Review: Sunshine and Spice by Aurora Palit

Sunshine and Spice by Aurora Palit
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I was provided an ARC of this book via Netgalley and the Berkley Besties program.

This was really cute! We follow Naomi as she works really hard to establish her independent brand consulting business aft work working at a corporate firm. Her latest rebranding job is a local bazaar who's owner is very hard to please. Naomi's mother did not raise her with a traditional Bengali upbringing, and she feels alienated when she is around other's who were raised in a traditional India home. She wants desperately to connect with her heritage, but she doesn't know who or how to ask. Enter Dev, son of the woman who's bazaar Naomi is rebranding. Dev much like Naomi's mother wants to break free of the confines of the traditions that are being forced upon him. His mother has hired a matchmaker and wants him to have an arranged marriage. He was forced into a career he doesn't really love because his father would only accept certain careers, and he never seems to be able to do anything right. While working with Naomi, things start to fall into place as she runs interference for him on his potential matches as his fake girlfriend and opens her world to the culture and traditions she has never experienced under the guise of research for the rebranding.

I thought Dev and Naomi had great interactions. Their grumpy sunshine dynamic played well with the plotline of wanting to fit in and know your culture and knowing and feeling overwhelmed by it. I still don't understand why it was a big secret that Naomi wasn't raised with the culture by her mom and that she wanted to learn more about her heritage. I get being embarrassed by that, and not wanting to make her mom mad, but that whole thread seemed a weak and underdeveloped. Perhaps I missed something. Overall, this has some spicy scenes, some emotional scenes, and I overall thought this was a fun read.

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