The Emma Project by Sonali Dev
I’ve been waiting with bated breath for the release of The Emma Project (Avon), Sonali Dev’s fourth book in her Jane Austen retellings series. With each book in the series — from Pride, Prejudice and Other Flavors to A Recipe for Persuasion to Incense and Sensibility — Dev treated readers to an emotional, witty, engaging tale that both paid homage to Austen’s original classic and made the story Dev’s own. With The Emma Project, once again Dev has wowed and wooed me.
Full disclosure, I was fortunate enough to read an early copy of The Emma Project; but knowing Dev’s attention to detail and devotion to her craft, I felt certain she would make tweaks and edits to the final manuscript that make her novel shine even brighter than the ARC (advance reader copy) I received. My friends, I was right. This book — a gender-swapped Emma starring Vansh and Naina and their feisty, angsty friends-to-lovers relationship — is romance perfection.
I’m guessing that Naina would probably describe what she and Vansh share as an adversaries-to-lovers relationship seeing as how from the beginning she’s determined to have nothing to do with Vansh or anyone in the Raje family. Her stance is understandable, given her tumultuous history with the eldest Raje brother. If you’re wondering about that history, I’ll direct you to Incense and Sensibility (Book 3 in the series), also equally as grabby and swoony and un-put-downable. Like the others in this series, with The Emma Project, Dev put her unique spin on a classic romance and had me engaged from page one.
RIGHTING WRONGS AND FINDING ROMANCE
In The Emma Project, we meet Vansh Raje, youngest son and golden child in the Raje dynasty. He’s witty and charming, dashing and debonair, committed to righting wrongs and doing good in the world. Everything has always come easily to Vansh, unlike for Knightlina (Naina) Kohli, who grew up under the gloomy shadow of her monstrous father and browbeaten mom. She has worked tirelessly, overcoming every roadblock in creating her microfinance foundation with a mission to help bring economic freedom to women across South Asia. Her focus has always been on her work, never on romance, especially not with a much younger man who also happens to be a Raje. Of course, if Naina wants nothing to do with Vansh, you know what happens … the two are forced to work together if they want to receive much-needed funding for Naina’s foundation and Vansh’s new pet project, homelessness in the San Francisco area.
As always, Dev is brilliant at weaving real-life issues into her story. Abuse, homelessness, anxiety, economic woes in the U.S. and in South Asia, they all lie at the heart of character conflicts and goals in believable, realistic ways. As Naina and Vansh dance around each other — her dodging his attention, him intent on breaking through the icy veneer she uses to freeze others out and protect herself — we find ourselves rooting for them. Swooning over their steamy, hidden, forbidden romance. Cheering on their causes. Our hearts breaking over their hidden pains and past hurts. Sighing with satisfaction as these two eventually achieve their hard-earned HEA (happily ever after).
The Emma Project caps off Dev’s series in a remarkable manner. It’s a book that will find its place on my Keeper Shelf, beside the first three. One I’ll take down now and again because I can’t resist revisiting with Vansh and Naina and all the Rajes. In my opinion, that’s a sign of a well-written, satisfying romance, and that’s exactly what Dev gifts us with.
