Ashna Raje fears losing her restaurant, her connection to her late father, his legacy. Ending up on a reality cooking show with her first love was not her solution, nor his preference, as he’s moved away from that life to become soccer star Rico Silva. Old wounds open and heal in this second of the Raje series, a standalone novel in itself. If you like Jane Austen or not, Dev’s take on her work is fresh and delicious, with moments that take your breath away, as when Rico saves Ashna’s toes from being severed by her dropped chef”s knife, diving across the room and damaging further his career-ending injury. Dev makes romance novels more accessible to those of us who don’t prefer them by making the stories credible and the characters delightfully flawed, yearning and yet drawing back, again and again until dear reader is just as frustrated. I didn’t read romance until I won a set of novels by Sonali Dev. There’s so much more going on than the steaminess and sexual tension, although there’s plenty of that amongst the dynamics of family and friendship and careers. I highly recommend this book and basically anything by Sonali Dev. I was fortunate to receive a digital copy from the publisher William Morrow Paperbacks through NetGalley.