This book is all I ever wanted and more.Nayna is an accountant. She enjoys romance novels. She wants to travel and see the world. NAYNA IS ME. Well, not entirely. I've moved out of home and I'm not part of the Indian community, but I am the good-girl, younger daughter who never went wild. Let's settle on Nayna resonating with parts of me I've never dreamed I'd get to see in print.
And RAJ. Oh goodness, Raj sounds delightful. He knows what he wants and he wants Nayna - but not enough to trample on her dreams or her needs. True, he does screw up, in a very Darcy-like way, but he also apologises heartily, again in a very Darcy-like way, and makes sure it doesn't happen again. Also, the book doesn't shy away from noting the P&P similarities at the time, which soothes the Romance-lover in me.
This is a wonderful story about two very different people trying to reconcile different dreams for the future while juggling family expectations and sibling drama galore. This could be an entire <em>season</em> of the masala dramas the parents love so much.
While I love Nalini's paranormal series (Guild Hunter and Psy-Changeling), I've come to appreciate her contemporaries because they never rely on a big mis to create drama or a deus ex to get to a happy ending. With Rebel Hard and the preceding Cherish Hard (admittedly, awkward names), Nalini proves you don't need a tragic past or traumatic event to cause romantic tension. The Rock Kiss series were all about the past holding people back; the Hard Play books are all about the future.
This reads well as a standalone, but even better in tandem with Cherish Hard as the two run in parallel
Five joyous stars.
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