Partners in Crime by Alisha Rai

This book is a lot of wacky and requires a LOT of suspended disbelief but, if you can buckle up for the ride, it's awfully fun. 

Amira Patel (actually, Mira) ran away from most of her family, changed her name, and became an upstanding citizen. Of course, not having a "good family" is hindering her matchmaking prospects. In the past two years, she's been out with thirteen men, all introduced to her by Hema Auntie, one of Los Angeles's premier Indian matchmakers. She was accepted because her good friend's mother is a former client of Hema's and vouched for her. She dumped all of the first twelve but now the thirteenth has dumped her. She knows she's not getting any more matches. Not from this matchmaker. Which stinks even worse because the one family member, her aunt, that she was in touch with has just died leaving her alone in the world. Mira is shocked to hear her aunt left a will and even more shocked when the attorney ends up being her first match. The one she dated for six months and then basically ghosted after a short text.

Naveen Desai is shocked to see Mira in his office. He thought they were done for good. He's even more shocked when she is attacked in the parking garage and the attackers take him as well. 

This starts Mira and Naveen off on an adventure that will have them running all over Las Vegas, dodging shady FBI agents, and uncovering Mira's past. There is a lot going on in the book and, if I think about it too closely, there are a lot of thing that were left dangling but I really enjoyed the read. 

Updated to add that the audiobook is absolutely amazing. The narrators are just... perfect. 

Four and a half stars

This book comes out October 18, 2022

ARC kindly provided by Avon and Harper Voyager, and NetGalley

Opinions are my own

Reread as audiobook January 2023

First Comes Like by Alisha Rai

Jia Ahmed is on top of the world. Or at least her social media feed says so. In truth, she feels old. She was an early influencer and is now feeling like all of her best ideas are behind her. While recovering from a recent illness, she reconnected with a man she met online, a soap opera star who is part of a Bollywood dynasty. He's recently been put off meeting her but she knows that he's in the States and is going to a party as a part of the role he took on a US TV show. So, she decides to go. But the man, Dev Dixit, doesn't seem to want to acknowledge her at all.

Dev isn't sure who the beautiful woman is who approaches him at a party but she seems to know him. He is astonished when she runs away. But he ends up tracking her down (which, it's built into the story that he would leave her be if she had said so, but she doesn't, so not as creepy as it could have been - a sign of Rai's mastery.) Through an odd series of events, they end up pretending that they are in a relationship. 

I really, really liked watching the relationship between Jia and Dev develop. They are both so aware of each others feelings (sometimes the feelings are misinterpreted but they are at least aware) and both just want the other to be happy so each works toward finding that goal for the other.

Four stars
Follows Girl Gone Viral
This book comes out February 16th
ARC kindly provided by HarperCollins and Edelweiss Plus
Opinions are my own

Girl Gone Viral by Alisha Rai

Katrina King grew up with an abusive father who pushed her into the spotlight. She married a much older man to get away. When the man died, Katrina was left a fortune that she quickly developed. She also struggled with agoraphobia but has largely conquered it. She enjoys her life and her routines. That's what makes her new notoriety so heartbreaking. She shared a table with a guy in a coffee shop, shared several sentences with him, all of which were captured by an enterprising blogger, and now the world wants to know who she is and whether their meeting has led to an epic romance. Katrina wants none of it. So she escapes with her bodyguard to his family's fruit farm.
Jas just wants to keep Katrina safe. Yes, he's been her bodyguard for almost a decade. Yes, he's developed some feelings for her that go deeper than what a bodyguard usually feels but that doesn't mean he's going to act on it. He's just going to do his job and keep her safe.
But this is a romance novel. So that means that means forced proximity might force some of those feelings to make themselves known....
I really liked the first book in this series and that may have placed my expectations a bit too high for this book. This is a fine story and I liked Katrina but the bodyguard trope (which, to be fair, Rai doesn't exactly follow) is not a fave. There was also a lot of concentration on Jas's back story and it felt a little more weighted to his backstory than hers.

Three and a half stars

Follows The Right Swipe

Followed by First Comes Like
This book comes out April 21st
ARC kindly provided by HarperCollins Publishers and NetGalley
Opinions are my own