Thank you NetGalley and Berkley Publishing Group for providing me an e-book copy of THE SINGLES TABLE to review.

I LOVED Zara and Jay - their opposites attract story was interesting, funny and ended with loyalty to each other.

Zara is a free-spirit, much to her mother's disapproval. Jay, the military veteran with PTSD, is set in his ways, ready to make his security company top-notch. Zara wants to meet celebrities to help the law firm where she works. Jay just wants to block out relationships in order to not get hurt again. Both want to help out their families.

The paintball scene (yes, there's paintball!!) was hilarious and it helps set the stage for the two to get to know each other.

I enjoyed their personalities and their devotion to their families. I did become frustrated with Zara near the end of the book. I thought by that point she had become unafraid of love, but she still had growing to do!

I loved their chemistry, sizzle, fire and funny moments. I thought author, Sara Desai, hit another one out of the park.

I rate THE SINGLES TABLE four out of five stars.

This book will be enjoyable to fans of Sara Desai's Patel family series but newcomers should start with an earlier book in the series to fully appreciate it.

This book surprised me in the best ways. My first time reading Sara Desai and it won't be my last. I received an arc for this book and dug right in!

Zara Patel is a lawyer who on the side works as an unofficial matchmaker (don't tell her Aunties). She is definitely quirky and fun. She lives like at full speed, except when it comes to her love life. When it comes to relationships she doesn't do them, any more. After her parents' disastrous divorce she believes that love never lasts. That it eventually leaves.

Jay Dayal is ex-military, current CEO of a security company and the only thing on his mind is his mom and his business. His father was never in the picture and he grew up in poverty. So now he only concentrates on how to make sure he is successful and never has to worry about money ever again. He also loves his mom with all his heart and would do anything for her. Despite promising his mom he would find a wife, he has no time for love or relationships.

So when Zara and Jay meet, it isn't a bed of roses. They are total opposites and although they won't admit that they find the other attractive, they are definitely not each other's type. But Zara thinks he is someone's type and decides to help Jay fulfill his promise to his mom and help him find a wife.

What happens with these two is so fun to watch. I love reading diverse characters so reading about these Indian-Americans and their families and relationships is even better. The fact that they are from San Francisco (where I'm from) doesn't hurt either.

Sara injects enough snark, steam and fun into this book that keeps it moving at a great pace. The friends, or maybe frenemies?, to loves trope doesn't get too stereotypical. Zara's aunties are some of my favorite characters. They inject so much humor and levity to the book that I love when they pop up. I am ready to read the rest of Sara's books!

First of all, I didn't know it was a series but it can be read as a standalone.

The cover, the idea of singles table, the shaadi season - everything seemed so fun and I feel it could have been better especially if it had been toned down a bit in terms of exaggeration of aunties and their behaviours, everyone getting horny at the weddings, no one caring about the groom/bride and especially with the matchmaking. I know that was the main thing, the aunties matchmaking but it seemed like a failed humorous attempt. Let's be real if there were really so many young people ready for matchmaking and aunties actively and successfully creating matches, the singles table wouldn't even exist.

It began with a promising start, Zara's character is shown as this energy-buzzing, chaotic, lively person who pays little heed to others opinions and has a positive outlook on life despite of her difficult life situations. She meets Jay at a paint ball bachelor party, their first interaction was cute. Though Jay's description was very cliche. It's the shaadi season so they have unexpected encounters which were humorous and enjoyable.

After that, it got boring for me. They form a liking for each other. <spoiler> Both have commitment issues, but all of a sudden the I-don't-talk-feelings Jay is all lovey-dovey and the I-love-everything Zara is suddenly afraid of relations.

And because everything is going too smoothly, there comes two conflicts in a row. Jay and Zara stop talking until Zara realizes, he is the ONE. So she rushes after him, full bollywood style - racing cars full of relatives to the airport and confesses her love for him. </spoiler>

AND THEY LIVE HAPPILY EVER AFTER.

It was very similar to typical bollywood movies and there is nothing wrong with that if you enjoy those. I am just over the repetitive tropes and cliches so this book was not enjoyable for me.

I love a good enemy to lovers’ trope and after absolutely LOVING The Marriage Game, I could not wait to read this one. Overall, I really enjoyed the book, but it did not have the same magic as her previous book. Zara was smart, energetic, while Jay is pure serenity. I truly enjoyed the various characters and the amount of diversity in the story. The combination of both characters was charming, with funny moments, but nothing that I can say I fell in love with. Would I recommend this story, absolutely. It’s an easy breezy novel that you take on vacation, but in my opinion it was missing the spark that The Marriage Game had.

I really liked the story and the chemistry between the two main characters. It was well-paced and had aa good dose of humour.
I received an ARC and am voluntarily leaving an honest review.

Thank you, Berkley Publishing and #NetGalley for giving me a copy of The Singles Table in exchange for an honest review!

3.5 stars rounded down.

A cute story about Zara, the boisterous lawyer and lover of matchmaking singles during Desi wedding season, and Jay, a workaholic tech CEO and ex-military man who does NOT have the time to meet his match. When Jay agrees to introduce Zara to his celebrity clients in exchange for her working her matchmaking magic - opposites attract.

I enjoyed the dual POV in this book, and seeing the characters develop in different ways through Zara and Jay's perspectives. I'm a sucker for knowing the feelings the characters have for one another before they open up to each other. I was hesitant to like Jay in the early part of the book because he came off very cold and cranky- but as the book progressed his character loosened up I liked him a lot more! I found Zara's character growth to happen slowly, than all at once at the end. It was a lot to process for a second but it was still a great read!

CW: PTSD, panic attack, cancer, car accident, divorce.

Another very cute story from Sara Desai. I really enjoyed getting to know Jay and Zara and how well the story developed. I do wish we had a bit more interaction from earlier couples but still a great story!

Thank you to netgalley and the publishers for providing me with an arc for an honest review!

I read The Dating Plan from this author and loved it! This book didn’t engage with me as much as that one. Enemies to lovers is always hit or miss for me and this one just didn’t work.

I love Sara Desai's books. They are funny, rich in culture, hot as hell, and all of her characters are fully developed. The Singles Table was my favorite so far. I can't wait to read more.

I don’t know if a free-spirited lawyer shooting an obnoxious former military security specialist in the rear end with a paintball technically counts as a meet cute, but it was definitely enough to have me fully entertained and invested in seeing what happens between the protagonists of Sara Desai’s latest romance, The Singles Table.

After a bad break up, attorney Zara Patel has decided she’s done with trying to find love for herself. Instead, she’s going to focus on her career and on what she believes is her special gift, matchmaking. She plans to help her friends find romance during the wedding season and prides herself on her success record when it comes to matching guests at the singles table. That is, until she meets sexy but surly Jay Donovan, a security specialist with no time or interest in finding romance. Jay, a former military guy, is all about order, staying focused and working hard on his business. He has no idea that a paintball to his rear end during a pre-wedding paintball match is about to turn his world upside down. When Zara and Jay keep finding themselves at the singles table at wedding after wedding and Zara brags to Jay about her matchmaking prowess and confesses that she’s a little obsessed with celebrities, they end up making a little wager. If Zara can find Jay a match, he’ll introduce her to some of his celebrity clients.

Zara has this vibrant, larger than life personality that Jay can’t help but be captivated by, no matter how much he tries to tell himself she’s just annoying and too chaotic for him. And even though Jay comes across as rigid and gruff when she first meets him, Zara finds herself seeking him out at every wedding. I’m a sucker for a grumpy/sunshine romance so Jay and Zara’s often hilarious interactions were like catnip for me and I loved watching their relationship evolve, especially since they have such amazing chemistry and the more Zara interacts with Jay, the more she starts thinking maybe she doesn’t want to match him up with someone else.

Sara Desai’s The Singles Table was such a fun read. Jay and Zara’s journey, the festive wedding celebrations, and the meddling aunties who hound Zara throughout the wedding season, all made for such a delightfully entertaining and heartwarming read. If you’re in the mood for a grumpy/sunshine romance, The Singles Table is the perfect match for you.

The Singles Table is the third book in The Marriage series by Sara Desai. If you like light-hearted, laugh out-loud, steamy, quick-read romances this series is for you! I love that the books can be read in order or stand alone individually! And can we talk about the covers? Some of my absolute favorites to grace my shelves!

The Singles Table follows free-sprinted (and somewhat unconventional) attorney Zara, who has accepted her fate of playing match maker for others, but love not being in the cards for herself. As the wedding season kicks off, she is bound and determined to find a match for a fellow guest seated at the singles table: former military, now security specialist Jay. Jay is no nonsense, hardworking, laser focused and has absolutely no time for love. Zara is quite simply everything he is not. Undeterred by their polar opposite natures, Zara strikes Jay a deal. There’s nothing more she’d like to do than represent celebrity clients in court and Jay has connections… a match in exchange for an introduction. But will their deal lead to a match for Jay? Or bring the two closer together?

Goodness, there really is just something about the grumpy sunshine trope, am I right? And a dual perspective romance at that!! I absolutely loved the banter between Zara and Jay, these two had me laughing out loud! Zara’s antics are absolutely hysterical and watching Jay realize her energy is just what he needs in his life had my heart gushing. Then throw in the perfect amount of steam, celebrity encounters, paintball, and… a zombie party? The Singles Table is a joyous ride! It’s safe to say I am eagerly awaiting whatever Desai writes next.

This book was HAWT!! OMG Sara Desai wasn't wrong when she said this book is sexier than her other books. I liked how funny it was and loved reading it!

I have been provided with a review copy of The Singles Table from NetGalley for an impartial review. This is the third book in the Marriage Game series and I just loved getting to reenter this world. I was just drawn into this wonderful story and I just couldn’t get enough of it. It was just so easy to get lost in this great story. I can’t wait to see what’s next from this author.

The Singles Table is laugh out loud funny with kooky, yet believable, characters and situations. I couldn’t help but fall in love with Zara Patel, her family, friends, and co-workers. From their first meeting at a bachelor/bachelorette paint ball party, where the serious former Air Force pilot turned corporate security specialist, Jay and fun-loving Zara clash over their team’s goal—she just wants to have fun while he wants to win at any cost—to the epilogue, I was charmed and entertained by them and the colorful cast of supporting characters.

It’s wedding season and all single men and women are seated at the Singles Table, so Jay and Zara have plenty of opportunities to see each other at the weddings of mutual friends and family, but neither is very impressed with the other. Jay is very focused on expanding his corporate security business and being a successful businessman, he’s a no-nonsense guy who has no time for fun or romance. Zara, on the other hand is all about living life to the fullest and enjoying every moment. It is very rare that romantic comedies with kooky, kind of over the top heroines, appeal to me, most just aren’t very funny and come off feeling forced. I didn’t think this one would be any different, but I was wrong. There was so much more to Zara than partying and making a spectacle of herself, she wasn’t acting out or seeking attention, but genuinely living her life her way and having a blast, with a touch of avoidance and commitment phobia thrown in.

Both Jay and Zara have family issues that have affected their work and personal goals, but in very different ways. The author handles these issues deftly, in ways both poignant and hilarious. The Singles Table is a good time.

Let me be the first to say that Sara Desai literally puts the ‘comedy’ in ‘romantic-comedy.’ The Singles Table was ridiculously funny, over-the-top, and adorable, as expected with all of Sara’s books in this series. (This book is an Adult Romance for 18+ readers btw!) Jay and Zara are truly hate-to-lovers excellence and I loved following their shenanigans. This may be my favorite out of all three books in the Marriage series, if not tied with The Dating Plan. This book isn’t as connected to The Marriage Game and The Dating Plan as these two books were with each other, so you don’t have to read the first two books to enjoy this one. Nevertheless, I loved all the easter eggs we got from the first two books, like Taara & Mehar Auntie and Faroz LOL.

First of all, I LOVE Zara so much. She’s so incredibly funny as a main character in an Adult Romance and I was fully laughing out loud following all the hijinks she was getting into. I love how unapologetically herself she is and how she fully owns her over-the-top personality. After seeing so many South Asian women in western media be portrayed as this “subdued” type, I definitely appreciated her vivacious character (the same goes for Daisy and Layla, too). I also love that Jay fell in love with her because of her personality and didn’t shy away from it at all (as I imagine most brown men would IRL). All the chapters in which he was talking about how she stole his heart because of her personality was so cute.

Speaking of Jay, South Asian authors really need to stop writing about brown men named Jay/Jai that keep stealing my heart omg. I loved Jay’s journey with trying to manage his PTSD and how he wasn’t even ashamed of claiming that he had PTSD from serving. Mental health is almost always swept under the rug with South Asian communities, and I really appreciated how honest he was with himself, and ultimately with Zara. I also adored his relationship with his mom!! They have the sweetest relationship and I found it so cute how protective he was of her.

I think the only reason I knocked this book off one star is because nothing really happened in this book to be honest? The previous two books had major points of conflict between our main couple but here there weren't really any tangible points of conflict throughout the book. It kind of followed this repetitive pattern of Zara and Jay hanging out with neither of them admitting their feelings, and then Jay realizing he liked Zara and trying to tell her, followed by Zara running away because she’s scared of her feelings and Jay chasing after her trying to convince her that what they have is real. I think I would have appreciated a bigger/more serious conflict during the climax scene as well, because it felt like they ‘fought’ (if you could even call it that) over nothing.

Ultimately, I definitely recommend this book if you’re looking for a laugh-out-loud South Asian rom-com! I really hope Sara has more books planned in this series. Below is my favorite snippet from the first few chapters of the book in which Zara and Jay first meet. I was truly dying of laughter during these scenes.

Sad to say that I didn't enjoy this one, and I think Sara Desai's writing might just not be for me. I think it was the line around 50% of the way through, 'open for me, sweetheart', that really killed off my enjoyment because just ick. The other book I read by Sara had a similar male figure, massively cliched macho man. I also really, really disliked Zara, and so it was always going to be a battle to enjoy the book sadly. It wasn't for me.

DNF'd at 33% - the writing was too over the top and the characters felt like caricatures of people so I couldn't connect to the story

Sara Desai knows how to write ridiculous and outrageous characters in such a loveable and fun way which made this book a win for me. Though I liked it much more than The Marriage Game, it wasn't quite as good as The Dating Plan.
This is a grumpy/sunshine enemies to lovers romance book following Zahra, a free-spirited and energetic lawyer, and Jay, a serious veteran who now owns a security company. The two meet as opponents during a paintball game and soon forge a tense bond where Zahra will search for a relationship for Jay, because his mother wants to see him with someone, and Jay will introduce Zahra to his famous clients.
A kind of flimsy premise they are mostly together by the time either of them are in a place to fulfill their end of the bargain, but it's cute nonetheless.
Things I loved: Zahra. She is such a fun character but there is also a ton of depth and background to her that makes her so real. A lot of authors try for the fun-loving eccentric lead but they often make them caricatures. I felt like Zahra was a perfect example of this done well.
I also love Jay and his backstory. This is a cute romcom that deals with deeper topics like PTSD and I thought Desai handled it well. I also am a sucker for a grumpy/sunshine book and this couple is just the epitome of that. Their love for each other shone off the page which is what I most want from a romance novel.
The things I didn't like so much: I felt like a lot of the side characters veered too much towards ridiculous. The aunties and Zahra's co-workers for example were just way too much. This is also a petty complaint but there was no Layla/Sam or Daisy/Liam in this book. They were only mentioned once even though the author has the perfect opportunity to show their wedding. Since Layla and Daisy were so close, it made this book seem set apart from the first two in the series and it was kind of out of place.

If you want to laugh out loud one page and swoon the next, check out this stunning book by Sara Desai.

This is, by far and away, my favorite Sara Desai book yet! I absolutely loved this one--full of banter, and fun, and laugh-out-loud moments, it reminded me a bit of The Hating Game (another recent read of mine). As a lawyer myself, I also love that Zara shows us that not all of us fall into a mold, and you can be yourself even in an old-school profession. Zara is entertaining without being annoying, which is a hard balance to achieve for quirky heroines. Some are so hot mess you can't stand them but Zara truly has her sh*t together while still be quirky.

I think with the previous two books I was experiencing romance burnout reading them back to back, but having a little separation before reading this one elevated the experience. This one was also pleasantly steamier, and the chemistry between the two leads was off the charts!

Thanks to Berkley for my eARC! All thoughts and opinions are my own.

5 stars - 9/10