A fun to read, easily digestible update of Jane Austen's Persuasion. Dev made likable and realistic characters. The pacing was just right with the love story, and the food descriptions were equally swoonworthy. Not sure how much I believed that the daughter stayed so clueless about her father's actions for as long as she did, but I understand that storyline needed to be there to keep the tension up. A fun romance, and a good look into Indian culture.

I was all in on reading about Ashna and Rico's history, and then seeing how it would affect their interactions in the present. For the most part, I liked the way their story evolved. Ashna held most of my interest though, and she had a unique anxiety when it came to cooking certain meals. I enjoyed seeing how growing up with her father Bram (and her absent mother) shaped the person she was. She went through some very difficult events, so it was no wonder that she struggled in adulthood.

What surprised me about the novel was the separate point of view from Ashna's mother, Shobi. At first, I was pretty uninterested in learning about the selfish mother that left her daughter so she could thrive in her career. Especially after we learn about the kind of man Bram was. However, I do have to admit that as I continued to read, her story became intriguing, and at times, heartbreaking.
I think Shobi's story would have worked better as a companion novella. There was a lot of history there, and getting into more details would have made for a great novella. Adding it on to Ashna's and Rico's story tended to make me impatient to get back to the main couple. The tone of Shobi's chapters were very different to the rest of the novel.

I received a free E-book ARC of the book from Netgallery in exchange for an honest review. These thoughts and opinions are my own.
This book is a loosely based on Jane Austin's Persuasion. This book follows Chef Ashna Raje, who has been struggling to keep her restaurant afloat and prove to her desperately her estranged, overachieving mother that she isn’t a failure? So when she’s asked to join the cast of Cooking with the Stars, the latest hit reality show teaming chefs with celebrities, as well as cash grand prize for the winner, it seems like just the thing that will get her restaurant back to being successful. But all that goes out the window when the celebrity she is teamed up with is none other than her her first love, FIFA winning soccer star Rico Silva, who also has decided to join the show with something to prove as well; that he is most definitely over Ashna Raje.
But from their disastrous first day on the show ,every minute they spend together rekindles feelings that pull them toward their disastrous past. Will they be able to confront their past mistakes and assumptions and choose a path of their own making?
First of all I want to say. I am a huge Jane Austin fan and Persuasion just so happens to be my favorite novel of hers of all time. So when I discovered this book, I could not wait to read this retelling and it did not disappoint. The The first couple of chapters of this book were by far the slowest parts of the book and could have been left out or at least the backstory could have been more interwoven throughout the book. Nevertheless, as the story progressed I became more and more satisfied with the pacing of the story. I enjoyed how much the author built up Rico's and Ashna's chemistry. The reader is able to tell just by being in the same room, even early on, these two characters have never lost their feelings for one another. I enjoyed how much Rico was able to help Ashne finally come out and share what has been holding her back for so long and not just with him, but also with her mother. I felt the writing was very good and the author used the native language well in order to give the book a more cultural feeling. Overall, I found this book very enjoyable and I look forward to more books by this author. I would recommend this book to those who love Jane Austin as well as those who also love a second chance romance with food!

This was a heavy romance and readers should be told trigger warnings for rape, suicide, domestic abuse, PTSD, and anxiety. This story has all the drama and high stakes of the Austen novel it is adapting, and the romance is plenty swoon worthy. I don't know if this retelling of Persuasion was as true to the original novel because I've only read it once in college (enjoyed it though), but I think it brought the beloved Austen themes and style to a modern era. Set in California, our two lovers estranged by misunderstandings, family, and twelve years meet again on a reality cooking show. Both have been through trauma but find each other again at the right time to deal with past demons and fight for who they want to be in the future. This is not a light hearted romance but it is a deeper tale about love, both romantically and familial. It is very well written, packed full of diversity and modern references to delight readers and keep them going through the emotional threads of the story. I recommend it for fans of Austen romance and wanting to read diverse, modern romances with the depth of classic novels we love.

If you enjoy cooks and cooking shows, this not-as-close-as-you'd-like spin on Austen's Persuasion, gives you a look into a high stakes celebrity cooking show featuring two broken down former lovers at the center. Light reading it's not and that may just the perfect fit for a reader looking for more layers than the usual meet/cute rom-com offers.

Capturing the angsty, anguished feel of Jane Austen's novel Persuasion, this is about two people who are separated for 12 years due to misunderstandings and parental disapproval. Ashna Raje and Frederico Silva reunite on a reality-television set for "Cooking with the Stars," churning up old feelings and family secrets. The backstory of Ashna's family is interesting, due to its setting in a traditional Indian family where women are treated as less-than and where Ashna's mother tries to break out of those bonds with mixed results. The story could have been tightened up a little in the middle portions, but it ends strongly.

How is Somali Dev this freaking good? I loved this book even more than her last. Highly recommended.

This is the second book of Somali Dev’s which is inspired by Jane Austen books. Here we have a book inspired by Persuasion. This book takes you on an emotional journey. You have a daughter who is trying to impress her estranged mother while at the same time dealing with her childhood love who is now a soccer star. So we have Ashna who is struggling to keep her fathers restaurant afloat. Rico is her childhood sweetheart whose soccer career recently ended due to injury. They are partnered up on a celebrity cooking show. What I really enjoy is as Ashna and Rico work through their past we also see Ashna’s mother Shobis past relationship with Ashnas father. It’s a beautiful love story which shows how the past can affect our future in subtle ways. It’s not only a love story but also a story about a mother and daughter who learn to repair their relationship by dealing with their past histories. It is written beautifully and was a wonderful book. I received a copy from netgalley and this is my honest review.

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.