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Award-winning author Sonali Dev launches a new series about the Rajes, an immigrant Indian family descended from royalty, who have built their lives in San Francisco...
It is a truth universally acknowledged that only in an overachieving Indian American family can a genius daughter be considered a black sheep.
Dr. Trisha Raje is San Francisco’s most acclaimed neurosurgeon. But that’s not enough for the Rajes, her influential immigrant family who’s achieved power by making its own non-negotiable rules:
· Never trust an outsider
· Never do anything to jeopardize your brother’s political aspirations
· And never, ever, defy your family
Trisha is guilty of breaking all three rules. But now she has a chance to redeem herself. So long as she doesn’t repeat old mistakes.
Up-and-coming chef DJ Caine has known people like Trisha before, people who judge him by his rough beginnings and place pedigree above character. He needs the lucrative job the Rajes offer, but he values his pride too much to indulge Trisha’s arrogance. And then he discovers that she’s the only surgeon who can save his sister’s life.
As the two clash, their assumptions crumble like the spun sugar on one of DJ’s stunning desserts. But before a future can be savored there’s a past to be reckoned with...
A family trying to build home in a new land.
A man who has never felt at home anywhere.
And a choice to be made between the two.
Source: advance e-galley provided in exchange for an honest review
In her update of the Jane Austen classic, Dev not only flips gender roles - Trisha as Darcy and DJ as Elizabeth - she also spices things up with a diverse cast whose cultural backgrounds add interesting new layers to this story of privilege and stereotypes. Trisha may come from a family with a rich royal heritage and with all the conveniences to make her upbringing ideal, but that doesn't mean her life doesn't come with its own set of complications. She's a successful neurosurgeon who since a young age has always been able to identify a problem and set her mind to solve it. She prides herself on her work but the rest of her life is a different story. Her dating life is weird and her relationship with her parents is strained, to say the least. Still, as an ever dutiful daughter brought up to value family, she is devoted to them. DJ's history is complex for different reasons. After his father died, his father's racists family disowned him, his sister and his mother. His single mother then worked herself to the bone to support them before she passed away while DJ and Emma were still young. They were on their own then relying on the kindness of a family friend who provided shelter and a safe haven for them. When Emma gets sick and the only person who can help her is Trisha, DJ drops everything and relocates his catering business from England to the States so he can be there for her.
Trisha and DJ meet when he's catering her parents' event and it's not a meet-cute as they instantly rub each other the wrong way. It seems that with every encounter after that they manage to find new ways to unintentionally offend the other. DJ, a by-product of his tough upbringing and experiences, is a hardened character who doesn't have time for distractions or people who'd discount him so easily. He's sensitive about how he's perceived and this makes his personality a bit prickly. The trouble for him is that Trisha discounts him constantly while simultaneously making him mad for her. And she also happens to be Emma's doctor, the only person capable of saving his sister. Trisha herself is a bit oblivious as to how her demeanor and tone can put people off.
Along with economic disparity Dev includes current hot button issues such as colourism, racial profiling, and how successful career-driven women are perceived and treated in the workplace. There's also the ups and downs of family relationships. I took to Trisha right away. I liked her straight-forwardness and her dry humour but what makes her stand out is her unflappable confidence in her gift as a neurosurgeon. There's just something impressive about a woman who fights sexism in the workplace by simply being adept at her work and not rising to the bait when others try to ruffle her. The fact that she doesn't have it all together in every aspect of her life made her real to me. Same with DJ who's talented in the kitchen but is cool around people he's unfamiliar with. The bad guy, who has ties to Trisha, comes in the form of Julia Wickham as a sly, devious scoundrel who betrays people's trust during their most vulnerable moments. She's the worst and slimy to the core.
I knew I had to read this novel as soon as I'd heard about it. Sonali Dev impeccable at drawing you in to the story rather than leaving you there as a bystander. And let's talk about the food! DJ's French-Indian creations are mouthwatering temptations. If only I could reach in and taste some of them. As a retelling of the classic, it's fun to see it in a contemporary setting with what feels like a brand new cast of characters. I would LOVE to see this turned into a movie by none other than Gurinder Chadha (director of one of my favourite movies, Bend it Like Beckam). Can you just imagine how awesome that would be? Anyway, make sure you read Pride, Prejudice and Other Flavors while I pray that my wish comes true.
~ Bel
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Daniel Cumberland’s uneventful life as a freed man in Massachusetts ended the night he was kidnapped and sold into slavery. To then have his freedom restored by the very man who stole his beloved’s heart is almost too much to bear. When he’s offered entry into the Loyal League, the covert organization of spies who helped free him, Daniel seizes the opportunity to help take down the Confederacy and vent the rage that consumes him.
When the Union Army occupies Janeta Sanchez’s small Florida town, her family’s goodwill and ties to Cuba fail to protect her father from being unjustly imprisoned for treason. To ensure her father’s release, Janeta is made an offer she can’t refuse: spy for the Confederacy. Driven by a desire for vengeance and the hope of saving her family, she agrees to infiltrate the Loyal League as a double agent.
Daniel is both aggravated and intrigued by the headstrong recruit. For the first time in months, he feels something other than anger, but a partner means being accountable, and Daniel’s secret plan to settle a vendetta and strike a blow for the Union can be entrusted to no one. As Janeta and Daniel track Jefferson Davis on his tour of the South, their dual hidden missions are threatened by the ghosts of their pasts and a growing mutual attraction—that might be their only hope for the future.
Source: advance e-galley provided in exchange for an honest review
Alyssa Cole has made no secret of the fact that she had a hard time writing An Unconditional Freedom. I had an equally hard time reading it. Every page confronts you with the brutal truth about slavery. And when current events make you feel as if we're regressing, it makes this novel that much more imperative to read, here and now.
Daniel was born a free man and knows what freedom tastes like. He had a potentially bright future studying law but in the hopes of doing good for his fellow countryman, he placed his trust in the wrong people and was thus captured and sold as a slave. Years of mistreatment and witnessing evil upfront broke him to an extent. His heart and resolve hardened, he's determined to fight back now and bring about change. His reputation in the Loyal League is that of a lone wolf which he prefers so he's none too thrilled about the Loyal League foisting a new partner upon him. Janeta's own upbringing is a far cry from anything Daniel has experienced. Born to a former slave who ended up marrying her owner, Janeta is of both worlds. She's never known hardship, only that she is different. Her entry into the Loyal League is dubious as her agenda is to infiltrate them and spy for the South. Travelling with Daniel, she witnesses closeup the lives of those enslaved. This forces her to question her own indoctrination and discern who the good guys really are. More importantly, who stands to gain the most should the war be won or lost. She went into this to protect her family, and perhaps her naiveté made her easy to manipulate but now her allegiance is shifting.
Cole has injected a lot of the frustration and despair that's sprung up recently and poured it into her latest work. Combining history and a modern perspective, An Unconditional Freedom questions everything about why one person should feel superior to another. It highlights the economics and politics of slavery, and how lack of an education and literacy can be a weapon in suppressing a population. Reading Daniel's personal history in particular wrenches your soul apart.
Writing this book has been a labour of love and Cole has outdone herself here. There's no sugarcoating the history of a something as vile as slavery, a raw wound that just keeps reopening. An Unconditional Freedom doesn't allow you to turn away from it but invites you to learn from it in hopes that common sense, decency and an intrinsic belief in everyone's worth will always be greater than the evil that exists.
~ Bel
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Some bodies won’t stay buried. Some stories need to be told.
When seventeen-year-old Rowan Chase finds a skeleton on her family’s property, she has no idea that investigating the brutal century-old murder will lead to a summer of painful discoveries about the past, the present, and herself.
One hundred years earlier, a single violent encounter propels seventeen-year-old Will Tillman into a racial firestorm. In a country rife with violence against blacks and a hometown segregated by Jim Crow, Will must make hard choices on a painful journey towards self discovery and face his inner demons in order to do what’s right the night Tulsa burns.
As I get older I find that I don't read YA books as often as I used to so were it not for a venture into a local bookstore where I wound up chatting with one of the booksellers, I wouldn't have been made aware of what has turned out to be one of my favourite books of 2017.
Dreamland Burning is a suspenseful part murder mystery, part history lesson told through dual timelines. How Jennifer Latham connected all the dots still astounds me. Not only was she able to create a mystery that I couldn't get enough of, she also drew parallels between the highly combustible atmosphere of a city on the brink of self-destruction and today's current social climate. The story is split between POVs - that of Will in 1921 and Rowan today. Rowan, who decides to take on the mystery of the skeletal remains found on her property, couldn't have known how uncovering the truth from the past would impact her own life in the present.
Will's POV was a tough read and honestly, I was unsure about him initially. I thought he was a knucklehead but the fact of the matter is that he was simply naive and inexperienced. He did have the most dramatic character development where his inherited beliefs gradually evolved. His growth from that of a self-absorbed teen to that of someone with a conscience and desire to do that decent thing is perhaps my favourite part of the book. And it all happened because of an unlikely friendship.
Rowan goes through her own growth as well. Being the daughter of a black woman and a white father, she's observant of how people respond to her and her mother. As she's attempting to uncover who the skeleton was, she becomes embroiled in her own controversy. Drawing back the layers of the mysterious skeleton's history makes her reevaluate her sense of social justice.
While Will and Rowan are indeed fictional, Latham does reference the real event that incited the Race Riot that took place in Tulsa from May 31 to June 1, 1921. I looked it up and found disturbing images that made my stomach churn. Not many people know of this horrible event but I am thankful to Latham for bringing it to light in such a bold, engrossing and thoughtful story.
~ Bel
