she even considered suicide and the only one who knows the truth about this is her twin brother. It's clear that Olivia's mother is also a sufferer, and Livvie is convinced that her clearly incurable affliction is one of the things that makes it impossible for her to ever be with Nicholas, even if they do ever get over their families' objections towards the possible match.

I have mentioned Nicholas' sister and Olivia's twin, as well as their remaining parents. The family ties, although sometimes rather dysfunctional, are strong in this book. Olivia's older brother is dead, but his widow is Livie's best friend and she tries her best to be a presence in both her and her little nephew's life. She rarely has contact with her wayward twin, and her relationship with her mother appears to always have been strained, but Livvie is determined to forge a connection and make things work, now that she's back to help her mother recover from her injury.

Another thing that Ms. Rai does absolutely effortlessly is present a multi-cultural and interesting cast of characters. Olivia and her brother's are half Japanese, half Hawaiian. Her widowed sister-in-law is a Muslim. There are mentions of the grandfather being in internment camps during World War II. I am fully aware that I need to challenge myself to read more diversely and while romance, like most of the other literature I favour, has leaps and bounds to go, authors like Ms. Rai are taking the genre in the right direction.

This is the first book in a trilogy. The second book (out at the end of November - not long now!) seems to be about Jackson, Olivia's twin brother and their older brother's widow, which promises to be another rather dramatic pairing, while the third and final book is about Nicholas' little sister. Both of the books are on my TBR list and I am very much looking forward to both.

Judging a book by its cover: This is a very sexy book and it seems only suitable that it has a cover that really conveys the steaming hot passion between the protagonists. It's unusual to see a romance cover where the cover models seem to accurately reflects the description of the characters in the book, but Avon have done a marvellous job here, especially with the female cover model and her intricate tattoos (that I have to imagine are skillfully photo-shopped onto the lady's arm). Well done, cover department.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.