Deceiving book description.

Exes/second chance. One night adventure. Sharing a bed.

The story starts when they main characters are exes, having dated 3 years ago when she unexpectedly breaks it off. Her aunt died months ago, and now they’re stuck in a mafia-like plot to recover stolen items before they both get killed. But they’re far from engaged or lovers for the first half+ of the book.

I became a loyal Alisha Rai fan after reading her Modern Love trilogy, and while Partners in Crime was definitely a deviation from that series, I still thoroughly enjoyed it. This is romance mixed with suspense, as Mira and Naveen find themselves tossed into a crime caper courtesy of Mira's family, whose less-than-pure background she has kept hidden. While the suspense is genuine, there are also many laugh out loud moments - which is no surprise if you follow Alisha Rai on any of her social media accounts, as she's genuinely hilarious. The chemistry between the main characters sizzles on the page, and I couldn't help but root for this second chance at love story. I certainly hope we get to see more of these two, but even if this is a standalone, it's still a delightful read.

Alisha Rai is one of my go-to authors when I want an emotional, sexy contemporary romance. So when this book came up for review I snapped it up. The blurb sounded fun and I was all in for an adventure romance.

Blurb:

"Indian Matchmaking meets Date Night in this fun, romantic adventure in which a match-made couple about to be engaged gets caught up in a caper that puts their future—and lives—in danger.

At thirty-five, with a stable job as an accountant, Mira Chaudhary wants nothing more than to find a boring man to spend the rest of her life with. Having had enough excitement in her younger days and desperately trying to escape her dysfunctional past, she turns to a matching app specializing in Indian American singles to help her find someone to settle down with.

Enter Naveen Desai. An English professor with an uneventful, normal, and—dare she say it, boring—life, Naveen is perfect.

But just when things are going well, Mira receives news that her aunt has died. Suddenly a trip to Las Vegas to settle her aunt’s affairs turns into a mad dash to escape kidnappers, evade art thieves, and consorting with hackers who can decipher just what it was Mira’s aunt was involved with. Mira just hopes that Naveen isn’t chased away by the very same life of “excitement” that she’s been trying to get away from. But maybe, over the course of one wild night, Mira and Naveen will find the love connection that neither expected."


It must be said that this blurb doesn’t accurately reflect this book. I don’t know if the storyline changed in edits and the blurb was never updated, or… I don’t even know. But this is definitely a second-chance romance. Despite the blurb giving the impression that Mira meets Naveen through a matchmaker and all of a sudden they get caught up in a caper, the truth is they had been matched years prior and are reacquainted when she is called into finalizing her aunt’s will. That’s another thing, the blurb states that Naveen is an English professor, which he isn’t, he is her aunt’s lawyer.

The rest of the blurb is pretty spot on, they get caught up in a mess that her father created and spend the majority of the story running around Las Vegas trying to figure out why they were kidnapped, what Mira’s father stole, who is after them, and how to get out alive and with none of their family harmed. They encounter jewel and art thieves, spend some time in a strip club, and work with a hacker friend of Mira’s to uncover clues. This really is an adventure romance/romantic suspense, so much so that I kind of felt like the romance itself was left on the back burner.

There is also a whole lot of angst and drama in these characters’ backstories, which makes their relationship messy. They do start to trust each other again over the course of the book and act as a team, which leads to something more (and a signature Alisha Rai super hot love scene). The HEA is well done, and I get the impression that maybe Mira’s sister might get her own story, which would make me happy.

All in all, I did have fun reading, but I spent some time confused at the beginning.

This is the perfect book if you're someone who loves romance but are also looking for just a little more action and adventure with it. The main plot is solid enough to feel like has some weight but is also light enough at the same time that I never felt overwhelmed by it - probably because I knew it would have a happily ever after. I definitely did not see the final plot twists coming at all and was pleasantly surprised by them! However, I did confused at times by all the different family dynamics - while there weren't a lot of main characters, it took me some flipping back and forth between pages a few times to keep family members straight. Overall, this was a cute light read and I would recommend it!

Partners in Crime was one of my favorite books of the year. As an Asian woman herself, this book offered great representation and I was able to easily relate to it. Alisha Rai's writing has always been good and even better in this book.

This book really just took me for a ride. I loved the build up, the character development, and the writing. I would definitely read more from this author!

I received a copy of this book for review from NetGalley. This is the action and adventure romance I was craving. Naveen and Mira had a complicated history, but that added a decent amount of internal conflict for each character. The plot was wild, twisty, and read like the very best action movie (think Date Night vs Red). I enjoyed the sheer competency of each character, the way they stand up for each other, their love of each other's non-Hollywood standard bodies, and the way that they took this opportunity to really examine why they didn't work the first time. I enjoyed the heck out of this book, and I hope that Alisha Rai re-visits this world again.

Alisha Rai really knows how to suck you in. We start off on a less than enthusiastic set up by an Indian Matchmaker. Shortly after Mira is meeting a past boyfriend who is the lawyer for her late aunt's estate, which then turns into a wild run from the bad guys. I really enjoy these light romantic suspense novels. A little bit of crime, a little bit of running but a whole lotta fun.

Naveen and Mira have chemistry, and it shows as they're bonding for a second time while on the run. I enjoyed the glimpses of Mira and Naveen's family and was pleasantly surprised about the twist.

Partners in Crime by Alisha Rai was such a fun read for me. This was my first time reading romantic suspense and I quite enjoyed the blend of romance with a more action-packed, high adrenaline storyline.

The story follows Mira Chaudhary, a 35 year old accountant who is trying to break away from the dysfunctional antics of her family, and live life on her own terms. All Mira wants at this point in her life is to find a nice guy to settle down with, so she turns to an Indian matchmaking app in hopes of finding her perfect match. In the midst of her dating adventures, Mira learns that her aunt has died and that she needs to meet with her aunt’s attorney to discuss her inheritance. Imagine Mira’s surprise when she arrives at the attorney’s office, only to discover that the attorney is none other than Naveen Desai, Mira’s very sexy ex. Then, as if the situation isn’t awkward enough, Mira and Naveen are kidnapped from the parking lot. Even after they escape, tensions escalate both because it becomes a race against the clock to figure out what the kidnappers want and where it is, and also because there’s definitely unresolved sexual tension between Mira and Naveen.

I was thoroughly entertained, both by the prospect of a second chance romance as it becomes more and more clear that Mira and Naveen have feelings for one another, and by the high stakes action-packed kidnapping storyline. The kidnapping storyline is especially fun as Naveen and Mira are forced to work closely together and their adventure is filled with unexpected twists and turns, involving hackers, a stolen necklace, and seemingly endless secrets from Mira’s family’s past. I really liked both Mira and Naveen too. I admired the fact that Mira wanted to break away from her clearly screwed up family, and I also enjoyed the fact that Naveen wasn’t scared off by the troubles that obviously surrounded her family and instead, stuck by her side to help her get out of the mess her family has gotten her into. I don’t want to give anything else away about their adventures, but I’ll just say it’s a wild ride!

If you’re looking for a fun romance with an action-packed storyline that will keep you guessing and on the edge of your seat, be sure to check out Partners in Crime.

Contemporary romance. Own voice - Indian. Second chance.
Mira knows her dysfunctional family is keeping her from making a match with a suitable partner. Getting kidnapped with her first rejected match has Mari and Naveen on a crazy quest through Las Vegas. She broke his heart the first time around, but the more he learns about the real woman, the less concerned Naveen is about the past.

Running, searching, clues and conspiracy. Maybe even the mafia. Mira and Naveen are caught up in a mystery they can’t walk away from. And every clue has more of Miri’s past exposed and twists that surprise and delight.
Engaging and absorbing.
I don’t know if it’s a series but their is an intriguing hook at the end that leans towards that.

This was my first Ali Rashi book and it was so good I couldn't put it down. I was expecting a cute rom com and got a adventurous suspense on top of that. The twists and turns had me on the edge of my seat the whole time. The main characters were layered and had me wanting to root for them. All the supporting characters added to the storyline and were charismatic.

This was a bit more of a thriller than your average rom com but that actually worked for me! I really enjoyed the way that Naveen and Mira had to learn to work together as a team in order to get themselves out of the sticky mess they found themselves in. I also can sometimes find mystery kinds of books predictable, but this one had twists that I didn't expect at all! Really enjoyed, just like all of the other books by this author.

I am a huge Alisha Rai fan and this book did not disappoint. I was captivated from the first page. The pining was on point. The characters dynamic was perfectly paced and believable. The adrenaline kept running every time our characters faced a new hiccup in their night. Rai really outdid herself with this book. While I don't think the spice matched the buildup and was a bit of a let down, it is the appropriate amount of spice for this being a straight up romance book. Come for the great story stay for the awesome characters. The slight pepper is just a nice bonus. This is my fourth book by Rai and I will be picking up more.

*This review ran on 10/18/2022. A glitch resulted in the feedback not being sent sooner.*

Be honest and be yourself” is the dating advice given back when I was single. Partners in Crime is a rom-com that explores lying to your love and what happens when your lies implode.

Amira Patel is unlucky in love. Or unlovable. She’s not sure which it is but she does know that being dumped in a five-star restaurant and left to pay the expensive bill was not what she had planned for the day. When she gets a call asking that she deal with some paperwork relating to her aunt’s estate, she decides to drive to Nevada to handle it rather than having the stuff mailed to her in California. It’s a short trip and maybe coping with something much sadder will help her forget breaking up with a guy she didn’t love (but had hoped to marry anyway).

Naveen Desai is unlucky in love. He’s met two perfect women and both times, has been with them just long enough to start thinking of marriage right before they broke up with him. He’s now devoting himself to his scaled-back career, working hard to keep his Parkinson afflicted grandfather’s law firm viable while also taking care of his gramps.

When Naveen waltzes into the firm’s conference room to meet the heir of a late client’s estate, he is stunned to discover that the Amira he had once been in love with is the Mira Chaudhary listed in the will. After a brief, awkward conversation about the past, they agree to keep things professional and get through the paperwork quickly. They succeed and that should be the end of this unfortunate encounter but of course, it’s not. Minutes later they meet in the parking lot and Naveen discovers just why Mira had needed an alias.

Her father had been the worst sort of con artist, and Mira had wanted nothing to do with him or his business. She has built an honest, respectable life for herself far away from any of her family. The only person she remained in contact with was her aunt, someone who had also distanced herself from Mira’s father’s shady shenanigans. So when the thugs in the garage approach Mira demanding the return of a valuable necklace, she sincerely has no idea what they are talking about. Naveen walks in at just the wrong moment, tries to save her, and winds up tied up alongside her instead. Neither of them really knows what is happening or why but they do know one thing; they’d best work together if they plan to survive the night.

This is a classic caper romance, where our hero and heroine spend their time racing around trying to find clues as to where the jewelry is, team up with some interesting friends as they do so, and naturally fall (back) in love along the way.
I’m not going to say a lot about the plot except that it is meant to be campy and fun, not serious and gritty. It’s made as believable as one of these stories can be by the fact that Mira was raised by her father and had been working with him/for him since her pre-teens. She can pick locks, undo zip-tie handcuffs, play a mean game of poker, and shoot bad guys without breaking a sweat. This isn’t, however, the life she wants for herself. Mira worked hard in school, graduated college with an accounting degree, and very much wants the classic home with a white picket fence, husband, kids, and loving extended family that was missing from her childhood. She’s been working with a matchmaker to make that dream a reality but hasn’t succeeded and can’t figure out why. Spending this time with Naveen helps Mira realize that her inability to share her past with anyone has kept her from enjoying the present and building a future. I really liked that Mira has such ordinary dreams in spite of being such an extraordinary person and that the author writes her in such a way that I found her desires authentic, understandable, and relatable.

Naveen gave love a try twice and struck out both times. Since then, he has slowly built a better life for himself. Going to rehab for his drinking problem and quitting his demanding, high-powered job to work at his grandfather’s community law practice has helped him move to a better place both emotionally and physically. He is probably more ready for love and commitment now than he was in the past but he is wary of it. Spending this time with Mira helps him to realize why – he still loves her! It also helps him to understand why a couple with their scorching chemistry and deep emotional commitment didn’t work out – Mira hadn’t shared a key part of herself with him and her fear of someday having to do that was probably more behind their breakup than anything else. Once again, the author does a great job of creating a likable, engaging character whose genuineness serves as a great contrast to the exciting but unrealistic story she’s telling. This part of the book is near perfection – Naveen and Mira feel like people who could walk off the pages of the book and be right at home in the real world.

Their romance lacks some of the scorching sexuality that I associate with this writer, but that’s due more to plot constraints than a lack of chemistry. There is plenty of heat between Mira and Naveen once they meet again but that is understandably on the backburner until they deal with the big issue of the stolen diamonds. The HEA buildup works fantastically with this slow simmer – Mira and Naveen always had loads of sparks between them but something was missing from their emotional connection (or so we are told). Now that last piece falls into place to give them a wonderful, sincere romance.

The secondary characters are written rather two-dimensionally but that works because the focus is on the leads. Mira’s family, friends, and honorary uncles are (with a few notable exceptions) likable, interesting people who fit smoothly into the plot. The convenience of both their existence and roles in the narrative might have been a bit too opportune to feel anything like reality but that’s okay – this tale is meant to be fun and escapist.

My one real quibble with the story is the sheer, relentless unbelievability of it. For example, some big (huge, gigantic) issues are introduced with Mira’s family at the end. The kind of thing that shakes the foundation of what you believed about your life and forces you to re-examine your entire childhood. We don’t really get to watch Mira deal with the aftermath of that, which hammers home the almost saccharine nature of the text. But again, that’s a quibble.

Partners in Crime is pretty near everything that a rom-com should be – a lighthearted, occasionally silly, sometimes funny story with a delightful, heartwarming romance at its center. I thoroughly enjoyed it and think fans looking for a breezy, sweet contemporary will as well.

DNF at 40 percent.

This makes me really sad.
I love Alisha Rai.
I loved the Modern Love Series.
The plot for Partners in Crime was just a little too far fetched for me.
I did try to get into the story and have fun with it but I couldn't.

I will not be rating this title.

Thank you NetGalley and Avon Books for my advanced copy.

Rai’s first in a new series is the exact amount of romance and action I’m looking for.

Nothing says romance like a dead aunt with a will, running into the first match your matchmaker made for you that you dumped, a kidnapping, an illegal poker game, being chased by guys with guns, faking your identity to sneak into a nightclub, and still not finding this necklace the bad guys want. And… that’s not even everything that happens!

Rai really hit the mark with this fast-paced tale that has both heroine and hero going from California to Vegas and all over the place in one wild night. For me, a reader who loves action-adventure movies this was like an Indian Matchmaking mixed in with Romancing the Stone. The blurb selling it as a book with Date Night vibes is too true. Amid the romance and the comedic moments there are some seriously high stakes, and a deep plot.

From a character standpoint, Mira Patel comes off stand-offish from the get-go, but her life hasn’t been an easy one and she’s always had to hide her true self for the sake of wanting a normal life. Exactly why she ditched our hero Naveen Desai, her first match and a successful lawyer. He offered a life that would be far from boring.

Of course, fate has other plans, at least her deceased aunt does. When Mira gets the call that her aunt’s last will and testament is through Naveen’s grandfather’s firm she has no choice, but to reconnect with the one she ghosted. What starts as a mere chance encounter soon becomes an insane twenty-four adventure. When Mira and Naveen must confront things, they thought they knew about each other and about life.

This one started out a bit slow for me, but once the pace picked up it was rocking and rolling to the very end. Rai’s signature heat on the romance side of things eventually comes through, though it’s a slow ride to get there. There’s a well-developed plot threaded through carefully as well.

What kept this from a five, I was able to find places to put it down and walk away. This didn’t have me anxious to keep reading until the last thirty percent of the book. Also, there were times that Mira’s characterization irked me, especially when I got to the end of the story. It was a close call for me. For readers who love action threaded into the romance and don’t mind heroes and heroines who aren’t spies solving the mystery.

~ Landra

Mira and Naveen both are looking for calmer times. They wanted more normal...a boring normal in their lives. Too bad they are going to go on wild adventures together. Together ..something that didn't really work out in the past.
Man, what a great story this turned out to be! I fell in love with this one. Not only because of the main characters but because of the depth of their personalities, and the other different "characters" that show up in the story. They all kept me involved every step of the way. Dangers just pour out against Mira and Naveen but it was easy to not get overwhelmed. And the "explosive" truths at the end, "Yikes", so good!
Even the Epilogue had it's own gems of surprises!
This is a first time read for me of this author but now I will be looking for more of her stuff.

“I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.”

Fast read. It’s full of action from the start. Like-able leads and humor balance out the sad moments. Rai fans will not be disappointed.

I’ve been reading Alisha Rai for more than a decade now and I’ve always enjoyed her work but the last book I read from her and this one, I feel like something is missing even if I can’t quite put my finger on it. In some ways I feel like it’s passion between the characters, I miss those old days where you could tell from the first time the characters meet they want to rip each other’s clothes off. For me this book was a bit of a let-down because I went in to it thinking it was going to be a fun, sexy, second-chance rom-com and it wasn’t that, not even close. In fact it’s hard to describe, it had some suspense yet I never felt like these characters were truly in danger (it was almost too campy for that), there were some sexy times but they had no real passion, the characters fell back in with each other but they never really had a heart to heart or discussed the issues between them. It was actually kind of all over the place and all the while I kept waiting for more and that more never came. To top it off, one of the main reasons I don’t read mysteries and romantic suspense is because I can spot the “bad guy” a mile away, yep, I figured it out early on in this one too. While there was a bit of a twist I didn’t expect, it didn’t save the story completely for me.

Mira freshly dumped by the 13th guy the professional match maker set her up with gets a call about her late aunt’s will only to find that the attorney handling it is Naveen, the 1st man the matchmaker set her up with who she dumped after they were together for 6 months. Right at that point in the story I knew this wasn’t a coincidence (and I was right). As she’s walking away two guys try and grab her, Naveen tries to intervene and they are both kidnapped (can it be called kidnapping if there was no ransom demanded?). Anyway this sets off a whole slew of events each one a bit more unbelievable than the next until it is all wrapped up in a nice, neat bow at the end. Through it Mira and Naveen grow closer mainly because they only have each other to rely on and they both mend fences with their estranged siblings. There are a whole host of characters and steps they go through and yet we never really get to see them build a relationship, they just kind of fall back together. I honestly can’t even call this book a romance; there was nothing romantic about it even their so called relationship seemed more practical than anything and such a let-down.

I will continue to read this author’s work in hopes that at some point I will get a book like she used to write; sadly Partners in Crime wasn’t that book.

Partners in Crime was a bit of a departure from Rai's recent rom-coms, this one had a heist subplot which was new to me from Rai's work. In the midst of the drama, thieving and scandal, was Mira and Naveen's relationship. I love me some Second-Chance Romance and this was a great one at that. I loved all the tender moments between Mira and Naveen, and would have loved to see this plot without the other antics, however, Rai can still write a love story like no other - so I still enjoyed and would recommend.

Thank you to Avon for an advanced copy. All opinions are my own.