Author Renee Savage

I try to read about 15 books a month. Sometimes I hit the goal, sometimes I fall short. Here are the books I read this week that I really enjoyed and I would love to share them with you!

Pride, Prejudice, and Other Flavors is a beautiful retelling of the classic Jane Austen novel (I’ll let you guess which one) through the eyes of Trisha Raje, a surgeon from a wealthy and influential Indian-American family, and DJ Caine, a chef whose sister needs Trisha for life-saving surgery.

As the novel is getting set up, you can’t really tell who is going to be who. Maybe smarter people than me could, but I could tell the author was burying it a little. DJ’s real name is Darcy, and he has a solitary sister, his only family in the world. Trisha has a big tribe of siblings who all have something to say and their own dramas unfold.

But it becomes apparent in the kitchen, at a party, who the real Darcy and the real Elizabeth are in the story when DJ overhears Trisha referring to him as “the help” and nearly destroys the caramel sauce he is carefully making. Their attitudes are set against each other from the start. Yet, they become increasingly intertwined through the surgery process only Trisha can complete on his sister and DJ’s continued employment to the family.

I really enjoyed the book, particularly the glimpses into both characters’ psyches, which is something the original Pride and Prejudice does not grant. You can see how behaviors that are repulsive to the other, made perfect sense within the mind of each character. I thought their backstories and motivations were really beautifully unveiled throughout the book (if not a little heavy-handed a times), so you did feel like you were slowly getting to see the full picture of a person throughout the novel.

There were only two things about the book that irritated me. The second is petty, so don’t worry about it.

The first is that the author frequently used tags for dialogue “is what I wanted to say” before actually saying what the character said. She wanted to show us that Trisha Raje has a hard time saying what she means, but she has an active thought life. But it felt disjointed largely because the “thoughts” were put in quotation marks and the real dialogue line was later in the paragraph. It would have been easier to keep track of the thoughts if they were italicized, so I knew what it was when I read it. However, this style of doing it felt very immersive mentally and feels like how we think when we are trying to say the right thing over what we truly mean.

The second is that this is a fade to black romance. Closed-door. I knew it would be when I got to about the 60% mark of the book and no hanky-panky happened, but it still disappointed me. This was very obviously not that kind of book, now that I think about it, but that tells you what I’ve been reading doesn’t it?

So the book overall isn’t very spicy, but it is very sweet and interesting. How she brings the story for Pride and Prejudice into the characters in unexpected ways kept me really engaged and I do think I will read the rest of the series eventually.

The next book I read was Love Lettering by Kate Clayborn.

I have actually been on a nosedive through Kate Clayborn’s backlist after reading her novel “Love at First” last month. I am obsessed with how she builds tension, reveals secrets, and connects people throughout her books. They’re perfect and wonderful.

This novel followed Meg, a popular hand-lettering artist who is confronted by Reid after he realizes she put a secret code in his wedding program. The wedding was called off and Reid needs to know how she knew the marriage was a mistake.

Feeling lonely in New York despite her recent success, Meg connects with Reid through walks around New York City, hoping to find inspiration for an upcoming project and help him fall in love with the place she calls home. As their own lives and secrets unravel, (including a plot twist I did NOT see coming in anyway!) their fledgling relationship is tested, but their commitment to letters and hidden messages sees them through.

It was great. Reid is a little stiff throughout, but you come to understand why near the end. He’s really sweet, but probably the best moment he has in the book is when he’s drunk at the bar, defenses down. He tells her how much he likes her and then defends her from a fight boiling over in the background. It is sweet in a way that drops right into the pit of your stomach, which is my indicator for a romance being set up properly.

Kate Clayborn writes really beautiful love scenes as well, which feel very sacred. She often mentions them happening in passing later in the book, which sometimes feels like a waste. (She is particularly notable for saying things like “we made love two more times that night” which drives me crazy because who does that.) She usually has one great scene and then references others. Sometimes not, but that was the case in this novel. I didn’t mind. I had a really good time.

My favorite thing about both these writers is their ability to keep a secret. From the reader, from other characters, and even the main character herself. As a writer, I struggle with this. I know everything and I can’t help but tell you about it. I really enjoy learning from writers like Sonali and Kate about how to be better and what I want to do.