I enjoyed Kamila Knows Best a lot but I am not sure that I'd label it a romance. The "romance" - if you can call it that - between the main character and her love interest barely takes place at all throughout the book. To call it a slow burn would be the greatest understatement as there was just a hint of a potential relationship between these two. Of course, you know from the beginning just who it is that the romance is about, but it doesn't happen until the VERY END. Which was frustrating. Other than that, I loved Kamila and her story. I loved the cast of characters, her awesome friends and loving family, and I loved that she was a passionate person who had so much going for her outside of the love interest in the book. The novel passes the Bechdel test with flying colors. I loved so much about the book and I honestly just wish it wasn't billed as a romance because I would have liked it so much more if I was not looking for a romance novel. It was just a case of my expectations being off. I love Heron's writing and will continue reading her books for sure.

Kamila Knows Best was a delightful read and Emma-inspired novel! Kamila loves her family and friends, especially her Dad. She’s a successful accountant, throws amazing parties (I want an invite!), is a skilled matchmaker, and volunteers for the local pet shelter. However, because of her love of fashion and parties, she worries that not everyone takes her seriously - and the little teases especially hurt if coming from family friend, Rohan.
When her high school nemesis is back to town, old insecurities rise up inside of Kamila.
Kamila and Rohan’s friends to more journey was delightful! There was some amazing banter between them, too.
Overall, a wonderfully fun and fresh romance which made me smile and laugh. I loved all of the food and wardrobe descriptions, too.
Thank you to NetGalley and Forever (Grand Central Publishing) for the advanced readers copy of this novel.

Once I figured out this was an Emma retelling, so many more things made sense. Until then I had just been occupied with thoughts like, "am I imagining things?" Kamila Knows Best follows the story of Kamila, who, like the title, thinks she knows best about those in her life. The love lives of her friends, the preconceptions she has about her family, and more. If you're a big Emma fan, then you aren't surprised. But whereas I'm not a huge Emma fan, I ended up falling for Kamila.

While she's preoccupied with what she thinks is happening - aren't we all?? - Kamila has her heart in the right place. She deeply loves her father and this father/daughter relationship was one of my favorite elements! Some of their interactions were so tender than my eyes turned into little hearts. Another of my favorite elements was the relationship between Kamila and Rohan. Friends to lovers is a big favorite trope of mine and add in the fact that they've known each other FOREVER. I loved watching both of them struggle with their conceptions of each other versus their new feelings.

I read Accidentally Engaged late last year & was completely taken by Farah Haron’s writing style, so needless to say, I was excited to jump into her newest release. The writing in Kamila Knows Best had everything I loved from Accidentally Engaged…and then some! It was so smooth and addictive, beautifully incorporating her Indian culture into each and every page. Her words surround and completely immerse you in the familial comforts of Indian culture. I wanted to be a part of Kamila and Rohan’s world.

There are so many things to love about this modern retelling of Emma. Kamila was a bold, loving, and empathetic female lead. You get to watch her come into her own and realize her value and self-worth while also watching her fall in love with her best friend. Rohan was the perfect book boyfriend—sweet, challenging, attentive, and imperfect while striving to be everything Kamila deserved. While this story is all about the journey to each other, it also beautifully weaves in her career path and realization that she is capable of more than she ever gave herself credit for.

You will find this one hard to put down. It reads quickly & sucks you right in from the very first chapter.

Thank you to NetGalley and Forever for the ARC in exchange for an honest review

CW: emotionally abusive parent (past), caretaker for chronically ill/depressed parent, death of a parent (past)

I would recommend if you're looking for (SPOILERS)

-m/f friends to lovers
-cute dogs
-pining
-love of Bollywood and food
-Emma retelling

I think I would have enjoyed this one more if I knew going in it was a fiction read with a romance subplot rather than expecting and waiting for a full fledged romance. This is entirely Kamila's story as she grapples with self-doubt, insecurities, how the world sees her and how she sees herself. She was entirely reliable in her self-doubts and caring what other people think of her despite the confident way she acted.

Dealing with caring for her father, and taking care of everyone around her Kamila slowly begins to realize and ask for what she wants out of the world. Rohan was a sweet friend, caring for Kamila and her father. Subtle in his affection I enjoyed as he and Kamila both bumbled around not realizing they felt the same way.

Have snacks prepared when reading this one as Farah goes hard with all of the food descriptions.

Steam: 2 (closed-door)

Kamila Knows Best is a gently funny, charming romcom that upends Jane Austen’s Emma and has a lot of fun with its energetic heroine and engaging premise.

Kamila Hussain is a Toronto accountant with a warm, closely-knit friend circle and an Instagram-famous dog, Darcy.  She’s popular, happy and successful, she adores her father and tries to spend as much time as she can volunteering at the local animal shelter.  But there’s something missing from her life – true love, the sort of which plays out all the time during the Bollywood movies she loves.  But making others – chiefly her father - happy takes precedence, so she often takes on more than she can handle.

Rohan Nassar is a friend of the family whom Kamila is fondly annoyed by, yet who is always there for her during her lowest (and even most embarrassing) moments. He’s handsome, he’s well-off, he cares about her and knows how to talk her down when she’s ready to faint from the sight of blood.  He even has a dog named Lizzie!

But everything changes when Kamila agrees to assist her shelter’s local puppy prom, which will require her to put in hours of extra work on top of her challenging job, at the same time as her father’s health takes a turn for the worse.  Then Jana, her childhood nemesis, arrives in town and begins to throw a bucket of cold water on all of Kamila’s varied parties and plans – and also takes an interest in Rohan.  Can Kamila and Rohan figure their feelings for one another out, and will Kamila pull off the puppy prom?  Or will Jana intervene and become Rohan’s girlfriend?

Kamila Knows Best manages to deconstruct what it’s like to be seen as perfect while juggling many varied burdens.  Kamila is struggling with caring for her elderly father, work stress, and anxiety caused by her late, emotionally abusive mother’s behavior. She’s strong and in control, but she has to learn how to delegate things, whether it to be to a prospective lover or a close friend, and this is a well-delivered and valuable lesson.

Kamila and her father have learned different things from dealing with Kamila’s mother, and their interactions together speak of all they’ve been through.  I really liked their relationship and how they both grow within it – and have to learn to grow outside of it.

Meanwhile, Rohan and Kamila are adorable together, and their romance is quite the slow burn (they don’t even kiss until we’re halfway through the book).  They’re quite good for one another, and have a sweet chemistry.  The dogs are predictably cute, and Kamila’s friends circle is a fun and relatable bunch.

Kamila Knows Best is well aware that life isn’t a musical number or a fairytale – but it knows that a fairytale romance can lie just around the corner.

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I enjoyed this book so much I finished it on one day! I loved gettimg to know all about Kamila & her family. I related a lot to her relationship with her mom, the author represented that kind of relationship very well. I loved Rohan & the slow burn of them falling for each other. I also loved that she had a frenemie! It was a great read.

I received an ARC from the publisher and am voluntarily posting a review. All opinions are my own.
Kamila Knows Best is an Emma retelling which really reinforces why I’ve come to appreciate Emma Woodhouse as an Austen heroine, and “unlikable” heroines as a whole.
And like the source material itself, this book really explores Kamila as a character. She starts off the book with this seemingly confident façade in who she is and the state of her life, but also with room for vulnerability and self-reflection. She has insecurities about her professional future, which I very much empathized with.
Rohan, the obvious Knightley equivalent, is a swoon worthy hero and makes for a great partner for Kamila. They’ve been friends for years, but have always had something more simmering beneath the surface, so the building tension was so well done. And the way he also supports her as she navigates her insecurities with her career is wonderful, and I loved how he worked with her to find a solution and championed her capabilities.
I will say the book is a little heavy-handed on the professional stuff, and while I get why, since it’s a big part of Kamila’s identity, it did make the first half a bit harder to become invested in. However, there’s enough focus on her character and the romance that I was able to maintain my overall investment, and it does become more interesting as the book goes on. And as a dog lover, the puppy prom event is absolutely one of the cutest things I’ve read about in a book.
This book is an absolute joy to read, and while I know Austen fans will love it, you don’t have to have read Emma to enjoy it. It’s a great book for anyone looking for a contemporary romance with a confident, yet vulnerable heroine.

This was a great read! I really enjoyed this re-imagining. Both main characters were so likable. Together they were perfect.

A modern-day, Indian-Canadian re-telling of Jane Austen’s classic tale, Emma. This is the second Farah Heron book I’ve read, and I’m not sure but I think I might have loved it more than “Accidentally Engaged” … which I really and truly loved! I have copies of Tahiti in Bloom and Chai also, which I keep meaning to read but have been slow (they will be moved to the top of my TBR, now I’m reminded how incredibly talented this fellow Canadian is!).

Farah Heron has a great way of writing characters and stories where the reader is so drawn into the world that we just want to be a part of it, and friends with everyone. I wish I was there and would even cross the country to the “centre of the universe” (you know, Toronto!), to be there in this world, in the story, with these characters. I felt immersed the entire way through, in the single sitting reading this book that I couldn’t put down, and am sad that it is over!

I loved the idea of Kamila having so many dear friends and hosting puppy proms, weekly Bollywood movie nights, volunteering at the dog shelter, working in an accounting firm trying to focus on women-owned businesses, setting up friends as a matchmaker, and planning a party for a fundraiser for refugees… many Emma-esque ideas here (and I could see a lot of themes from the movie Clueless as well, which I also loved), and eventually seeing a different side to her friendship with her close family friend Rohan.

A lot of people around don’t take her seriously, because of her parties, focus on fashion, and always posting on social media - especially dressing up her dog and taking photos of her… but there’s a whole lot more to Kamila than the silly little girl she is seen as. She has a lot to offer, and people are only just realizing it - especially Rohan.

Cutest bit is her dog is a little girl named Darcy, and her best friend’s is a little boy named Lizzy!

A very, very good spin on Emma with all the modern and Indian family elements to make it unique and true to Farah Heron, and I definitely recommend this book to anyone who enjoys Jane Austen remakes, Clueless, Farah Heron’s other books, Indian-Canadian (or American) romances, or just plain good romance novels!

I received an ARC copy from NetGalley, Forever and Grand Central Publishing. This is my honest review.

#KamilaKnowsBest #NetGalley

Sometimes you need a really good, uplifting book and this story did just the trick. I loved the humor and the Bollywood elements. I love well-done retellings, and this is one of them!

Thanks so much for the review copy!

Farah Heron writes the cutest love stories that ever were!

Hot Takes
- Kamila is the most adorable hot mess of an accountant that there ever was lol. She was smart, sassy, sweet and all over the place and I'm finding that I love characters like this!
- Rohan is the sweetest cinnamon roll that there ever was. Is he a SBD? Potentially! He's always there, helping and being all put together and shit and he's also pretty damn fine.
- Farah Heron writes food like it's her job...which it is in this instance but damn this book made me as hungry as Accidentally Engaged did!
- Much like Accidentally Engaged, this is closed door but still felt soooooo adult, which I love! I absolutely do not mind closed door (I would prefer to know ahead of time) but I want the characters to feel adult and sassy, not cute, and this did it perfectly!
- Family and friend dynamics and meddling were *chef's kiss*!

Read If You Like
- Love & Other Disasters for some delicious food and character cuteness
- Crazy fun family dynamics that stress you out but it all works out in the end.
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After reading and loving Accidentally Engaged a few months back, I jumped at the chance to get an e-ARC of Farah Heron's latest release, Kamila Knows Best! I didn't even read the synopsis! I just saw the beautiful cover, recognized the author and submitted my NetGalley request! And since I was lucky enough to be granted a copy, I'm now here to tell you all my thoughts on this wonderful book!

At this point I've read the synopsis, as well as the entire book, so I feel qualified to tell you what this book is about. Kamila Knows Best is an Emma retelling, where we follow our main character Kamilah as she struggles with the perception everyone has of her versus the person she sees herself as. There are great parties, lots of dogs (and puppies), and a cute friend to lovers plotline as well, but at its core this is a story about Kamila.

Kamila is a vivacious, driven woman who throws fantastic parties, loves fashion and her dog, and unfortunately is constantly reduced to those interests. Because on the other hand Kamila is a loyal friend, who'll do anything to make sure her father's mental health is doing well, and is a talented and driven accountant. What I loved about this book is that it does a fantastic job of showing that you can be interested in areas that have for many years been considered separate. After all, if you're interested in fashion, there's no way you can enjoy math! And if you're good at throwing parties, you must not have an intelligent thought in your head! The way these stereotypes are used to harm people, especially women, is highlighted throughout the novel, and I very much appreciated that. I think it's important to show that it's not that these are two different sides of Kamila, but that she ties in the qualities that people dismiss in her work on the daily, and she has a mind for business and marketing that she's always using when setting up a party. The two sides of her are constantly working together!

However, lest you think that this is a heavy book with Kamila constantly feeling downtrodden and underestimated, let me stop you right there. This book manages to handle difficult and important topics while continuously keeping the tone light. Kamila has even suffered emotional abuse at the hands of her mother that's referenced throughout the book, and although it's made clear that this treatment was obviously formative and damaging, it's always viewed through the lens Kamila has now, having done the work to overcome the terrible things she was told. I very much appreciated that because I was in the mood of a lighthearted story, so while I was very happy that there was depth to the story, I enjoyed that the tone of the book remained light throughout.

I actually don't want to say much more about this book. I think this is one of those stories that is very character based, and so saying too much about what I thought about the characters could lead to minor spoilers. I'll just say that I think the best character in this book is Potato and I will not be taking criticism at this time. (Potato is an adorable puppy, for clarification). With a whole lot of friendship and family, lots of adorable dogs, and a sprinkling of romance, this is the perfect book to read when you're in need of something to brighten your mood.

I gave this book 4 stars in the end as I thoroughly enjoyed my time reading it! Besides for wanting a little more romance, I don't think there's anything I would change about this book. It was fun, it was cute, and it made me smile! This book has cemented Farah Heron as an author that I'll keep reading, so I cannot wait to see what she comes out with next!

Kamila Knows Best is such a pleasure to read! A contemporary Emma retelling, it follows vibrant, party-throwing, social, hard working Kamila, who is doing all she can to prove to her father she can take on the family business while also doing all she can to take care of him. There is so much richness in these characters! I love the focus Farah Heron gives to culture too and how that has shaped Kamila and her choices. This isn’t a book where you have to have read Emma to enjoy it, but I loved the parallels! I loved the dichotomy of Kamila. One one side, she’s a party planning, Instagram-focused, meddling, basic girl, but on the other, she’s ambitious, pushing to grow and doing everything to make her father and her friends comfortable. And she so much just wants to be seen. Her story is beautiful, her growth is inspiring, and as much as she knew herself, I loved watching her find her way. And I love the friends to lover romance. Rohan is so sweet and supportive. I loved the banter and friendship, and I loved the slow burn of romance! It had all the elements of a fun rom com! There were some miscommunication things that felt a little frustrating, but the moments didn’t last long and I just really enjoyed this book. I loved the supporting characters too, they added such a richness to the story and with the puppy prom and the drama stirring in the background, it was just a fun read! If you liked Clueless, you’ll love this!

I laughed so hard this book was too cute, nd funny, and heartwarming, there were puppies everywhere!!! Kamila, for me, felt like a little airhead, but she's not, she's just this witty, fun and compassionate person, I couldn't stop laughing at her antics, even though some were very childish. She cares for her friends and for her dad, she's always hovering over him and making sure he's ok, and then she has Rohan, her best friend, and her older sisters brother in law. Anyway, so much going on, which is what Kamila is all about, always doing the most, she was fun to read. I felt the book read like one of those Lifetime/hallmark channel rom-coms. All and all, Kamila finds her voice and her purpose, and of course Rohan. Thanks Netgalley and the Publishers for giving me the opportunity to read this book.

Last year I read Accidentally Engaged and absolutely loved it so I had high hopes for Kamila Knows Best and I was not disappointed. Its a fun modern day retelling of Jane Austen's Emma. A friends to lovers engrossing read with dynamic characters. I enjoyed the story of family, friendsships banter and watching the love story unfold. Not to mention like previous books by the author she was sure to enclude plenty of food, so make sure you don't go into this one hungry. Would recommend for romance fans that enjoy retellings, or anyone looking for a heart warming, fun, humorous romance.

I’m a marketing and publicity intern at Forever Publishing, so I am reading this for work. May post full review later.

I really enjoyed this Desi Own Voices book. I had heard it was an Emma retelling but went into it with an open mind since those aren't my favorite and I enjoyed it simply as a friend's to lovers story.

I absolutely loved Rohan. He was pretty perfect both in looks and in personality. I loved all the ways he was there for Kam and her dad. I think he is the sole reason I'm rating the book so high. Well, that and the food. I'm hungry now!

Kam drove me pretty insane to be honest, but she definitely grew a lot throughout the book and I liked her a lot more by the end. I appreciated the representation she gave from how she was raised by her mother. I also did really appreciate her dedication and commitment even if I felt it was a little too much at times.

As always I loved the Own Voices representation in this book. The insight into family life are so interesting.

I received an advanced copy of this book through NetGalley. This is my honest review

Thank you so much to NG and the publishers for sending me an ARC of this book in exchange for my honest review!

I love a good Austen retelling and this was fantastic! This book was funny and the character development was delicious! I loved the Desi spin on a classic!

Kamila Knows best is a friends to lovers romance, and a retelling of Emma from Jane Austen. I honestly can't say that I fell in love with these love interests. This story is very much a slow-burn to the end result. Kamila and Rohan's witty banter back and forth was fun.

Heron definitely writes strong female characters, who are flawed, honest and know what they want. She masterfully incorporates the Indian culture and beliefs into the story without overshadowing the main premise.

Thank you Forever for the advance reader copy.