Incense and Sensibility audiobook

By far the best one in this series. I adored Yash and India!

Oh Wow! Consider I am hooked by Miss Dev. This woman is the new Jane Austen. She blends the story of Sense and Sensibility with a modern twist. I love the story. There are a lot of moral stories especially about family and power, friendship and love. All is done with a modern prospective. I heard a lot about Miss Dev. It is such a pleasure I had a chance to read one of her books. Jane Austen is my all time favorite author. And Miss Dev is the new Jane Austen. The way she blends it with Indian culture is also smart. Just read it!5 stars

Sonali Dev weaves magic into her third Jane Austen-inspired novel, and I loved everything about it! Dev has a lovely wry spirit that connects us deeply to her characters, while adding an irresistible Indian-American flavor to her storyline. She’s my new fav writer and I loved meeting the Raje family, especially Yash, who is running for governor of California when a friend is shot during a political rally, and sought-after yoga therapist India Dashwood, who helps Yash deal with the resulting anxiety. Dev adds depth to their budding relationship as elements of past hurts and current trauma are dealt with. A profound and enticing romance, highly recommended! 5 of 5 StarsPub Date 06 Jul 2021#IncenseandSensibility #NetGalleyThanks to the author, William Morrow and Custom House, and NetGalley for the ARC. Opinions are mine.

My favorite of the Raje books so far and the best of Dev's Jane Austen retellings! I absolutely loved it. Full RTC!

Complex and sensitive story about a woman you’d like to be (or at least be friends with) and a man you’d love to love (or at least vote for). Heartfelt family dynamics and compelling conflict combine in this sensitive slow-burn romance. Plus, Sonali Dev’s writing is so good! Buy this one.

Sonali Dev may be my favorite writer of contemporary romance, if only because she takes the genre seriously and doesn’t write to formula. Earlier this week I was listening to a literary agent tick off all the tropes that “must” be present in romance fiction, and I wanted to tie her to a volcano and force this book down her throat. That attitude is so disrespectful toward readers who happen to love the marriage plot! We also love a fresh idea, fresh story lines, original writing about attraction, desire, and compatibility—and Dev offers all of these.This is the third of her Jane Austen–based novels focused on a wealthy San Francisco family of East Indian Americans. The main characters recur but different ones are the center of attention in each novel, and the novels don’t really need to be read in any particular order. This one finally puts the Raje family’s golden boy, Yash, at center stage, and he makes for a great protagonist. We’ve known from the first book that Yash’s seeming perfection and self-confidence are an elaborate persona built up to mask both literal and figurative scars, so I’ve been eager to explore his complexities, and this story did not disappoint. He has always been preternaturally dutiful and noble, kind and devoted to others to the point of self-annihilation, and now we know why.He is running for governor of California and one day, at a rally, a hater tries to assassinate him. He is slightly injured but his bodyguard may not survive. Yash is racked by guilt and goes into a blind panic whenever faced with a public event. He doesn’t want to show the public any weakness so his family members advise him to seek therapy privately from a family friend, India Dashwood, a yoga teacher, Reiki practitioner, and stress management coach. Just one problem with that—India and Yash had met before, ten years earlier, and shared a very intense encounter before Yash’s sense of duty took his life in a different direction. Yash is aware of having treated India badly, and India carries a resentful sense of disillusionment.It’s a perfect Sonali Dev setup—two people of goodwill with issues that have carved a divide between them, who must turn themselves and all their assumptions inside out before they can get their lives out of neutral. She works it beautifully, taking us by slow steps through each presupposition and logical misunderstanding, as instinct and attraction bind two people together who think they want to, need to, remain apart. Her vocabulary of desire, which wowed me in the first book of the series, continues to be original, eloquent, and specific to the characters; but despite her care in depicting desire, their romance is about so much more. Character and ethics, so often overlooked in romantic fiction, really get their due in her work.I love reading about the Raje family because they are so powerfully attached to one another, even while they all have major quirks and faults and even while they misunderstand and exasperate one another. Family is so important to these people, a state I envy far more than I envy their lifestyle or even their loves. Most of them are madly rich in the material sense, but their real riches are their tight bonds, even when, as in this story, the bonds constrict as much as they support.The one thing that didn’t really work for me was the political side of the story. I’d like to say I don’t believe anyone could successfully run for governor of California with a top staff that consists entirely of family and close friends—but then again, not too long ago someone ran for president of the United States in exactly the same ramshackle way and won, so what do I know? I get that rich people are often suspicious of outsiders, but Yash Raje has been in public life long enough to have advisers and managers who are professionals. That part felt pretty half-assed to me.Otherwise, I loved this story and it satisfied me on every page.

From the first page, Sonali Dev had me hooked! Incense and Sensibility is an emotion-packed, angsty, swoony romance that gave me ALL THE FEELS.Yash is a hero you can't help but fall in love with--a good man who willingly carries the weight of responsibility for others on his shoulders (broad, strong shoulders!). Alas, he's a wounded hero and only India (a heroine truly deserving of her HEA) can heal him. But Yash's long-standing fake relationship with a dear friend, his bid for governor of California, and family responsibilities keep him and India apart. Yet, these two are destined to be together.In masterful fashion, Sonali Dev treats us to a beautiful love story you'll put on your Keeper Shelf to read again and again.

I don’t know how this series gets better with every single book when they’re all so awesome, but it does. Yash and India...a second chance that took me on a journey I didn’t want to end (and I stayed up past midnight finishing). Just AMAZING!

4.5 stars.As you might guess from the title — but not from the synopsis — Incense and Sensibility is a modern-day retelling of Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility. It’s also a moving, well-written, and engaging contemporary novel about love, pain, and healing.I&S continues the loosely connected story of the Rajes, a wealthy Indian-American family living in the Bay Area. Previous books have focused on Yash’s sister Trisha (Pride, Prejudice, and Other Flavors) and his cousin Ashna (Recipe For Persuasion). In both of those books, Yash is a background character — the successful, driven brother who can achieve anything he wants. He’s the golden child, the one everyone believes will do great things.He’s also haunted by trauma, although he doesn’t even realize this until events kick off in I&S. As the book opens, Yash is running a competitive race for governor of California, and his chances look good. He’s a man devoted to public service, who truly believes that he’s called to make life better for those who are suffering. While popular with many voters, Yash also encounters the racism you’d unfortunately not be surprised by due to his skin color and ethnicity. An attempted shooting at a rally leaves Yash lightly wounded, but puts his trusted friend and bodyguard Abdul into a coma that he isn’t expected to wake from.Suddenly, Yash’s world is turned upside down. He feels tremendous guilt about Abdul’s sacrifice, and is overwhelmed by an anxiety attack when he attempts to go onstage at his next rally. With only months to go until the election, and with a growing lead in the polls, his family is desperate to “fix” him. And so they turn to a friend of Ashna and Trisha’s, India Dashwood, a yoga instructor and Reiki healer.India lives with her mother Tara and her highly emotional sister China in the apartment above their yoga studio. They’re not well off, but they’re getting by, until Tara falls ill and India realizes they may not be able to cover her necessary medical treatments. On top of that, China is head-over-heels in love with a Korean pop star, but the woman she loves is deeply closeted and insists on secrecy. China sees a rosy future, but India is afraid that China will be hurt badly.When Yash reenters India’s life, it’s ten years after they spent a magical, romantic night together in which they fell in love, but then parted and never reunited. India has never quite recovered from the pain of Yash’s disappearance from her life, but she also can’t turn him away when he’s obviously in such pain and in need of help. As she works with him on healing from trauma, old wounds reemerge and are finally confronted, and Yash and India’s feeling for one another resurface as well. But with the election his to lose, Yash has to make some big decisions about telling the truth and taking a stand, and India must decide whether she’s willing to risk the peace she’s found for the man she’s never gotten over.Incense and Sensibility may look light and possibly even funny from the cover, but it’s really not. While there are some lighter moments, the book deals with very real trauma and pain, and the author isn’t afraid to show how the characters are affected by their pasts in damaging ways. At the same time, the characters really are lovely and sympathetic, and I loved getting to know the new characters introduced in this addition to the Rajes series, especially India, who is just wonderful.As an Austen retelling, I found I&S to be very successful. Contemporary retellings of Austen novels are hard to pull off. With the classics’ focus on marriage, their themes can be hard to translate to a modern setting, and many of the retellings I’ve read feel like they’re trying too hard to shoehorn Austen’s storylines into a setting where they just don’t work.Not so in I&S. Sonali Dev doesn’t hit us over the head with the Jane Austen references and plot points. While they’re there, they work organically, so the story would make sense and be appealing even without knowledge of the original. And while some characters’ storylines are a bit more obvious — for example, China as the Marianne stand-in is destined to have her heart broken — I was still taken by surprise by some of the twists and turns of the story, and that’s a good thing. Also, for what it’s worth, it took me a really long time to figure out who the Colonel Brandon character would be, even though it should have been obvious (I won’t say why, because spoilers!).Incense and Sensibility is a terrific read, both as a standalone contemporary love story and as an Austen retelling. I can’t wait to find out which Austen novel the author will tackle next! I’m so enjoying the characters and their lives, and look forward to the next book so I can stay in their world.Review copy courtesy of the publisher via NetGalley. Full review at Bookshelf Fantasies.

This book may have restored my cold dead heart. I absolutely loved following Yash and India’s story in Incense and Sensibility. It felt so nice to return to the world of The Rajes after loving Pride, Prejudice, and Other Flavors and Recipe for Persuasion (which still remains my number one adult contemporary of all time). And I’m officially declaring now that Sonali Dev is literally the BEST at writing second chance romances. I don’t even know if Incense and Sensibility counts as a second chance romance considering Yash and India only shared a kiss and nothing more--there was no official relationship between them--but the amount of tension Sonali Dev can create between the two after TEN years and only one kiss was incredible. Every single lingering look and touch between the two made my heart feel like it was going to burst. This also has the “seeing each other’s scars” trope, which is such an underrated trope, and oh my god it was so good. Seeing Yash grow from being super closed off and trying to seem put together all the time to growing comfortable with being vulnerable was really heartwarming as well. I feel like this book was so refreshing when considering how young Indian-American boys are raised--to always be stoic and strong all the time. Seeing Yash admit that he’s not comfortable being intimate, and seeing him learning how to live with his anxiety and PTSD when mental health is barely discussed in the South Asian community was so great.I also really just love the Rajes siblings so much. As much as each of them have their own faults, they are so united against any obstacle that comes in any of their ways and they have such adoring love and support for one another no matter the circumstance, and it’s just really beautiful to see. It was one of the reasons I loved jumping back into the world of The Rajes--seeing all the cameos from the different siblings and how their dynamics have developed and how their relationships have grown since Pride, Prejudice, and Other Flavors was so sweet. As a sibling myself, I have so much respect for them for standing up for one another, especially when they stand united against HRH. It’s reflective of how many young Indian-Americans promise to make positive change regarding some of the toxic issues within the older generations of the South Asian community.Lastly, I have to talk about all the plot twists in this book. Incense and Sensibility starts and ends with a huge bang (and I kinda mean that literally) and I totally was not expecting the plot twists that popped up in this book. You can always count on Sonali to drop a bombshell of a plot twist in this series and it definitely did not disappoint here. I easily gave this 5 stars and I will ALWAYS recommend this series. If you are an Austen fan, a South Asian-American reader, or anyone looking for a beautiful romance balanced with contemporary issues, I highly recommend The Rajes!

It’s going to take me a few days to process this story. It was much more intense than I expected. Don’t get it twisted - this is definitely romance. But it is serious and deals with a lot of real issues. I loved the progression of the characters. I felt like this book was much closer to the original material from which it was inspired. Definitely worth reading! 4.5 stars

A Compelling Tale of Healing, Acceptance, and Embracing What You NeedRating: 5 out of 5 starsSource: Review Copy from PublisherTYPE OF NOVEL: Sense and Sensibility Modern AdaptationSERIES: The Rajes Series #3NOTE: Each novel ini the The Raje Series is stand alone and can be read out of order.THE PREMISE: Yash Raje has always been confident, driven, and laser-focused on his political aspirations, until a horrifying act of violence at a rally shook him to his core. Now Yash needs to work through his trauma, emotional numbness, and panic attacks in order to move forward and succeed in becoming California’s first Indian-American governor. The Raje family seeks out India Dashwood, a family friend who is a yoga therapist and stress management coach, to help Yash recover from this incident in private. Little do they know that her and Yash have their own history that began and ended ten years ago…WHAT I LOVED:- The Raje Family: After three books with this dynamic and loving family, and witnessing so many of their individual experiences and relationships it is beginning to feel like they are a part of my family. I love their support and understanding for each other, I love how they are overly involved in each others’ lives, yet not too overbearing, I love the juxtaposition of a titled and illustrious family with legacy caring about the happiness and wholeness of each individual. I am so glad that in this story we continue to spend time with all the beloved characters we encountered before in the other stories.- The Writing: I’m echoing my other reviews at this point, but I must comment again how much I adore Sonali Dev’s writing in these stories. Her prose is so lyrical, so full of details, emotions, and elegance. She is masterful at conveying feelings and establishing connections, and I admire her talent for composing beautiful and eloquent prose in an understated fashion.- Thoughtful S&S Parallels: Janeite Confession: I’m typically never satisfied with Edward/Elinor relationships. Edward is weak and unworthy of Elinor. There, I said it. But not in this story. This reincarnation of these characters, who are more their own individual being than modern-day replicas of Jane Austen’s creations, left me splendidly satisfied! The echos and all the subtle nods to situations and themes from Jane Austen’s S&S were ingenious. The sisters who embrace and view life differently, the hero who is trapped in a relationship he doesn’t want, the struggle between burying your emotions and releasing them, and so many others. It continues to astound me how Sonali Dev can create so many diverse and brilliant links to various Jane Austen novels that both authentically relate to our modern world, but also help readers understand and appreciate Jane Austen’s characters and themes in a new way.- Self-Work and Healing: I appreciated the inspiring themes in this story about connecting with your inner-self, the positive effects of therapy, and how digging into the things we have repressed and buried can generate new self-discoveries, understanding, and peace. It was such a rewarding and moving experience to witness such changes with these characters. I especially enjoyed witnessing India’s yoga practices, and how she was grounded yet filled with emotion, wise in her understanding yet conflicted, wonderful at giving help to others but terrible at accepting help from others.- Song-China-Brandy: While the Willoughby-Marianne-Brandon storyline was more in the background than foreground, it was wonderfully represented by India’s passionate and irrepressible sister China who falls deeply in love with a famous South Korean actress and learns the difference between giving of yourself completely and giving up everything about yourself. Again, another brilliant and understated link to S&S.WHAT I WASN’T TO FOND OF:Nothing. This was everything I was hoping for.CONCLUSION:What more can I say? This series is phenomenal. Incense and Sensibility is a masterful work of art that weaves together compelling personal struggles, raw emotions, relevant cultural and political dynamics, and a heartrendingly impossible romance. Even if contemporary stories are not your cup of tea, there is so much to appreciate and admire in the expressive writing, reverent connections to Jane Austen, and overall composition of these stories alone. I most emphatically recommend!Austenesque Reviews

I found this title in a list of chick-lit reads included near the back of Emily Henry’s novel Book Lovers. Dev has written adaptations of Jane Austen’s novels with Indian-American characters in modern-day settings. As indicated by the title, this one is a retelling of the Dashwood sisters’ story and Dev chose to emphasise Elinor’s romance with Edward Ferrars and downplay Marianne’s romance.I never particularly enjoyed Elinor and Edward’s romance, probably caused by my first impression of Edward as a bumbling idiot due to the unfortunate casting of Hugh Grant to play the role in the iconic move adaptation. Edward’s silent loyalty to keep his word couldn’t compare to the romance of Colonel Brandon’s deeds and actions which won over Marianne.With these preferences and previous adaptations in mind, I felt that Dev has written the first adaptation where I finally understood Edward. She adapts both characters of Elinor and Edward to give them new names and new occupations and in doing so, Dev captures the brushstrokes that make up who these people are. Her adaptation is successful because she does not literally follow Austen’s plot but nods to it along the way. I also enjoyed the descriptions of India (aka Elinor)’s skirts and dresses and looked up the traditional garment names to imagine how beautiful they must have looked on her.I bought a copy of this book to add to my Austen shelf, which is a sign that I recommend it to Austen lovers.