Book Review: The Rajes Series
Sonali Dev has completed a four-part romance novel series that riffs four Jane Austen novels within the extended family and friend group of the Rajes, an Indian American family in Northern California. Dev also has a four-part Bollywood romance series, finished in 2017, and a stand-alone called The Vibrant Years that will come out on December 1st of this year. Dev grew up in Mumbai and now lives in Chicago with her family.
Book 1 is called Pride, Prejudice, and Other Flavors, and was published in 2019. This is a gender-swapped version of Pride and Prejudice with Dr. Trisha Raje in the place of Darcy and Chef DJ Caine in the place of Elizabeth. Trisha is a no-nonsense person focused solely on her work, and so she comes across as cold and arrogant to those who don’t know her kind heart. Because of this book’s version of Wickham- who appears as Julia Wickham and was Trisha’s good friend for a time, Trisha thinks that she’s no longer welcome in her family because of the harm that Julia caused. It takes sparring with headstrong DJ to realize that maybe her only really fault to begin with was miscommunication. DJ knows who he is and what he wants but lacks the funds to set up his own kitchen and help pay his sister’s medical bills. In this classic enemies-to-lovers story, the two help each other with their issues as they also look inward. This book was an instant like for me because the writing is good, the audiobook narration by Soneela Nankani was perfect, and Trisha and DJ had instant chemistry that leapt off the page. They’re both kind-hearted characters whose lack of good communication skills land them in some trouble, but they’re still very likeable people. The book has enough of Austen’s Pride and Prejudice to be recognizable without being a stale copycat; enough content is modernized and changed that the story still holds up on its own without prior knowledge of Austen.
Book 2 is Recipe for Persuasion, published in 2020, and follows Ashna Raje in the place of Anne Elliot and Rico in the place of Frederick Wentworth. Ashna comes from a good family (a cousin to the four main Raje siblings) but has fallen on difficult times financially as she tries to keep her father’s restaurant afloat after his death. She and Rico were secret high school sweethearts who parted after a misunderstanding and are meeting up again a decade later on a celebrity cooking show. Rico, now a famous and recently- retired soccer/football star, is the celebrity darling of the season and his chemistry with Chef Ashna creates an internet sensation. Persuasion is my favorite Jane Austen book, so it wasn’t hard for me to instantly like this retelling. The bits of behind-the-scenes information of the cooking show and meta references to Persuasion were really fun. Ashna’s anxiety was very relatable and Rico’s scheming makes for good drama. We also get to know the larger Raje family a bit better, making it easier to follow their family dynamics. This book is a solid sequel in this Austen-inspired series, and Nankani continues to provide great narration in the audiobooks. I’m especially glad to have gone the audiobook route for this series since I probably would have mis-pronounced some of the supporting character names in my head if reading an ebook or paper copy.
Book 3 is Incense and Sensibility, published in 2021. The story follows India and China as Elinor and Marianne Dashwood, Yash Raje as Edward Ferrars, and then we finally get some queer representation as China’s Willoughby and Colonel Brandon are women characters- though China’s romantic arc is definitely second fiddle to India’s. India is a mild-mannered yoga instructor trying to save her family’s home and business as they are overwhelmed by the mother’s medical bills. China is a feisty TV producer that we met in Book 2 in her celebrity cooking show, who thinks she knows what she wants in life until it gets turned upside-down. We’ve also met Yash previously, the eldest brother of the primary Raje family, who is running for governor and has been putting his personal life on the back burner for ten years. We learn early on that he has a fake dating set-up with Naina, this novel’s version of Lucy, and that complication makes his interest in India that much more difficult. Yash and India had initially met at a party ten years before but didn’t pursue a relationship because of some miscommunication. Now that they have a second chance, they need to get past their personal issues before they can succeed together. This love story is definitely more of a slow burn than books 1 and 2 of this series, less popping chemistry and more adult lessons and realizations. China also gets some massive character growth, though I don’t think her natural feisty-ness is necessarily a bad thing. I don’t recall any sex scenes in books 1-3 but it felt especially lacking in this volume since India and Yash’s romance is more of a constant low-burning flame rather than a crackling fire; I could have done with a longer gushy ending even if there’s no sex.
Book 4 is The Emma Project, another gender-swapped retelling published this past May 2022. The youngest Raje brother, Vansh, is the trust fund baby with the most charm and the least respect among his family. His international charity missions are seen as an excuse to travel the world and party, so Vansh returns home to California to make a name for himself in order to gain the respect he so desires. He finds a benefactor who has already promised all their funds to Knightlina (Naina) Kohli, who we met in the previous book as Yash’s fake girlfriend. The pair fall in love as they first resentfully work together under their benefactor, with Naina providing the experience Yash needs to mature. However, this installment was easily my least favorite because I couldn’t get over the poor behavior that both main characters exhibited. Naina was reasonably well-behaved in this book, but she said and did some truly awful things to Yash in the previous book that she never truly repented for. And Vansh also distributes manipulative behavior towards someone in desperate need of Vansh’s help. These two seem to be willing to go to any lengths to get what they want, not taking care to avoid crushing others underfoot. I enjoyed the sub-plot romance of Esha and Sid much more, so I wish they had been the main focus instead. Esha is a cousin to the main Raje siblings who lives in the Raje household, and Sid is India’s brother- the heroine of the previous novel. Their romance was very sweet and unproblematic, and I would have loved more time spent with them.
Overall great series by Dev and I would definitely read more by her.
