Matched by Masala - Mona Shroff (HSE #2919 - July 2022)

Series: Once Upon a Wedding (Book 2)

He cooks for their customers
…but he'd rather cater to her heart!
 
One impetuous, slightly drunken kiss has turned up the heat on chef Amar Virani's feelings for Divya Shah. He's been in love with the sexy pastry chef -- his sister's best friend! -- since they were teenagers, but a painful tragedy in his past keeps Amar from revealing his true emotions. As they work side by side in Divya's tiny food truck, she realizes there's more than just business simmering between them. For the first time, she's tempted to step outside her comfort zone and take a chance on Amar -- even if it means risking more than her heart.
 
A terrific friends-to-lovers story complicated by being best-friend's-brother/sister's-best-friend, too. Divya and Amar have been friends since they were kids and had crushes on each other in high school but never said anything because of Anita. Now they are all grown up but still holding out on each other.
 
Divya is a talented pastry chef. She also tends to be impulsive and adventurous. She survived a bout of cancer in high school and now lives each day like it could be her last, worried that cancer could return. She's never met a challenge that she's turned away from.
 
Amar is also a talented chef. He was fired from his last job because he took a chance on improving the head chef's dish. He now runs his catering business out of the kitchen of his family home. That kitchen is falling apart, but he won't renovate it for fear of losing the memories he associates with it, including some guilt and regret. Amar is organized and methodical in his work and his life.
 
I enjoyed watching the relationship develop between Divya and Amar. When Divya buys an old school bus and turns it into a food truck, she invites Amar to join her in forming a catering business. There are conflicts as Divya's "anything goes" approach clashes with Amar's more conventional methods. I loved the cooking scenes as they learned the art of compromise and cooperation. I loved how they poked at each other, but never in a mean way. They quickly become an in-demand duo, and their teamwork is impressive. I loved how they were there for each other during crises and how they encouraged each other to follow their dreams.
 
When Amar's sister, Anita, forces the issue of the kitchen renovation, Divya invites Amar to stay with her across the street and share her kitchen. Now that they are working and living together, the constant proximity makes it impossible to ignore the sparks between them. Complicating matters is the drink-induced kiss they shared several months earlier that neither can forget. Besides the whole sister thing, Amar hesitates to get involved with Divya because of baggage from his past trauma. Just as she seems to break through his walls, trouble from her past rears its ugly head. The emotional ending had me in tears, while the epilogue made it all worth it.
 
Besides the romance of the story, I loved the culinary theme. I'm not familiar with Indian food and found myself googling almost everything. My mouth watered throughout the book, and I look forward to trying some of these dishes in the future. I also enjoyed the family theme. Besides the characters' closeness to their immediate families, I enjoyed the intertwined connections with those whom Amar and Divya cooked for. I also liked seeing Anita and Nikhil from The Five-Day Reunion again.