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