Partners in Crime (Partners in Crime #1) by Alisha Rai

 

Summary (from the publisher): Indian Matchmaking meets Date Night in this fun, romantic adventure in which a match-made couple about to be engaged gets caught up in a caper that puts their future—and lives—in danger.

At thirty-five, with a stable job as an accountant, Mira Chaudhary wants nothing more than to find a boring man to spend the rest of her life with. Having had enough excitement in her younger days and desperately trying to escape her dysfunctional past, she turns to a matching app specializing in Indian American singles to help her find someone to settle down with.

Enter Naveen Desai. An English professor with an uneventful, normal, and—dare she say it, boring—life, Naveen is perfect.

But just when things are going well, Mira receives news that her aunt has died. Suddenly a trip to Las Vegas to settle her aunt’s affairs turns into a mad dash to escape kidnappers, evade art thieves, and consorting with hackers who can decipher just what it was Mira’s aunt was involved with. Mira just hopes that Naveen isn’t chased away by the very same life of “excitement” that she’s been trying to get away from. But maybe, over the course of one wild night, Mira and Naveen will find the love connection that neither expected.

Review: This was a fun departure from my typical romance read. I liked the Indian matchmaking element of this and the high stakes situation the characters find themselves in, thanks to Mira's father's criminal activity. I really liked that this was a second chance romance as Mira and Naveen were previously set up by their matchmaker and are now back in each other's orbit again. 

Unfortunately, this just felt a little too far-fetched to me. I didn't really buy that they would just break up and move on if they were as into each other as they seem. And all the hijinks were just a little too over the top. It was fun to see them pretending to be employees in a strip club, but it was just hard for me to swallow my disbelief. And all the characters who were dead but are they really? Also, the way the spicy scenes were written were a bit off putting to me. Bottom line is this just didn't hold my attention the way I had hoped and took me longer to finish than it should have. 

I did receive an advance copy of the second book in this series that is out now and will still give it a go. 

Review: 3