Sonali Dev is a really gifted writer. Everything she writes is sensual, and heartfelt, and you can trust you're in good hands.

That said, from the blurb, this book claimed it was going to be "fun," and that, for me, was very misleading! Sure, is there fun in a reality cooking show that pairs a chef with a retired soccer player? Yes. But there is so, so much trauma in this book that far overshadowed the fun. Alchoholism, rape, suicide. It's brutal. It tested my limit of what kind of healing I think can happen in a romance novel without, like, professional intervention.

I confess I haven't yet read Persuasion, so I can't comment on it as a retelling. I would recommend this for people who can really handle reading a lot of trauma and who want a romance that's really more of a family saga.

Why is Recipe for Persuasion so great? Let me count the ways...

Love from childhood comes back
Cooking reality show
Complicated mother-daughter relationship
Multiple complex back stories
SEXUAL TENSION
Romance

Characters back from Pride, Prejudice, and Other Flavors

Do I need to say more??

Ashna may have looked like she had everything together in Pride, Prejudice, and Other Flavors, but that's anything but the case. She's still very much dealing with her father's death, cannot cook anything but her father's recipes and because of that, the restaurant she inherited is failing, and she has a VERY strained relationship with her motherwho left Ashna when she was young. Ashna...has a lot going on.

But when Ashna's friend suggests she be on her new cooking reality show, at first, Asha is like HELL NO, but with the recognition she'd get from the show and in turn, for the restaurant, she realizes she can't pass it up.

Little does Ashna know that her teenage love and former famous soccer star, Rico Silva, sees the news that she's going to be on the show and makes it his mission to be the celebrity teamed up with her. Why? He wants closure. He still thinks about her and he's had enough.

Does being on a cooking show with your lost love bring you closure?

HELLLLL NOOOOO!

I loved both Ashna and Rico's storylines. Ashna's is complicated af. She has so much trauma to work through. Like even I was like...daaaaamn. And she goes through a lot of denial, but with a bit of a push and a whole lot of strength, she begins to face her demons and connect with people she never expected.

Rico is dealing with an injury that has ended his soccer career and is trying to find a way to get closure from the one relationship that meant anything to him. He doesn't expect his world to turn upside down and his feelings for Ashna to be much more complex than he would've liked. 

I also really enjoyed seeing Ashna and Rico in the past when they first met, how their relationship evolved, and how it blew up. All the backstories (we also get to see Ashna's mother's backstory) are expertly done. They bring insight where normally we wouldn't have any and make the book un-put-down-able.

Ashna and Rico's relationship in the present also couldn't be better. They bicker and fight and yet, you can see the spark that first brought them together.  The scenes when their filming the cooking competition are some of my absolute favorites. They work together perfectly even when they can't stand each other.

AND THE FOOD! OMG all the food sounds amazing! Don't read while hungry!

I also really liked Ashna's mother's story. She is a complicated woman who is not everything Ashna likes to paint her as. She has dealt with quite a bit of trauma of her own, but she did her best to make the most of it and make the right choices.

TRIGGER WARNINGS: Suicide (not on page, but significant part of backstory), sexual assault/marital rape (not shown, but made obvious it occurs)

Recipe for Persuasion (and I can't believe I'm saying this) might be better than the original Austen story. Sonali Dev took a classic and could not have updated it better. It's fun, romantic, tragic, sad, and deeply compelling . I'm giving it 5 out of 5 stars. If you love a Jane Austen retelling or are looking for a brilliant romance, you need to read this book!

Recipe for Persuasion by Sonali Dev comes out May 26, 2020

Thank you to NetGalley and William Morrow Paperbacks for the free eARC in exchange for my honest review.

This book went deeper into very serious issues than I expected. I love the premise of trying to reclaim your first love--or more accurate the love of your life through the means that Rico does. Rico and Ash have such a complicated history that most of it is based on the issues of others that affected them. The issues are heavy ones and it's interesting to see them unfold. Ash is character plagued with a lot of pain that spans from years in the making and she's a heroine worthy and truly deserving of love, Rico and Ash's love is a big part of the book, but I think the biggest part of book is the love story between a mother and her daughter, and that is a big and nice surprise from this book.

I really enjoyed Pride and Prejudice and Other Flavors so when this came on my radar, I knew it was a must read. I am so glad I did! Ashna and Rico's story was so sweet. I really love how Sonali Dev pulls those threads from Austen's classics but absolutely makes the story her own. I enjoyed getting another look into this fantastic family. I really loved that instead of just being a romance, it was a family story as well. It made the story so much richer and added a lot more depth to how we got to know all of the characters, but especially Ashna. Thank you so much, Avon and Sonali Dev for this fun and warm read. It was a great way to feel family connections when we can't actually make in person connections of our own!

CW: talk of past alcoholism, suicide and rape; ptsd and panic attacks

I have a thing for desi Jane Austen retellings, so as soon as I saw the announcement for this book, I knew I was going to read it. Second chance romance on the other hand is not my favorite trope, but because I knew how Persuasion turns, I thought I would love this one too. It didn’t end up working that way though.

The bare bones of the story is quite close to the original, but I was actually excited for the reality cooking show plotline which turned out to be just ok. The author’s writing is pretty descriptive in places which also didn’t really work for me. I liked the characters of Ashna and Rico individually and there was chemistry between them when they meet again, but we only are ever told and I never got to see why they were so deeply in love with each other even after more than a decade. Ashna’s mother Shobi is the other POV we get and my feelings for her kept oscillating between like and hate. I really wanted to like and root for the characters, but their pasts are so full of tragedy that it just depressed me. To be honest, I only kept waiting for them to get their act together and finally be happy because I couldn’t bear how much they were wallowing in their misery.

On the whole, maybe I read this book at the wrong time or I just had wrong expectations, because despite being objectively well written, I didn’t enjoy it much. If you are in the mood for a contemporary romcom which will make you swoon or smile, this is definitely not it. It’s more tragic and sad for the most part, and I just wasn’t ready for it. But maybe it’ll work for for you if you go in with the right expectations.

A huge thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for providing me with an ARC of this title in exchange for an honest review.

The story of Rico and Ash was a slice of perfection in an imperfect, chaotic world.

Persuasion by Jane Austen is my favorite book of all time. And I am an obsessive bibliophile who devours books like others inhale chocolate or cupcakes. So I had high hopes and high expectations. I was not disappointed.

One of the reasons I love Persuasion so much is its unflinching portrayal of familial obligation and manipulation. The force of those same undercurrents is masterfully portrayed in this new adaptation. The weight of these unspoken expectations is what separated Rico and Ash as teenagers, and the trajectory of their adult lives has been shaped by them.

Ash has done everything in her power to ensure her father's legacy is a golden one. The restaurant that has consumed all of her sweat and tears for over a decade is drowning, and Ash is grasping at straws in the hope of finding a miracle. When her two best friends concoct a plan and offer her a spot on a reality tv cooking show, she immediately dismisses the idea as ludicrous.

It's been over a decade since he saw her. He's resisted the urge to google her, and be confronted with all of the shiny, happy pictures of choices she made that did not include him. What Rico finds when he finally does google her is an announcement that Ash will be one of the contestants on a reality tv cooking show that pairs chefs with celebrities. And he calls his agent.

They have a decade of regret between them. They have animosity and tension sharp enough to sever limbs. But they also still have an aching awareness the exact space in a room occupied by each other. And like his namesake, Rico is half agony and half hope.

For them to have a second chance, Ash will have to confront the demons that are crippling her. For them to stand a chance this time, all of her secrets and misperceptions must be laid bare.

This was a glorious interpretation of my favorite novel, and unforgettable in true Austenesque form.

Trigger warnings: mental and emotional abuse, suicide, marital rape.

As a fan of Persuasion and of Sonali’s books, I was so excited to get my hands on this book. I struggled to get into it as I didn’t really see much that connected this story to Persuasion except for the distance between the two MCs. Even so, as I dove in, it got better. There was a lot of other details that were difficult to read but I enjoyed the overall story. I wish the two MCs had connected and talked a bit more before jumping into bed together though.

I was provided with an ARC of this book by NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Fans of Pride, Prejudice & Other Flavors will love Sonali Dev’s modern retelling of Jane Austen’s Persuasion. I love getting to know the Raje family so I was very excited to learn more about Chef Ashna! In a desperate attempt to save her restaurant Chef Raje finds herself on a television cooking competition with her lost high school love, professional soccer star Rico Silva. The story also follows Ashna’s relationships with her parents & her struggles with her anxiety. I love this cast of character, I love learning about their culture & I highly recommend this book as well as Pride, Prejudice & Other Flavors!

When I learned that Sonali Dev was writing another Jane Austen-inspired novel, I was thrilled. Pride, Prejudice, and Other Flavors was one of my favorite reads last year, so I had high hopes for her new book, which follows Ashna, the chef cousin of Trisha from the first novel. I can only say that my expectations were more than reached. Recipe for Persuasion is not just a light retelling of Persuasion- in fact, you don't have to have read Persuasion to enjoy it. It is also not a fluffy rom com. Instead, it is a story of second chances, for mothers and daughters as well as former loves. It addresses parental expectations, breaking the chains of the past, and so much more. Plus, using the backdrop of a reality cooking show was just genius- made everything tie together. I can't wait to see what comes next in this series!

Ashna is the head chef of her dead father's failing restaurant, but she can't give it up, and she can't seem to deviate from his recipes. A friend eventually convinces her to join her Food Network show, "Cooking with the Stars," which could help turn around her failing business. Rico is Ashna's ex-boyfriend from high school, now a retired famous soccer player. He decides to join the Food Network show to try and gain closure with Ashna, as their breakup has stuck with him all these years.
At first, I would get bored reading the Shobi story line, as I really wanted to get back to the Ashna/Rico story. But when Shobi shows up and wants to reconcile with Ashna, I started seeing all the pieces fit together. The 3 perspectives and stories ended up allowing for all characters to be well-rounded. I still would have liked to see more #AshCo romance, but overall a great read!

A fun read. The beginning was a little slow and repetitive. The ending seemed to come together quite quickly. The flashback scenes were a little disorientating at first, but I eventually got used to it.

Because this is Sonali Dev, you can safely assume the writing was excellent and the descriptions were lyrical and beautiful. Inspired by Austen's Persuasion, you have a decent idea of the plot already. Sort of.
Here is my one area where it lost a couple stars:
The heroine. Lord, she's damaged. Broken. And what I don't understand is that in her circumstances (child of an abusive alcoholic with abandonment issues), the concept of getting some freaking help on a therapist couch isn't mentioned. She's endured massive trauma, and it all just goes away because she learns the whole story. Not buying it.
She idolizes her father who's obviously a piece of crap, for most of the book. I nearly stopped reading it because her perception was so disconnected to the reality of who he was. She's surrounded by a loving, supportive family, who could and would have helped her at any time. But she stubbornly clings to her brokenness.
While Dev deftly weaves the heroine's emotional state into an impresst arc, and everything works out in the end, I would have loved to see the character get legitimate help.

This book is a unique and fun retelling of Jane Austen’s ‘Persuasion’ and Sonali Dev did an amazing job! The characters are layered and beautifully developed. Indian tradition shines bright in this book, especially in terms of food and family. Indian cuisine is my favorite and I am left craving the comforting flavors of gulam jamun and dal makhani. Aside from the food, this book explores the complicated relationships between parents and children and how choices made long before our children are born end up affecting them later in life. The love story is sweet, the characters are complex and interesting and the subject matter is both fun and relevant.

Partially through the book despite it's misgivings I felt like this would be a 3 star. By the halfway mark when it was becoming a chore to get through I realized it would be a 2.

This is not a rom com like the blurb suggested and I was never able to get into the romance. The characters just didn't have much chemistry and overall were not very likable.

Rico was especially unlikable. I don't know why he was still holding on to this high school relationship at age 30 but it was made even worse by how much of an ass he acted towards Ashna. He forced his way back into her life via this competition as some sort of score to settle with her. His constant iciness towards her never felt warranted even after we received bits of their past relationship via flashback.

Ashna and her mother both need to work out their past trauma in therapy. It was quite jarring going from the lightness of the Food Network set to he alcoholism and abuse that plagued their pasts.

I received an arc via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

More in depth review on my blog
https://womenofcolorreadtoo.blogspot.com/2020/04/recipe-for-persuasion-by-sonali-dev.html

This book was gorgeous. I think I highlighted half the book. The writing is rich and the characters are real, the situations realistic, and the heart of it all: gah. Just gorgeous. I ended it with a happy heart, though the journey was sometimes painful-much like real life. I cannot wait to share this one with my reading buddies so they can fish over it, too.

I wouldn't really call this a heartwarming romantic comedy... more like a tragedy. Nothing made me laugh and it did trigger me a little (suicide is mentioned in this book). This book mostly made me feel sad for all the characters that POV's in it.
But I did enjoy the second chance romance aspect of it and how this book did talk about hard hitting subjects: martial rape and patriarchal ideals for women.

Thank you to NetGalley and Harpers Collins Publishers for the Advanced Readers Copy and for the opportunity to give an honest review on the book below.

 

I was really looking for a light rom com to take my mind off the craziness going on right now. I thought that Recipe for Persuasion by Sonali Dev was going to be the perfect book for me. A book based off of Jane Austen’s Persuasion…cooking competitions…soul mates meeting up after a really bad high school break up, this sounds like this book is the perfect recipe for me. Unfortunately, this book was just not for me. This book tells the story of Ashan Raje and how she gets roped into a Food Network cooking competition with Rico Silva, her ex from high school, the boy who was THE boy for her.  Ashan will do whatever it takes to save her father’s restaurant; even it means dealing with the boy who broke her heart. 

 I felt like we left the main story way too much for me to get invested in the characters. You know how in some stories the plot goes from A to B, in a straight line? Or even kind of like a mountain range were you have ups and downs in the plot but it is still going to get there in the end? This book was more like squiggly lines up and down the page. There was a lot of reflection and inter monologues while really diving into the feelings, and while some may really love that type of book, it just left me feeling bored. I wish the description about the book was rewritten better so that you know that you aren’t just getting Ashna and Rico’s story but Ashna’s mother as well. While both of those stories separately were good, I think having the parallel stories just made the book feel long.  I really enjoyed when the story stayed out of the characters heads and more in the story.  Again this could be just a personal choice and it was just not my cup of tea. So if you are an Austen fan and you love contemplative books then this definitely would be a book for you to pick up.

Not going to lie, I was really in the mood for a light romcom when I picked up this book but got far more than I expected. Recipe For Persuasion by Sonali Dev continues the Raje storyline in another modern adaptation of a Jane Austen classic: Persuasion. I have to admit that I have never read Jane Austen’s Persuasion so I cannot speak to whether or not it was an accurate or well-done retelling of it, but as a stand alone contemporary romance, I thought it was brilliant. (And I’m usually not a fan of high school romances and love lust that spans decades.)⁣⁣
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I appreciate the diversity of characters in the cast: an Indian chef and a Brazilian soccer player are the main characters, however the supporting cast also comes from a variety of backgrounds and nationalities. I only felt conflicted at times that there was two main competing storylines (between Ashna and her mom and Ashna and Rico) which meant neither could go as deep as I would’ve liked. But I do appreciate the exploration of deeper relationships and experiences and how it fit together. ⁣⁣
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I wasn’t hooked right off the bat by Rico and Ashna (like I said, I teach high school and the relationships in books that originate there I’m always a little skeptical of) but once their connection deepened I was hooked. ⁣⁣
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Even if you haven’t read any Jane Austen, I highly recommend checking out Sonali Dev’s adaptations! ⁣⁣

Thank you to Harper Collins Publishers and NetGalley for the Advanced Reader's Copy.

In her stirring and alluring second book on The Rajes, Sonali Dev paints a portrait of a chef in self destructive distress, a heartbroken soccer player and a spicy mix of family secrets. While it might not be the most accurate retelling of Persuasion, Dev manages to translate Austen's drama of manners across culture and time. Recipe for Persuasion is indeed a persuasive, hilarious and delicious brew of romance, perfect for those staying in. Highly recommended for the romantic readers!

I went into this book looking for a light hearted romance and this book is certainly not that. It is a much heavier story about the deep, traumatic family issues that Ashna faces while trying to save her failing restaurant. The romance is secondary and feels more like a poorly developed after thought. I liked this book for what it was. I do think it tried to do too much from within the framework of Persuasion. None of the storylines really got the attention they warranted.

I received a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.