Accidentally Engaged by Farah Heron

5*

Reena, a middle-child in a traditional Muslim Indian family, is sandwiched between an older brother who has done everything right and a younger sister who is self-absorbed, somewhat passive aggressive and obsessed with healthy eating, to the point that she destroyed her sister’s side business blogging food and chance at a cookbook deal when she posts a diatribe on food bloggers pushing fattening foods. She has very low self-esteem and sees herself as a failure at everything, but especially relationships (12 in 13 years) and jobs (one layoff after another due to downsizing). She’s stuck in finance because she doesn’t want to work for the family development firm, but also doesn’t see a way to turn her passion for artisanal bread baking into a viable career.

Added to all of this are Indian Muslim parents who emigrated to Toronto from Tanzania who are pushing eligible, but totally unappealing men at her in the hopes she’ll marry someone of her kind and pump out some babies. Then Nadim moves in across the hall, a sexy “brown Captain America” with a swoonworthy smirk and British accent. Before she even has a chance to learn more than his name, he reveals that he’s her dad’s new employee and arranged marriage prospect thanks to a business deal between their fathers.

So what’s a girl to do? In her case, she’s pushed into entering a televised cooking contest where she needs a fiancé. Turns out that Nadim is the perfect and willing candidate to fake it. When their drunken audition video lands them a spot, they become fast friends, agreeing to an “unengagement” and fighting an attraction because there’s no way Reena will give her parents the satisfaction of falling for one of their chosen marriage prospects, no matter how appealing.

This story proved to be so much more than a lightweight rom-com. Although there’s humor, chemistry (of both the physical and kitchen variety), and family drama, there are also some heavy topics. When a family that thrives on gossip (while keeping their own secrets) and long-time rivalries starts coming apart at the seams, issues such as eating disorders, depression, and bad decisions threaten to tear them apart. However, the author treats our MCs with compassion and proves that with a little faith, emotional support (from each other and a couple of LGBTQ friends and relatives), and killer sourdough, mistakes of the past can be overcome and the patriarchical nature of their community can be overcome. Highly recommend.

I received a complimentary ARC of this book from Forever Publishing through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Opinions expressed are completely my own.

The Nature of Fragile Things by Susan Meissner

 

5*

Meissner is a queen of historical fiction with stellar books such as As Bright as Heaven (set in Philadelphia during the Spanish Flu pandemic), Secrets of a Charmed Life (set in London during the Blitz), and A Fall of Marigolds (set in NYC after 9/11). The Nature of Fragile Things is one of her best yet, a taut thriller that opens just months before the 1905 San Francisco earthquake and fire. The story begins with Irish immigrant and mail-order bride Sophie Hocking being questioned by a detective concerning the whereabouts of her husband Martin after she reports him missing weeks following the earthquake. She left home under mysterious circumstances, lived briefly in the tenements of New York, then married the very handsome Martin in order to have a good life like she had in her childhood with “a warm house and clean clothes and food in the pantry,” someone to share it all with, and the opportunity to be a mother to his daughter Kat.

However, she soon finds that Martin is a very dispassionate man who pays little attention to her or Kat other than amply providing for them. He’s gone many days a week for his insurance business, but Sophie doesn’t know the name of the company or exactly what he does on his trips. When he tells her he’s going to be storing and helping sell a hair tonic made by his cousin, Sophie becomes suspicious, but she can’t begin to comprehend the depths of his deceit until she receives shocking news when a stranger appears at her door on the eve of the earthquake.

Meissner deftly weaves together the horrors of the SF tragedy, the mystery of Martin, the friendship between three women thrown together by circumstance, and the love of a mother for her child. Her descriptions of the earthquake and fire are alarmingly accurate, making readers feel as if they’re there experiencing it with Sophie and Kat. The adrenaline spikes as the mystery unfolds, and leaves us on the edge of our seats. Masterful and epic! Highly recommend.

I received a complimentary ARC of this book from Berkley Books through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Opinions expressed are completely my own.

The Bride Test by Helen Hoang

5*

In this equally charming and sexy successor to The Kiss Quotient, Hoang again features a lead character with Asperger’s Syndrome whose funny internal thoughts keep readers laughing. As the book opens, we are re-introduced to Khai (the cousin of Michael from the first book) at a wake for his 16-year-old cousin Andy, his best (only) friend who died in a motorcycle accident. Autism makes it difficult for him to show emotion (including crying) or tolerate touching, so he’s accused of not caring. All his young brain registers is that, if he can’t grieve, then he can’t love either. Ten years later, he’s so firmly convinced of this that his interfering mother finally takes matters into her own hands to ensure that he gets married and gives her grandchildren. She heads to Vietnam and devises a bride test to find a woman worthy of her son who won’t just want him for his money. There she meets My (Esme), a single mother who was abandoned by her daughter’s father when she got pregnant (just as her own American father abandoned her mother), and promptly offers her a chance to spend a summer in American getting to know Khai and hopefully convincing him that she is a woman he’d want to marry.

Despite the wacky way they are thrown together, the relationship between Esme and Khai is beautiful and full of humor, and they both blossom with the care and concern they show each other. Although Khai struggles with the disruption Esme brings to his well-ordered life, she is committed to being indispensable to him so that she’ll be able to remain in the U.S. and have her family join her. When Khai helps Esme look for the father she’s never known, their bond strengthens, but he continues to believe he is unloveable despite his actions to the contrary. Will Esme eventually pass the bride’s test and be the woman who gets through to Khai or will she end up back in Vietnam after the summer? Pick up this wonderful book and find out! Readers who have fallen in love with The Kiss Quotient may have a third book to look forward to…perhaps with Khai’s older brother Quan? Here’s hoping!


I received a complimentary ARC of this book from Berkley Publishing Group through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Opinions expressed are completely my own.