Publication
Series
Status
Description
Fiction. Literature. Romance. Humor (Fiction.) HTML: From the author of Pride, Prejudice, and Other Flavors comes another , clever, deeply layered, and heartwarming romantic comedy that follows in the Jane Austen tradition�??this time, with a twist on Persuasion. Chef Ashna Raje desperately needs a new strategy. How else can she save her beloved restaurant and prove to her estranged, overachieving mother that she isn't a complete screw up? When she's asked to join the cast of Cooking with the Stars, the latest hit reality show teaming chefs with celebrities, it seems like just the leap of faith she needs to put her restaurant back on the map. She's a chef, what's the worst that could happen? Rico Silva, that's what. Being paired with a celebrity who was her first love, the man who ghosted her at the worst possible time in her life, only proves what Ashna has always believed: leaps of faith are a recipe for disaster. FIFA winning soccer star Rico Silva isn't too happy to be paired up with Ashna either. Losing Ashna years ago almost destroyed him. The only silver lining to this bizarre situation is that he can finally prove to Ashna that he's definitely over her. But when their catastrophic first meeting goes viral, social media becomes obsessed with their chemistry. The competition on the show is fierce...and so is the simmering desire between Ashna and Rico. Every minute they spend together rekindles feelings that pull them toward their disastrous past. Will letting go again be another recipe for heartbreak�??or a recipe for persuasion...? In Recipe for Persuasion, Sonali Dev once again takes readers on an unforgettable adventure in this fresh, fun, and enchanting romantic comedy… (more)
User reviews
Ashna Raje is a chef trying to keep her deceased father's restaurant afloat, but having a really tough time because she has panic attacks
I really liked the first book in this loose series playing off of Jane Austen's work (one of the families has the last name Dashwood, for example, and they reference Persuasion in this one as well). But I really really can't stand the trope of we're mad at each other because we can't have a conversation, and that's not just the issue between her and Rico, but also with Ashna and her mother. The plot took awhile to get going, and I simply didn't find it as delightful as Pride, Prejudice, and Other Flavors - though to be fair, that could have more to do with my familiarity of Pride and Prejudice over Persuasion. I wasn't catching all the Easter eggs and getting just as much enjoyment out of that than the story itself. Enjoyable, just not quite reaching my expectations.
A very loose nod to Austen's Persuasion. Ashna Raje is trying to hang onto her beloved father's once successful Indian restaurant at all costs. The restaurant is in crisis, millions of dollars were embezzled and now she is doing all she can to lower overheads and
Her cousin persuades as her to take part in a reality tv cooking show. Grand prize of $100,000
Little did Ashna know that the former love of her life would be her partner. Soccer star Rico Silva has used his influence to ensure this. Being thrown together, in the spotlight and off, forces Rico and Ashna to re-evaluate themselves, their reactions and other aspects of their lives.
Devastating secrets are forced into the open. For Ashna that includes reassessing her relationship with both her mother and her father. Ashna's father was an Indian Prince sent by his family to the United States to build a new life for himself and his family. Her mother had deserted the Prince and Ashna many years before, returning to India to advocate for girls sporting rights that developed into female empowerment in other areas of life. To say Ashna and her mother's relationship is fraught is a massive understatement.
Although Ashna's mother's story raises interesting issues about relationships between generations. Including the idea that current generations accept the status quo of women's rights as they are now without appreciating previous generation's historical situations and the cost to them. Those forgotten battles are the legacy that current generations move forward from.
On the surface this story is a very readable modern love story, but underneath, with its richly woven background, darkness hovers, resentments simmer, and redemption possibilities hide around the corner, if one is brave enough.
I loved the title. Talking, being open, and forgiving are necessary ingredients for persuasion to happen in this situation.
Rethinking this novel, I came to appreciate even more it's depth. I decided this is actually a five star read and not the four star I was originally going with.
There are comic moments, but Recipe for Persuasion is far from a romantic comedy.
A HarperCollins ARC via NetGalley
This has lots of emotional intensity, which is exactly what I want from Persuasion retellings (even if I wasn’t expecting it to get quite so sad and dark). Ashna and Rico are very aware of each other’s pain, and even when things are tense between them, are quick to help each other.
Meanwhile, Ashna’s mother is trying to reconnect. Shobi was absent for significant parts of Ashna’s childhood, and Ashna’s anger at her mother is visceral and intensely understandable. But as Shobi’s story is revealed (to the reader), Shobi becomes unexpectedly sympathetic and her choices make sense. Shobi tried to protect Ashna from the dark and difficult realities, unaware that Ashna has overheard conversations and drawn her own conclusions.
Both Ashna and Shobi know only half the story, and have their own dark, traumatic experiences that deeply affect them. (Shobi was coerced into an abusive marriage; Ashna feels responsible for her alcoholic father’s suicide.) Their reconciliation isn’t unrealistic, but I would have found it more realistic, and more satisfying, had it taken more time -- more conversations. And more scenes of things getting better, tentatively but hopefully, would have been welcome relief after everything they have been through.
Compelling. I liked it a lot while reading it but I wanted something more from the ending.
It feels rather misleading for the blurb to describe this as an “enchanting romantic comedy”. If this was a fic on A03 -- and it easily could be, being a Persuasion retelling -- that’s not what its tags would say!
This book is also a lot darker than the first and deals with themes like marital rape, alcoholism, depression, and suicide – so if you’re looking for a fluffy Austen adaptation, look elsewhere. In fact, there’s so much going on in this story, and a lot of it comes at Ashna at once, that I think she’d benefit from some therapy!
My only issues with this book were the idea of fated lovers who don’t feel like a whole person without being in a relationship with the other (just not a trope I’m into) and how expressive the characters’ eyes were. This seems silly (it is, really), but I’ve never read a book where it felt like entire conversations were happening with just peoples’ eyes. I don’t find eyes to be that expressive in real life and I’m not into it when writers focus a lot on what people are “saying” with their eyes.
Those are minor complaints, however, and I’m happy to know Dev plans to write her own versions of Sense & Sensibility and Emma. Can’t wait to read them!
**note - I never received my copy from the Early Reviewers program, so I went out and bought my own**
Ashna and Rico met and fell in love in high school. As the end of their high school years approached, Rico and Ashna independently approach her father, Baba, and ask him to bless their relationship. Baba rejected Rico, saying he is a lower-class, illegitimate bastard unworthy of the daughter of a prince. Rico and Ashna separate, both believing the other rejected them.
The story takes place ten years later. Ashna, desperate to save her father’s deteriorating restaurant, agrees to participate in a televised battle of chef-celebrity teams. Rico, an international football star, is still haunted by Ashna’s rejection. Forced into early retirement by a gruesome knee injury, he arranges to team with Ashna in the cooking competition. He no longer has feelings for her, but he wants to know why she dumped him.
Recipe for Persuasion is not a typical sunny romance novel. Issues of depression, marital rape, alcoholism, suicide, child abandonment, forced marriage, and unplanned retirement are core elements of the plot. These cloudy elements appear in juxtaposition to Dev’s cloying, heavy-handed depiction of Ashna’s and Rico’s emotional attraction. Like iron shavings to a magnet, they cannot be in the same room without the force of their unspoken attraction pulling them together.
Dev relies heavily on clichés. Ashna’s and Rico’s eyes communicate enough messages to fill an encyclopedia. Their hyperacute interpersonal perceptivity would make a telepath like Professor X envious. Hardly a page fails to describe a message their eyes communicated and an intense emotional reaction they experience. Dev’s impressive but excessive inventiveness slows the pace of the story to that of a slog through a muddy field, particularly in the middle of the book.
The conclusion was a disappointment. Ashna’s and Rico’s bravura performance in the televised cooking competition revitalizes the restaurant. That sets up the conventional happy-ever-after ending. Unfortunately, Dev stumbles and does a face-plant while reaching for a surprise ending. The nonsensical result is disappointing.
Yet… I like the characters and the basic story. I found myself rooting for Ashna and Rico. I wanted them to find each other and to be happy-ever-after. I appreciated Dev’s adroit transformation of Shobi from an unfeeling mother who abandoned her daughter to a woman who deserves our sympathy and admiration. Despite its flaws, Recipe for Persuasion is well worth reading.
The book is supposedly based on Persuasion by Jane Austen, but it really isn't even close to that story. Persuasion happens to be my favorite of Austen's books, and I also have read a lot of the various fanfic versions of her books. Like the other book by Ms. Dev that I've read, it's a very serious read. This one deals with alcoholism, marital rape, child abuse (mental), male patriarchy, and dysfunctional families. It is not especially romantic but more of a women's lit book.
Rico, the hero and famous soccer star, is all right, and some of the more minor characters seem okay, but Ashna is a horror as well as her mother and father. Why Rico is so determined to get involved with them again never made sense to me. There's was a high school romance but he should have moved on ten or more years later. She treated him pretty badly bad then and still does for most of the book.
Anyway, it's a depressing story that mixes in a lot of stuff. There are no surprises; every event is blatantly telegraphed to the reader (not to give any spoilers, but did anyone not get the constant blending of teas or the resolution to the political campaign?).
Anyway, that's the last book by this author I'll read. Definitely not for me.
Ashna owns a restaurant, which she has inherited from her father, a prince who moved to America and became a chef, making somewhat uninspired food, but coasting on his notoriety, as though Harry and Meghan had decided to take up cooking. Ashna was a soccer player in school, where her real passion lay, but her father wanted her to continue the family business, so when he died unexpectedly, she went to culinary school, breaking up with her boyfriend in a 19th century way - the kind where you unexpectedly cut contact, leaving the crucial things unsaid that would resolve the entire issue in the relationship. Her boyfriend, Rico, went on to become a soccer star, and they meet again when they are paired up on a Celebrity Masterchef-type show that Ashna enters as a way to save her failing restaurant.
If you like fluffy romantic comedies, the kind that were big in the '90s and 2000's, but seem to be straight to Netflix now (and I do like them, I think that's a shame - but it is the way the world has gone), this book is up your alley. The characters are sweet, and it will leave you craving Indian food and possibly some tea, after all the culinary descriptions.
Ashna Raje and
Ashna’s father vehemently opposed the friendship, and through a series of misunderstandings the two were separated.
Ten years later: Ash is now not very successfully running her father’s restaurant. Rico has earned international fame as a soccer star, but an injury has ended his career.
On a whim Rico looks up Ash on the internet and find she will be part of a cooking show pairing chefs with celebrities. Rico insists on joining the show with Ash as his partner.
Lots of yearning, missed cues, cooking mishaps, humor and, well, you can probably guess the ending.
Light, fuzzy feel-good romance.
Digital review copy provided by the publisher through NetGalley