Solid 4 star audiobook. Well crafted Second Chance Romance, but relies on miscommunication/lack of communication throughout the book, which might be irksome to some readers. I borrowed the audiobook from my library and read the first 10% of the ARC, but I won’t be buying my own copy. This contrasts with my feelings about Naina Kumar’s first book—I can’t wait to re-listen to Say You’ll Be Mine.

First, let me clear up Library Journal’s review that called this “Grumpy & Sunshine” and “mostly closed door.” Both MCs were very guarded about their feelings for the other, but were never unkind. They were very similar, neither grumpy & sunshine nor black cat & golden retriever.

In terms of spice, there was a full open door chapter, it wasn’t slow burn, and Kumar should be commended for including STI/contraception/consent discussion without using the word “clean.” It’s 3/5 spice.

Other background details about the book:

Hurricane is clearly inspired by Harvey (2017). Author clearly lived through it or had family/friends who did. Read with care if you’ve been impacted by flooding.

Seven years ago MCs eloped in Vegas. Book jumps back and forth between when they dated and lived together (married), to six years later (present) when she comes to Houston to get him to sign divorce papers.

FMC Meena, 31, Lobbyist/attorney in DC with aspirations for political office. First generation Desi (Indian-American), born & raised in Houston.

MMC Nikhil, (no age given), when dating/first married he worked in construction, had dropped out of college; Meena doesn’t know what he’s doing for a living now. Half Desi, half White, moved around a lot as a kid.

My thanks to Ms Naina Kumar, Dell, and NetGalley for the eARC. I wish I could’ve finished the ARC before it expired 11/1. Opinions expressed here are my own.

Marriage-in-distress tropes always put me on edge, but I can’t resist their emotional pull—and Flirting with Disaster by Naina Kumar is no exception! This heartfelt story had me hooked from start to finish.

Seven years ago, Nikhil and Meena woke up in Las Vegas... married. They gave life as husband and wife a shot for a year, but Meena eventually left Houston to pursue her dream career in D.C. Six years later, she’s ready to finalize their divorce so she can fully move on. But her plan to get Nikhil’s signature hits a major snag when a hurricane traps them together in close quarters. As the storm rages outside, old wounds resurface, and Meena is forced to confront a difficult question: does she leave with the divorce papers—or with renewed hope for their marriage?

The present-day storyline is a delightful comedy of errors, full of laugh-out-loud moments as the pair navigate the chaos of the storm. Meanwhile, flashbacks reveal the heartbreaking "tragedy of errors" that doomed their marriage, rife with missteps and missed opportunities to communicate. Nikhil absolutely stole my heart with his quiet longing and the ways he’s held onto pieces of his life with Meena over the years. I found myself shouting, “Just talk to each other!” while reading, but the payoff was worth every ounce of frustration.

This book is a perfect blend of sweetness, humor, and heart. I especially appreciated the Indian American representation, from cultural nuances to Nikhil’s experience as biracial. The caretaking moments, the humor, and the emotional depth made this a standout read for me.

A huge thank you to NetGalley and Dell for the ARC of Flirting with Disaster!

In Flirting with Disaster, the story follows Meena who is a successful woman in a relationship living in DC. The problem is…she needs a divorce from her husband, Nikhil in order to advance her political career. She returns to Texas and the situation gets pretty complicated. I enjoyed the characters and I appreciated their growth throughout the story. The book is beautifully written and there’s a natural disaster, difficult family dynamics, hard conversations, forgiveness, and romance.

Read if you like:
🛶 Second chance romance
🛶 Sweet Home Alabama reimagined
🛶 Forced proximity
🛶 Indian American characters

ARC REVIEW: thank you to Dell Romance and Naina Kumar for my e-arc.

Flirting with Disaster by Naina Kumar
🩷genre: contemporary romance
🎧format: audiobook / ebook
🔥spice: open door
🗓️Available now

📌Book includes: second chance, forced proximity, marriage in trouble

I really enjoyed Naina’s debut in 2024, Say You’ll Be Mine. So when I saw that she was coming out with another book, especially inspired by Sweet Home Alabama - I knew I needed it immediately! I loved the forced proximity elements of this book and the tension that the storms brought to the story. Marriage in trouble and second chance romances are some of my absolute faves! And while I really like Nikhil, Meena really bothered me with some of the choices she made throughout the story. I didn’t feel like she was always being fair or thoughtful towards Nikhil. I have a hard time believing that these two will really have their happily ever after.

This book is a gorgeous example of what second-chance romances are all about: being loved not despite change but with all the additions change brings. The way the characters grow, and their love reworks itself to make space for everything that has happened to them during their time apart, to me, feels like the way trees develop rings as they grow, and each ring holds different events, but they all contribute to the continued and overall growth.

If you like the premise of Sweet Home Alabama, a woman so sure of herself and what she wants but is adamant that her past is restricting her from an ideal future, then you’ll like this book.

If you like stories about women trying to understand how internalized perceptions of who they should be have hurt them in the past and try to stop those internalizations from skewing their future. If you like romances where the main characters rewind and learn from each other’s perspective of the ups and downs of their love. If you like care taking, forced proximity, missed interpretations of what helping one another looks like, and giving both love and your home state another shot.

Then you will love this book.

I really loved this book. I think Kumar has just launched herself to the status of an auto buy author for me. Both of her books have been emotional in a way that I've adored, complete with character development for days, plus they're sexy and full of chemistry. Flirting with Disaster is a Sweet Home Alabama inspired novel, but it is also very much its own thing. It takes the premise of SHA in that it's about Meena returning to Houston to get a divorce from her husband, whom she hasn't seen for seven years. But then the two of them wind up having to survive a hurricane together and the way that this man has pined after her for SEVEN years... Y'all, my heart. And the angst!!! So good.

Nikhil and Meena found love young. Fast forward seven years and they live in different states, lead different lives. But when a hurricane hits Houston when Meena planned a quick visit, they’re pushed back together and the forced proximity make them work through many of their issues.

I didn’t love the way their backstory was threaded in each chapter, it felt distracting - and at times like a drag.

A cute Sweet Home Alabama reimagining! Love that the FMC is career driven and successful but still realizes her desire for love/affection in a partner. I found her to be very relatable! 2nd chance romance is one of my favorite tropes, but it has to be done well for it to make sense and feel genuine and this book definitely did that! Very sweet and easy read.

Thank you to NetGalley and Naina Kumar for an ARC in exchange for an honest review!

This was such a well done second chance romance!

I thought Nikhil and Meena had great chemistry, and I rooted for them from the start!

While it definitely had a miscommunication trope, I felt like it wasn’t the entire point of the couple’s problems - sometimes a quickie marriage in Vegas is hard to make last when you don’t know each other well enough! I loved seeing them fall back in love with each other. Sweet Home Alabama vibes but Indian is so accurate for this one.

Marriage in Distress is a trope that always stresses me out while reading but I still end up loving the story in the end, and Flirting with Disaster by Naina Kumar definitely falls in line with that!

7 years ago Nikhil and Meena wake up and find themselves married in Vegas. They lived together as husband or wife for a year but haven't seen each other in 6 after Meena leaving Houston to go after the DC career she's always dreamed about. But in order to fully reach her goals, she needs to finally get divorced and finds herself locked in with Nikhil when she doesn't realize her trip to get him to sign the papers coincides with a hurricane coming. And as the storm goes on and the pair have to finally talk about their past, Meena isn't sure if she wants to leave with the signed papers or with there still being a hope for her marriage...

The present storyline is a comedy of errors with every crazy thing that happens to them during the course of the storm, and we see the past play out as a tragedy of errors with every misstep and miscommunication during their marriage. Nikhil made my heart hurt in the best way and died of swooning when we see how much of his life he's tried to keep the same in the years without Meena. I found myself going "GAHHHH" while reading just wanting them to communicate. But this was a super sweet story and I loved the Indian American representation (especially seeing Nikhil talk about his experiences being half Indian half white), the caretaking, and the humor in the story.

Thank you NetGalley and Dell for an arc of Flirting with Disaster!

naina kumar never disappoints! a sweet home alabama-esque romance set in houston during a hurricane? sign me tf up!

after a drunken night in vegas, meena and nikhil wake up married. though they were far off from a sober decision to get married, they decide to stay married and live together. cut to 7 years later.

meena and nikhil haven't seen each other in years, and have been separate for longer, but their divorce hasn't been finalized. when meena decides to run for congress with her boyfriend shake/abhishek, she has to finalize the divorce. when nikhil ignores all the divorce papers she sends him, she decides to fly down to houston to force his hand, in person. unfortunately for meena, luck is not on her side and the day she flies in is also when the airports shut down in anticipation for a hurricane.

so the two are forced to stay in nikhil's house together. just the two of them. together. for the entirety of a hurricane. which are at least a week in case you didn't know.

while this book only reveals meena's inner thoughts, we learn a lot about nikhil through his dialogue. when meena and nikhil separated 7 years prior, they're at two different points in their life -- meena wants to advance her career, and nikhil, who has a steady job as a contractor, feels he's holding her back. they go their separate ways and the feelings *seem* to be mutual, according to meena. as the book progresses; however, we learn that nikhil is a bit more reluctant than meena to sign the divorce papers. paired with the fact that they're rained in together, might as well attempt to resolve all of their unresolved relationship issues, right?

while meena's character has moved on from houston, now residing in dc, this book is absolutely a love letter to houston. meena falls back in love with houston the same way she does with nikhil. hurricanes in houston are no joke, and though the hurricane is simply a tool to get meena and nikhil together, we also get the full hurricane experience: from rowing boats in flood water to help out a neighbor, to stepping in a pile of ants that have created an ant raft, boarding up the house or getting sick, this book covers it all, highlighting how the community looks out for each other throughout. it's especially interesting reading this part through meena's eyes, as someone who works as a public servant and wants to run for a public office.

the family dynamics at play were so interesting! meena's older sister gets pregnant at 18 and raises that kid as a single mom, which makes meena feel like she needs to be hyper-independent and never fail at anything so that her parents aren't stressed about two kids. and meena's dynamic with shake, her boyfriend in dc, is nice because he's not just written off as a jackass and bad partner.

i hope it's clear that i absolutely *love* this book the same way i love houston, excellent read that will not disappoint.

This book needed to be edited down significantly. I really love the basic idea of the story, and Kumar did deliver some parts of this story with depth, and other parts with a delightful reinterpretation of Sweet Home Alabama. However, it is a "tell" rather than a "show" kind of story, with the narrator rambling about her motivations for pages. Particularly in this moment in time when this is published, it is hard to convince me that a budding politician is a sympathetic character. I think the most frustrating thing about this, and what separates this from romance novels that I would rate higher is the absence of Meena's parents, sister, and niece. If they are such a significant force in her life, they needed to actually be present in the book somehow; at least, more than the chapter at the end when her sister was tacked on. I really think this book had potential, and because of editing, turned out to be an "OK" story rather than a great one.

LOVED - representation of Houston weather!

Enjoyed - cast of characters in the neighborhood during the storm. I actually wish we saw more of them!

Meena is going full steam ahead with her political ambitions, but there is one issue she must resolve…finalizing her divorce. Hopefully a quick trip to Texas and paying her ex Nikhil a personal visit will finally have him signing in the dotted line. What Meena doesn’t see or realize until she lands is that Houston is under a hurricane warning and she is stuck in Houston with Nikhil until the storm passes. The two must learn to work together, communicate and weather the storm. Hard truths, uncomfortable feelings and all. What will the state of Meena’s and Nikhil’s relationship be once the hurricane is over?

Encounters with fire ants and a cottonmouth, some entertaining neighbors and harrowing storm, this is more than just a second chance romance.

The concept of this book drew me in straight away and I was very excited to read about Meena and Nikhil and their second chance romance. While I did enjoy the story overall, I found it to be a bit flat I still enjoyed it, and will recommend.

I hate miscommunication more than any other trope, but especially when a relationship fails because of it. This book was poignant and sweet, and my heart literally breaks for Meena and Nikhil- they wasted so much time where they could have been together if they'd not been so caught up in their own issues and insecurities. Reading about their past failure to communicate needs and then getting to see them actually talking about the issues was so satisfying. Thanks Netgalley for the e-ARC!

The premise of this book was promising, and I loved the idea of reading a book that is like Sweet Home Alabama. But sadly it fell a little flat for me. I enjoyed the tropes, and the angst, but there was zero communication. Or barely any there. They were very cute together, But they went from 0 to 100 real quick without much changing. I do love me a taking care of them when they’re sick trope! Overall it was sweet but I was just expecting more. More talking, more growth, more development and just more!

Such a cute one! I snagged this immediately because of the Sweet Home Alabama parallel and I'm so glad I did! I will absolutely be picking this one up and annotating my copy! SWOON

I enjoyed the premise and plot of this book. The idea of two estranged, still married exes being stuck together during a hurricane had so much potential! However, the character development fell a little flat for me, and something didn’t totally work for me about the writing style. Meena was so obtuse in her denial of Nikhil’s desires and feelings for her that I didn’t find it quite believable.

Flirting with Disaster

If you loved the movies Sweet Home Alabama or the Notebook, then I have a book for you!

Meena is a success lawyer and she has big plans - political plans on Capitol Hill that require she takes care of a teeny tiny issue she hasn’t resolved in 8 years….her marriage. On a timeline, she flies to Houston to get her husband, Nikhil, to finally sign the divorce papers. Unfortunately, she ends up at their old house right when a hurricane hits and the two get stuck in the house together. But Nikhil isn’t willing to sign the papers right away and old feelings come to light. The two have to decide whether to reconcile or officially go their separate ways for good.

This was my first book by Naina Kumar and it did not disappoint. The second chance tension was lovely and I’m personally all about a man who yearns for years without giving up.

As an ambitious girlie who totally understands Meena’s drive, it hit close to home when she started to question what she wants for herself versus the accolades shes been trying to achieve due to other’s expectations. Success is a fickle friend. Other ambitious people pleasers will feel this one.

The author also includes discussions about natural disasters and details about the flooding the regularly happens in Houston, including home damage and displacement. There is diverse representation too, Meena is American of Indian descent and Nikhil is biracial white/South Asian.

Thank you Dell for the ARC and Prhaudio for the ALC

Vibes:
Second chance
Care taking
“I’ll fix myself for you”
Forced proximity
“I’ve always loved you”
Ode to Houston
Career vs love
People pleasing

This is a well written second chance romance that I think you’ll like. Meena and Nikhil fell in love and got married in Las Vegas. Meena always planned on living and working in Washington DC as a lawyer and she moved there after the marriage failed.
Now she’s ready to get an official divorce, so she goes to Houston to have Nikhil sign the papers.
Unfortunately, Meena didn’t realize that there’s a large hurricane bearing down on them. As they hunker down in the house together, Meena remembers all the reasons she married Nikhil in the first place. For his part, he never wanted to get divorced at all.
Can they get their relationship back?

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