[ARC Review] Love, Chai, and Other Four-Letter Words by Annika Sharma
Format: eARC
eARC provided by: Sourcebooks Casablanca and Netgalley
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Kiran Mathur knows her duty: eventually she must settle down and marry a respectable Indian man. But then Nash Hawthorne entered her life. Nash, with his dreams of helping children from broken families. Nash, with his adventurous spirit. Nash, with his white skin. Kiran knows what is expected of her, but Nash makes her feel, makes her dream, like she never imagined. But no matter what Kiran wants, she knows pursuing anything with Nash will only hurt her family. As Kiran fights her desire to be with Nash in favor of her desire to appease her family back in India, Nash has to contend with his own inner need to atone for his own family’s mistakes. In a sweet slow burn full of laughs and coy looks, Love, Chai, and Other Four-Letter Words is a fantastic will they/won’t they romance.
For me, the diversity in Love, Chai, and Other Four-Letter Words was top tier. The romance genre, in general, is drowning in white characters, so I absolutely love seeing other races and ethnic groups starring in romantic leading roles. And Sharma takes the diversity even further by not just having one non-white leading character; she wrote four wonderfully different Indian characters with vibrant personalities, strengths, intelligence, and ambitions. Sharma also gave a great backstory to Nash, with complicated feelings and emotions influencing his decisions and dreams. Kiran and Nash came from such different worlds, and were raised under such different circumstances, yet I loved that, underneath it all, both characters had the same motivation: to live their life as a result of their family’s past choices. Nash and Kiran were so different on the surface, but Sharma shows that true connection and belonging happens much deeper.
Kiran and Nash started off as strangers, Nash new to the city, and their journey from strangers to friends to something more was very cute and sweet to read. I was rooting for them both almost immediately after they met, but I also acknowledge how hard it would be for Kiran to fall for someone who isn’t the Indian man her family expects. The will they/won’t they question lingered through most of the book, but Sharma made their romance very much worth the wait.
I quickly fell in love with Kiran and Nash’s story, and I can’t wait to see what’s next in Annika Sharma’s Chai Masala Club series.
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