I have read other Sonali Dev novels and The Emma Project was just as delightful as the others. It was refreshing to take a character I did not like in the previous novel and give her more nuance and depth. Naina grew on me and Vansh was great, if a bit naive! A fun read with a great heroine!

I really enjoyed The Emma Project, although I hadn't read any of the previous books by Sonali Dev. The characters were very well flushed out and interesting. I can't say they were very relatable since they all had a lot of money and tremendous emotional angst but the family story itself was really interesting. It's also hard to relate to a father having such a strong emotional hold on his wife and daughter but it was fiction, after all.

I wish Dev had taken time to explain more of the E. Indian phrases/words and customs mentioned in the book because they were all mentioned with the correct name but if you didn't already know what they were, you were at sea. The food is another example. I wish there had been more explanation of what they were eating, as opposed to just how enjoyable it was. If you want a book to be a crossover success you have to cater a little to your non-native readers, I think.

Read it for yourself and get lost in the spider web of family that is intertwined in Naina and Vansh's lives.

The Raje Family Series Finale: Sexy and Satisfying

In a fitting conclusion to her Jane Austen-inspired quartet about The Raje Family, Sonali Dev offers the steamiest entry of the series with her gender-reversing The Emma Project. It overflows with fight, love, humor, and pathos as characters rage, simmer, ignite, and succeed.

Dumped by long-time boyfriend and new California governor, Yash (Crown Prince of the Raje Family), for the serene India Dashwood (Incense and Sensibility), Naina wants nothing to do with any of the Rajes ever again.
Wounded, she focuses solely on her work: purchase land in Nepal, build clinics, train local women to be midwives, and hire doctors who specialize in prenatal and postnatal care. She’s riding high as the recipient of a massive endowment from the rags-to-riches poster boy, philanthropist Jiggy Mehta.

But her high crashes hard when the young, footloose Baby Prince, Vansh Raje, shows up. Rather than attending college, Vansh opted to join the Peace Corps, and now he’s returned home. GQ handsome and barely twenty-six years old, he’s already turning heads—including Jiggy Mehta’s.

Jiggy decides Naina must share her funding with a project of Vansh’s creation—he likes the Raje name. Naina is outraged. Now her $15 million endowment is in jeopardy, which means seven hundred thousand lives in Nepal are as well. She takes it out on Vansh, taunting him because certainly none of his “do-gooder projects” were anywhere near the scale of what she’s doing.

The easygoing Vansh, however, believes they can work together on both projects. After all, the two always stuck together as kids because they were their families’ outliers despite the 12-year difference in ages.

Instead, Naina likens Vansh to Austen’s Emma.

“Emma,” she explains, “is an overindulged, albeit well-meaning, brat, who is looking for matchmaking projects so she can feel good about herself while filling all that empty time she has on her overprivileged hands.” She crisply dubs his idea to assist the Bay Area’s homeless an “Emma Project.”

The friction between the long-time friends eventually turns into a sweaty, breath-stealing, sexually-satisfying friction—until the next day, when Naina realizes what the two have done. Slowly, however, Naina warms to the idea that sex with Baby Prince is rather pleasing. The more the two join forces out of the office, the more their involvement spills into each other’s projects, setting the stage for a series of stunning and memorable conclusions.

Dev’s writing buzzes with emotion and hums with her characters’ determination. Her attention extends to everyone in the Raje Family world, but Dev is particularly compassionate with the fraught relationship between Naina and her mother. Chandni’s English isn’t as “polished” as her contemporaries. She sits on Naina’s last nerve, shows up without warning, and criticizes Naina’s apartment, clothing, and lifestyle.

Dev writes, “If her mother had taught Naina anything, she’d taught her how to show up in uncomfortable situations. Every day.” Naina accepts her mother’s nosy meddling because deep down she senses her mother’s gains and losses with her marriage.

Alongside the Naina-Vansh storyline is that of his oldest cousin, the ethereal Esha. When award-winning wildlife photographer Sid Dashwood appears, it is apparent their meeting had been authored in the stars. Sadly, their story was secondary; it may have been an interesting fifth book in the series.

Social issues are integral parts of this series. Through Naina, Dev highlights efforts to give low-income women sustainable lives through microloans, healthcare, and work. Vansh’s project illuminates the need to lift the homeless who have skills to return to society and the workforce. Environmental and conservation issues are front of mind with Siddartha “Sid” Dashwood, India’s brother.

Naina and Vansh are the most interesting of the characters featured in the series because Dev dives into the deep end of the story’s sex appeal. The fun of The Emma Project is an age-gap slow inferno between the headstrong, take-charge Naina and the younger, peacemaker Vansh. Naina’s transformation from ice queen to lover is like caterpillar to butterfly, and philanthropy has never been so sexy.

Honestly this book was just embarrassing. I've never read any of Sonali Dev's books and after this one I don' think I'll ever read another. Why are desi authors so intent on normalizing Israel?? Absolutely not. Also, the last ten chapters was just back and forth angst that dragged on for way too long.

I have tried to read this book a few times, and even tried on audio, but it is just not for me. I have had such a hard time keeping up with the characters and what was happening. We were introduced to SO MANY characters in the first chapter and I cannot for the life of me keep track. When I thought I should have taken notes, I realized this was a DNF for me.

@sonali.dev beautifully completed the Raje family series with The Emma Project. While the whole series is inspired by Jane Austen’s works they are sweet novels of a family as each Raje discovers love and strength in who they are within a well respected and admired immigrant lineage. This story focuses on both Vance Raje the “baby prince” and weaves in a story of cousin/essentially sister Esha stepping out of their expected roles. Thanks @netgalley for the ARC!

⭐️⭐️⭐️💫/5

The Emma Project by Sonali Dev is a HOT retelling of Emma by Jane Austen. A part of the Raje family universe, this book focuses on Vansh Raje and the Naina Kohli. As they navigate the high-stakes world of philanthropic giving in the Bay Area they also cannot deny their attraction. With family expectations and projects looming, the two cannot stay away from each other. Can they admit that there is more to their feelings than just their physical attraction or will these two remain enemies with benefits?

I absolutely loved this book. I've read other romance novels by Dev and she always writes sharp, funny, and heartfelt stories, but this has a special place in my heart. The characterization was wonderful and multifaceted. The story itself was lighthearted but meaningful. I loved the choice of protagonist for this novel and think this book was a nice tie up for the series.

I love this series and Vansh and Naina's story was a wonderful addition. Each book in the series is a retelling of one of Jane Austen's novels, and this is the retelling of Emma. I'm 90% sure that I've read Emma, but that 10% makes me think, even if I have to, I am due for a reread.😊. So, what that means, if you don't have to be familiar with the Jane Austen books to enjoy these. I would recommend reading the books in order. For this one in particular I would recommend reading incense and sensibility since there is some carryover in the storyline.

This was a family friends (with an age gap!) to rivals to lovers story. Vansh and Naina are set up against each other by a philanthropist. They each have projects they want to fund. Originally Naina was getting a large sum of money, and then the philanthropist offered some of it to Vansh. It was great to see each of their passions for helping make the world a better place. I also loved watching their relationship and respect for each other evolve. There was also some nice personal growth for each of them. Finally, their extended families were great additions. And there was another side story that was a lot of fun. If you haven't read this series yet, I definitely recommend!

Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for a copy of the book. All opinions are my own.

I have read the first three books in the Raje series, and I was eager to see how Sonali Dev tackled Emma. Emma is my favorite of Austen’s novels, and it is probably one of my favorite books of all time. I love Emma Woodhouse.

As a diehard fan of the source material, all of the little nods to the Austen made me smile. I immediately recognized that Hari was Dev’s version of Harriet Smith just from the name. It felt like a bit of stretch that Naina’s “real” name is Knightlina (as in George Knightley), but I did appreciate the wink to me and my fellow Austen fans.

I actually wanted more of the plot of Emma from The Emma Project. The parallels between Naina and Vansh and Emma and Knightley were there: the loose family connection and the age difference to name a few. However, I missed the Jane Fairfax and Frank Churchill plotline, and Hari played a much smaller role in the story than Harriet Smith does in Austen’s novel.

Vansh is a very charming character. He is charismatic and passionate while caring deeply not only about his family, but about strangers in need. Naina mocks him early in the book and calls him shallow, but it could not be clearer that he is genuine in wanting to make the world a better place.

I found it harder to like Naina. Her relationship with her abusive father is devastating, and it is certainly clear that Naina doesn’t feel worthy of love. It’s clear that she wants to do good in the world, but I never felt the sense of caring that I did from Vansh (or Mr. Knightley for that matter). I am glad that Naina finds Vansh to make her feel loved and cared for.

Austen’s signature is her social satire. While Dev’s series doesn’t have the same satirical nature, The Emma Project does address social issues. Naina and Vansh are established in earlier books in the series as people who travel the world helping others. In The Emma Project, they work together to address homelessness in San Francisco, which is no small feat.

I love the way that Dev has intertwined the stories of the Raje family and how each book focuses on a different member of the family à la the Brown sisters trilogy. However, in The Emma Project, I found that the romance between Esha and Sid distracted from the main love story between Naina and Vansh. The Esha and Sid subplot didn’t further the story the way Harriet and Mr. Martin’s romance furthers the plot in Emma.

If Dev decides to do a Northanger Abbey or Mansfield Park next, I will be ready to see what happens to the Raje family next.

Thanks to NetGalley and Avon for the eARC. This is my first book in this series so take my review with a grain of salt as I haven’t seen these characters in any other book. This book was just okay. Not amazing but not too bad. Seeing Esha and Sid’s lil romance in the middle of Naina and Vansh’s felt very unnecessary and oddly placed. The spicy scenes were great but I wish there was a bit more quality time and romance between Vansh and Naina. Overall, this was a decent read.

I love a retelling with a twist and "The Emma Project" delivers. It's a refreshing, beautifully written romance that delivers on steam and is a delightfully quick read.

This is the first book I read of the series and I didn't feel like I needed to read the others beforehand (I didn't even realize it was a series until after I started reading it). That said, I might have appreciated it more had I read the earlier books. I wish there had been more about side characters Sid and Esha because there seems to be a lot that could have been developed to make their story work, but instead was rushed through and I am not sure why it was included in such a tangential way. Maybe if I had read the earlier books it would have made more sense? Vansh and Naina's story worked well, touched on their personal & professional growth and had some hot sex. AND, gets major kudos for a 38-year old woman being the heroine and portrayed as the smartest AND hottest woman a cute 26-year old man had ever known.

NOTE: Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an advanced reader's copy in exchange for an honest review.

A perfect ending to The Rajes saga, even though I really hate to see them go. While I thought Naina would be hard to like after the last book, I was "all in" from the very beginning when it came to her and Vansh. (I'm a sucker for dimples -- real or literary!) Once again Sonali Dev writes romance as only she can. I love the wit and charm of Vansh and once we learn more about Naina and her scars, I grew to love her, too. Not to mention that their scenes together are HOT! (Pour me some red wine, please...). Overall, I enjoyed this series, but I think that this is my favorite book, though I would have loved another book dedicated to Esha or just another one to give us an update on all the couples.

Thanks to NetGalley for the copy of this book.

Buy This Book
Sonali Dev finishes up her The Rajes Austen-inspired series with The Emma Project. The tale of Vansh Raje, the youngest son of the clan, this book is all about falling in love and figuring out how that works when you’ve never believed in it before.

This is not a stand-alone volume. Readers will need to read Incense and Sensibility to grasp the back story that drives this narrative. Please be aware that there are some spoilers for that novel towards the end of this review.

Vansh Raje tries to use his privilege to help others. He’s travelled around the world doing various charitable projects and is proud of how much he’s contributed to making life better for a lot of people in many different countries. When he gets talking to Hari, someone who worked for his brother Yash’s campaign, at the victory party for Yash winning his gubernatorial race, Vansh realizes something: he doesn’t need to leave San Francisco to help people desperately in need. There are a lot of folks in his home community who need help, too. He begins at once, getting Hari, who is homeless, settled into a hotel and starting to unravel all the threads that led that young man to such a difficult place. Given that his brother is the recently elected governor of California and Vansh’s tons of experience working with worthy causes, Vansh is confident he can do something to fix the homeless situation in the city. Especially since billionaire Jignesh Mehta has just offered him a portion of the endowment from his foundation.

Knightlina (Naina) Kohli has spent years working to empower women around the world and she’s more than earned the large grant she has received from Jignesh Mehta’s foundation. So she is furious when Vansh Raje, with his gorgeous face, muscled body and winning smile swoops in and not only takes a share of the money but gets all the recognition at the party announcing the award winners. This has been the story of Naina’s life – men waltzing in and stealing the joy right from under her. Only Naina is done putting up with it – she plans to go to war with Vansh over the funding and the recognition. Only how will she ever beat a guy whose ‘make love not war’ attitude is slowly convincing her to give romance – something she’s always spurned – a chance?

If I had to describe this book in one sentence it would be ‘progressive limousine liberals find love while lecturing readers on mental health, homelessness, female equality and the importance of giving back’. If that sounds like your cuppa, then definitely read this. If not, it may not be the story for you.

For those who enjoy that premise, The Emma Project is an easy read. Dev has a smooth, clean writing style and Naina and Vansh are likable characters, even if they are a tad overly privileged and unaware that shopping at Target doesn’t make them less advantaged. Their love story centers around the heat between them and their main common interest – both are devoted to charitable work and their ability to share that labor/vision and play together is what enables them to be a couple. Naina has some severe daddy issues (her father is a classic wife abuser) and it takes her a while to figure out that not all men are her dad, but the story does work through that. The fact that Vansh, with his sunny personality, respect for women and total lack of desire to control everything around him is the polar opposite of her father slowly helps her to realize that she can unfreeze her heart and love those who love her.

My main quibbles with the story are the meet-weird romance between the secondary couple (Esha and Sid), and the fact that the twelve year age difference between our leads, with Naina being the older of the two, is mainly explored through exclamations from others about how she knew Vansh when he was in diapers. Given that much is made in the story of how they don’t want the traditional marriage and kids, the fact that Naina would be past childbearing age in a decade isn’t examined is somewhat understandable. However, there should have been more of a look at the differences in their lived experiences this age gap would make. They would have watched different TV shows as kids, listened to different music, have differing pop culture references. I thought it deserved more of a look than it received.

Romancelandia is full of big, happy family books but honestly I have grown to like the Rajes less the longer I’ve been around them. In the previous novel, Incense and Sensibility, we learned that the long engagement/understanding between Yash (Vansh’s brother) and Naina had been faked by them both in order to advance their careers/education. I won’t go into the convoluted thinking involved in that ticking-time-bomb of a plan but in the end, Naina is the one who bore the brunt of the fall out when that scheme imploded. That was mostly fair due to the fact that she had benefited from it more than Yash, but what wasn’t fair was how his family ostracized her as a result. I found myself irritated by them/angry with them because of that behavior. Especially since the fake engagement didn’t hurt anyone and was strictly a matter between two people.

If you read contemporary romance, The Emma Project will be a well-written version of a common tale within that genre. It won’t offer up anything new but it will be a pleasant way to while away a few hours. I would recommend it to fans of the author and both this and Incense and Sensibility to anyone who enjoys romances about liberal politicos.

This book is the 4th book in the series. This was the only book in the series that I have read. I do not think I am going to read the other books in the series. If I would have known that this was a 4th book in a series I would not have requested this book. I just did not feel a connection with the characters. I feel like I missed out on a lot of things. If you have read the other books in the series I think you will like this one. But over all not for me.

Thank-you NetGalley and Avon and Harper Voyager for the chance to review this ARC.

A gender swapped Emma reimagining?
Sign me up! I love retellings and reimagining plus it's inspired by Jane Austen! It's a no brainer!

Sonali Dev is such a great writer! I was clued to my kindle with this one!

Loved her characters and now I want to start the series all over again!

The Emma Project by Somali Dev

**We received an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review. We’d like to thank Sonali and Avon Books for the opportunity. This book comes out on May 17th**

Reviewed by GGGinny

What I drank: Riesling! I studied abroad in Germany and loved learning about Rieslings, while I’ve expanded my wine focus, it was so nice to have a nice tart semi-sweet wine tonight while I crushed some friends while playing board games (full disclosure, I did lose one game, but I won 2)

Goodreads Overview:

Emma gets a fresh Indian-American twist from award-winning author Sonali Dev in her heartwarmingly irresistible Jane Austen inspired rom com series.

No one can call Vansh Raje’s life anything but charmed. Handsome—Vogue has declared him California’s hottest single—and rich enough to spend all his time on missions to make the world a better place. Add to that a doting family and a contagiously sunny disposition and Vansh has made it halfway through his twenties without ever facing anything to throw him off his admittedly spectacular game.

A couple years from turning forty, Knightlina (Naina) Kohli has just gotten out of a ten-year-long fake relationship with Vansh’s brother and wants only one thing from her life…fine, two things. One, to have nothing to do with the unfairly blessed Raje family ever again. Two, to bring economic independence to millions of women in South Asia through her microfinance foundation and prove her father wrong about, well, everything.

Just when Naina’s dream is about to come to fruition, Vansh Raje shows up with his misguided Emma Project… And suddenly she’s fighting him for funding and wondering if a friends-with-benefits arrangement that’s as toe-curlingly hot as it is fun is worth risking her life’s work for.

Drunk Overview: This is the final book in the Rajes series, where we focus on the younger brother and the scorned ex of Yash (the oldest bro in the family). They both work in the non-profit industry and a flighty billionaire pits them against each other for funding. They, of course, fall in love.

Drunk Thoughts: I feel like I’ve had a hard time judging this book fairly. Firsts off, Naina (the scorned ex) came off as unnecessarily cruel in a previous book, and while I understand different perspectives making different assumptions, it made it hard to trust her here. Then you add in an age difference, the fact that it felt like Vansh was pursuing her as a slight to his own family, the power dynamics brought up as they fought over money, and… it just didn’t sit right with me.

This book also had to deal with a secondary romance (which happened in other books in the series, but not to the extent of this book).
Instead of allowing the partially-psychic cousin her own book, it felt like it was just shoe-horned in here. This meant that both romances felt a little more rushed and it felt like Esha (the cousin) and her romance were more of a plot point than an actual love story…
So Naina, she gets the chance to be vulnerable in this book, which was nice. and the book dealt with the fallout of her treating Yash badly, but the ending felt a bit too easy (I don’t want to get into details here, but you’ll understand if you read it).
Then Vansh (the hero) just felt a little too perfect? This was a book where it felt like most of the issues were made up rather than real.
I know that with romance novels, the beats are obviously made up and planned out in advance, but so much of Vansh’s story seemed to be due to pure dumb luck, and while I know that’s a point that’s made in the book, it was kind of hard to not see the workings behind everything as a reader.
I will also point out that this book is based off of the story Emma by Jane Austen, which I am not particularly familiar with, maybe if I was I would have enjoyed this book more?
Regardless, the random drunken encounter, the “you’re the perfect person” vibes… I just didn’t connect with this book.
To be fair, I also had very high expectations. I’ve really loved the previous books in the series.
Which could have been part of the problem. I had little knowledge of Vansh, and too much knowledge of Naina going into this book.
And yet, I keep going back and pointing out that that was a fairly prominant theme in this book.
Like I said, I might not be in the best place to judge this book.
I wish I could say I enjoyed reading it (again, I LOVED the previous books in this series) but I cringed through so much of this book that I find it hard to look past the awkward work/relationship dynamic, the way both the problems and solutions felt like a deus ex machina, and the rushed plotlines (to fit in Esha’s story too).
I’m not saying you shouldn’t read this book, just maybe reset your expectations?
What it Pairs With: white zinfandel

Rating: 2.5/5

Sonali Dev is easily one of my favorite romance authors. This book, oh my heart, a new favorite from her list of work.

I fell hard and fast in love with this cast of characters. I could not put this one down.

I went into The Emma Project with a chip on my shoulder. I really did not like our heroine, Naina, in the last book, so I had no idea how she would be turned into a likable character.

And surprise to me, I liked her best. We get so much more of her backstory and her trauma with her parents, and truly she had the most common sense of all the characters. Vansh is the youngest Raje, younger than Nana by 12 years. And his character is supposed to be “Emma” from Jane Austen. And that actually fits him. He’s a bit flighty and full of joyful ambition, and he just ignores any advice given to him, thinking he’s going to make it work.

Their romance was a bit more lust-driven versus emotionally-driven for me, but after a giant book full of tortured longing (looking at you, Yash), it was refreshing. Plus their bickering back and forth was pretty amusing.

As this has reached the end of the series, I have to say The Emma Project was likely my second favorite. It didn’t have the magic that Pride, Prejudice, and Other Flavors had—likely because Emma is not my favorite Austen. Alas, the end is nigh.

Thank you to NetGalley and Avon Books for the review copy.