This is the last book in the Raje series. As we follow the baby prince Vansh and Naina. Though if you haven't read the other books this might ruin them since they build off eachother.

I love how these books are set in the Bay area. I lived in SF in a little apartment for 10 years so I can totally picture Naina's place. Her family life was so hard to listen to as she was never good enough for her father and he kept her mother afraid.

But the Rajes were the ideal family. Even though things didn't work out with her prior relationship they are still there. Vansh and her are both working on a project for funding and after something didn't go her way a very interesting steamy thing happened that I'm so curious about but need to drink a bottle of champagne to try to recreate the scene. They are so different but also have so many of the same interests.  They enter into a friend's with benefits deal that turns into something more but when the families find out it's just too much for her.

✨I loved that Vansh was focusing on homelessness in SF by helping to get their paperwork, IDs and help them get work and back into a home.

I actually work with a client who does this type of work I used to do facility visits it's amazing work. Not everyone on the street is there cause of drugs or alcohol or severe mental health.

The bonus love story for Esha was perfect. Her story has been so tragic and getting to see from her pov was also interesting.

Read if you like
✨ Age gap
✨ Friends to lovers
,✨ Funny banter

Thank you avonbooks and netgalley for the e-ARC for my honest and voluntary review.

I’m a big fan of the Raje family! This enemies to lovers story is about Vansh, the youngest Raje son, and Naina, who used to be engaged to his brother Yash. Yash is the newly elected governor of CA.
Vansh hasn’t settled down, and goes from working at one charitable organization to the next. Naina has been Yash’s friend for many years and she’s has been working on a plan to provide micro financing for women in Nepal.

She has funding from an eccentric billionaire who decides to share her funding with Vansh because of his brother and their shared last name. Naina is furious with him for taking her funding, especially after he names his project to help homeless people in SF after her favorite book, Emma. Eventually Naina realizes that working with Vansh is the only way they both can succeed, and the two start spending a lot of time together.

I loved all the characters and I learned a lot about the Raje family’s Indian culture. The writing flows until suddenly you’re at the end of the book!
I’m so sad that this is the last book of the series, but I’m looking forward to finding out what Sonali Dev has in store for us next.

Blurb:
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.

Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley I received a complimentary copy of this book. Opinions expressed as in this review are completely my own.

I was sad to learn that this is the end of the Rajes series, I love all these characters so much I wanted it to continue for longer! I had hoped Esha was going to get her own book and was assuming it would be Northhanger abbey themed. I am happy we got a conclusion for her though, since she had appeared in all the books. This was another great installment in the series, wrapping up a lot of the issues that had popped up throughout. I loved Vansh and Naina and that they both had issues to work out and discuss before they could get together. This was an amazing end to the series that made me so happy.

This is a fantastic book. It's not a beat for beat retelling of Austen's Emma, but it captures all the main themes, the inner conflicts of the characters, and the fabulous dynamic between Naina and Vansh. After reading Incense and Sensibility I had doubts about how Sonali Dev was going to redeem Naina and make me root for her, but I shouldn't have worried. I understood and felt for and with Naina the whole way. Loved the little cameos from all the other Raje family couples who we've loved along the way in this series and the entire world Dev has built around this family is just spectacular.

This is my favorite of the Raje series - and I don’t say that lightly. It is heart felt, romantic, heart wrenching, spicy, and it is a story for the ones who normally don’t get their side heard. The way the MCs are written is in line with their characters from the previous Raje novels, but with so much more depth and richness. I cried, I laughed, and I sighed.

Stand-alone - yes, but will be more satisfying if read with the others in the series
Sexy - yep
Well written - yes
Satisfying - 10/10

My only critique is that it is the end of the series and I. Want. More!

Also - can we talk about Esha? One of my favorites that I did not think would get an HEA? My heart is happy right now with this book!

I received an ARC courtesy of NetGalley and the publisher. The opinions are my own.

The Emma Project by Sonali Dev, book four in the Rajes series is a deeply layered enemies to lovers, age-gap story with a gender reversal, retelling of Jane Austen’s Emma. I enjoyed this very much. Vansh is so charming and relaxed, a total opposite to Naina’s uptight and closed-off personality. Naina has so many deep emotional wounds, and it was gratifying to see how her relationship with Vansh opened her up and allowed her to heal. Entering this story I was unsure of my feelings toward Naina after reading the previous story. However, this book really put things in perspective, especially how she had been treated by Rajes siblings. This story was able to put her into a more positive light, making the reader fall in love with her. Vansh also surprised me, appearing more mature and responsible than the carefree youngest presented in prior stories. His passion about solving the housing crisis in San Francisco and his wisdom and advice made him appear older than 26-years old. This is supposed to be an age-gap romance yet Vansh and Naina treated each other as equals in all ways possible. The side story featuring the Raje cousin, Esha, and her relationship with Sid made up for them not getting an entire story featuring only them. Their relationship was so sweet and you have to love how interconnected this family is.

Sonali Dev wove magic into her fourth Jane Austen-inspired novel, allowing her readers to connect with her characters, while adding an irresistible Indian-American flavor to her storyline. I love how Ms. Dev’s is able to blend light and dark into her stories. She allows her characters to be flawed and dealing with everyday, real-life things: pesky emotions, familial expectations, love, insecurities, and friendship. I highly recommend The Emma Project to other readers.

I voluntarily reviewed a complimentary copy of this book.

For some reason I thought that this book would be a closed door romance, and for that reason I could not enjoy it. Being a reader/ reviewer of closed door/ clean or sweet romance I can not properly judge this book.

I have to be perfectly honest-- I love Emma, I love Emma retellings, and I love the Rajes family. Sonali Dev does this thing where she dances between the genre of romance, and like, family drama fiction, and it's been a bit of a mixed bag for me so far. I was really looking forward to this final Rajes book, especially because of the Emma of it all.

However, I guess I was little bit underwhelmed. I loved the idea of gender-swapping their personalities, and I do feel like the Emma and Knightley essences are there. And yet... I struggled with Naina and Vansh's chemistry. It felt like the book lost steam about 3/4 of the way through, and I pushed to the end purely for Esha's small storyline.

All in all, I would recommend this read to anyone that enjoyed any of the other Rajes family books, but I wouldn't necessarily recommend it to any Emma fans. A solid conclusion to this series, but not something that I believe stands alone.

I don't know where to start! The Emma Project had so much heart throughout the story. I loved the passion the main characters had not just for their work, but that their work was making the world better.

Esha's story could be it's own novella. I enjoyed her part in this story, but there is so much more that could be told.

There are parts of the story that didn't give the right closure. That storyline ended without quietly such as ending their relationship with Jiggy.

I smiled, laughed and teared up reading this story. This is one of my favorite books of 2022.

Thank you to NetGalley, Avon and Harper Voyager for the digital copy to read and review.

Naina deserves so much better. Every single person in this book other than her was absolutely awful. Naina needs to leave behind her family and this community and never look back. Vansh is a vain man-baby who at 26 should have some semblance of maturity but no, the "baby prince' (yes that's his nickname) just created problems and then wanted credit when he found a solution to the problem he started. The problem with Emma retellings is that Emma is the villain in her story. In this book Vansh was the Emma character and I found him absolutely obnoxious. Part of the charm of Emma is the cast of eccentric characters and this book traded delightful eccentricity is for mean and abusive family members. It's a no from me. I will not be going back to read the rest in the series and likely will never read this author again.

By far the steamiest of the Raje books, and I loved every second of it.

I have really enjoyed this series over the past several years, with flawed but human characters, poignant and important themes, and moments that made me laugh and others that made me cry. It's bittersweet to see it come to an end, but leaving Naina and Vansh's (and Esha and Sid's!) story til last was great because it was truly a culmination of everything that happened in the series. It was wonderful seeing them get their happy endings and having the chance to say goodbye to the entire cast of characters. Unless we can convince Sonali Dev to write Northanger Abbey and Mansfield Park retellings as well...

Thank you to Avon and Harper Voyager via Netgalley for providing an eARC in exchange for an honest review. All opinions expressed are my own.

Just like all of Sonali Dev's other works, this one is not a let down!

The modern retellings of classic stories are always so well told and I love how all of the stories in the series were intertwined.

There are lots of emotions and heavy items mixed in this story, but it's definitely one that I loved!

I have always been a fan of Sonali Dev books, especially when she writes Jane Austen-inspired retellings. I love all Jane Austen books so I know I am going to enjoy reading Sonali Dev books as well.

I don’t know why, but I really got annoyed with Vansh Raje’s side of the family. I don’t understand why they are being cruel with Naina when it’s not even her fault. Yes, I understand they may have felt duped when they discovered Naina and Yash faked their relationship for years. But that’s on them. They both had their reasons, and there is no need to take it up with Naina. There were two people involved, Naina, and Yash. No one else. And then throwing Yash's brother, Vansh, into the mix is just messy.

I think the Raje family needs to take a really good look at themselves before judging anyone. She never did anything wrong. Besides that, I enjoyed their story. It could have been better if the Vansh Raje family had behaved better.

It was interesting to see how the author tied her story to another Austen novel, and also even more interesting how she brought Naina and Vansh together. At times, I wasn’t certain the story was working for me (were the Raje sisters always such mean girls?), but Sonali Dev has such a gift of weaving her stories together. Also, Esha’s story? YES!!!!!

The Emma Project is the fourth book in The Rajes series.

These Jane Austen retellings have been fun. I loved that this was a gender swap of Emma. I enjoyed watching Vansh and Naina come together and the way that they fought to make it work. The family drama and the way some of the family behaved made my eye twitch.

I recommend checking this out if you're looking for forbidden love and age-gap romance.

Thank you to NetGalley and William Morrow for providing me with an advance copy in exchange for an honest review.

This review was originally posted on <a href="https://booksofmyheart.net/2022/05/19/%f0%9f%8e%a7-the-emma-project-by-sonali-dev/" target="_blank"> Books of My Heart</a>
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<i>Review copy was received from NetGalley, Publisher. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.</i>

All the stories in the <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/series/254242-the-rajes" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><em><strong>Rajes</strong> </em></a>series, are smart and emotional.  I can't speak to the Jane Austen aspects as it has been too long since I read those books.  There is a twining of personal growth and evolving relationships, along with the daily aspects of life and careers.

There is only one unattached Raje brother remaining, Vansh.  He has been a world traveler for causes, working for the Peace Corps and other organizations.  We learn why he is such a passionate defender of those who are innocent or marginalized.  He's the youngest and his family is supportive and protective of him.

Naina is feeling anxious and a bit displaced. She is no longer the fiance of the future governor of California, which stabilized her world and relationships for a decade.  She finds her lifelong friendship with the Raje family clouded and her financing in jeopardy.  Her own family is just another fight for her.

As lifelong friends, Vansh and Naina have strikingly similar agendas with helping others in need. But the friends turn into sort of enemies when Vansh's project threatens the funding Naina has worked for years to obtain.  Surprisingly, their skills sets are very compatible in building non-profit projects though.  And they are compatible in other ways as well.

We see some of the family but especially Esha who has lived with her grandma and the rest of the Raje family since her parents died when she was 8.  She has had visions and a strong empathy ability to feel all the emotions of those around her. She would often blackout if anyone touched her, even her loving family, from the emotional intensity.  She meets someone and we get to see her learn how to "read" people and interact without feeling their emotions. Her growth, opening up and learning to be with people, is a compatible layer along with Naina's constant struggle to block all her feelings so she can't be hurt anymore.

I enjoyed the personal growth of all these characters and peeks at the people from other books. The relationship development was not just those of a romantic nature. There was growth in understanding with family and friends as well.

Another Austen work of art from Sonali Dev. She's the whole package from her storytelling genius concepts, to her branding and how she presents herself as an author. She's always an auto-buy for me for sure. She writes the most delightful rom-com's that always leave me satisfied. Fantastic!

Watch my Amazon Live interview with Sonali here: https://amazon.com/live/broadcast/c8a831a9-6a6a-4699-8940-43e037e391d7?tag=erinmbransco-20&linkCode=ilv&ref_=social

Thank you to Netgalley and Avon for the digital review copy! I really wanted to enjoy this book, but unfortunatley it is not for me. The opening scene, a rotating wall of characters coming in to make out with each other, felt a bit too silly and confusing to follow. It was a weird way to bring the characters from previous books all into the same space, seemingly just to remind us they exist, and made it hard for me to get a grasp on the story from the start.

Even as we settled in with our main characters, I found some aspects of the writing difficult to connect with. Comments about every woman in the room melting and putting a hand on their womb when a guy speaks kindly about his mother, for instance, did not work for me as a reader.

I'm sure readers who enjoy a dual POV romance and Jane Austen-inspired stories would enjoy this book. It just isn't a good fit for me.

I am declaring this fourth installment in The Rajes series as my favorite! Why? Because Vansh and Naina make excellent adversaries-turned-something-more in The Emma Project.

Yes, Vansh has a magnetic personality that attracts people but he also makes them feel safe and heard. When you look past the Raje family legacy and the looks, there is an authentic soul in that body. He's someone who's strived to prove himself beyond the Raje name to find his life's purpose. Naina is not quite charismatic nor does she care to be. At the moment she's still dealing with the fallout from the revelation of her fake relationship with Yash. The press feels sorry for her, the Raje family are all but giving her the cold shoulder thinking that it was she who manipulated Yash all these years. None of those problems compare to what is currently her biggest problem which is working with a finicky benefactor who revels in power trips. Naina's had to deal with difficult men all her life, her father being the worst of all. She has a strained relationship with her parents, especially her father who's disappointed he never had a son, and who is only ever worried about his status in the community. He's essentially a bully to her and her mother, and her mother has never fought back. Now she's facing another man who wishes the pull the strings as far as her life's work is concerned. The last thing Naina wants to do is allow even an inch of space for Vansh to step in and take away her access to funding. But when it looks like there's no other option, she grudgingly agrees to work with Vansh to share the funding and hopefully out-maneuver their patron.

Out of all the Rajes novels, I consider The Emma Project to be most like a rom-com and it's definitely due to Vansh's personality and Naina's often biting retorts to his attempts at charming his way through things. He's irresistible and is quick with the one-liners as well. I think I enjoyed this best of all because their chemistry ignites from the word "go", which made me realize that it's been a while since I've felt that kind of spark in the characters I've read recently. This is friends-to-lovers or better yet, frenemies-to-lovers with Naina obviously viewing Vansh as her competition in acquiring the financing she needs for her project.

Romance aside, there's also a good amount of time spent on how women are viewed and how Naina's had to overcome both her father's disappointment in not having a son, and his ambitious desire to have his daughter married off to a family that can elevate his standing, and specifically his ego. She has grown up in a household where women are torn down and stripped of their own desires. She saw the maltreatment her mother silently accepted. Naina has refused to be that kind of person. She wants to be a stronger woman who doesn't need a man at her side because a man would only demand she give up what she loves. But her father has also demonstrated how men behave and she's learned her lesson well, using that to work around her oftentimes misogynistic benefactor.

It was an absolute joy to read The Emma Project and I'm still smiling about it. Sonali Dev gives you heart and soul in her storytelling and it's been a privilege getting to know The Rajes. I'm glad this series is ending on such a high note!

Have you met the Rajes yet??

I have so enjoyed this Jane Austen inspired series that follows a large Indian American family and the love lives of the four grown children. In this story we get to know more about the youngest Raje, Vansh, as he comes back to California after working overseas for years and finds himself falling for his brother's much older than him former fake girlfriend, Naina.

Naina wants nothing to do with the Rajes after her ten year relationship with Yash came to an close, unfortunately she ends up competing with Vansh for money from her father for her charitable organization. Sparks fly as these former friends become enemies and then more when they give in to the sizzling chemistry and try to pull off a secret friends with benefits situation.

Of course things don't stay secret for long and soon all of Vansh's siblings are weighing in on his and Naina's relationship. Can these two overcome the seeming obstacles stacked against them?? You definitely want to find out. Bonus, there's also an extra love story between two side characters that I REALLY enjoyed.

This was a great dual perspective, open door love story perfect for fans of Farah Heron, Sara Desai or Sajni Patel. Add this to your tbr if you enjoy family drama, secret office romances, grumpy/sunshine pairings or reverse age gap relationships. Much thanks to NetGalley and the Avon for my advance review copy.

CW: toxic parental relationship, dyslexia-related self-confidence issues