Sonali Dev’s Incense and Sensibility: Your summer slow burn romance

Sonali Dev has a gift for storytelling. Her new book Incense and Sensibility, the follow-up to her bestselling Recipe for Persuasion and Pride, Prejudice and Other Flavors, is the pinnacle of a slow burn romance but it’s so much more. It’s also a story about complex current events, family, obligation and responsibilities, and duty versus desire. Clear your schedules because you won’t be able to put this story down.

Incense and Sensibility is the third book in The Rajes Series that follows a Bay Area Indian American family. This time the story focuses on loving son Yash Raje and India Dashwood, the woman who captured his attention and his heart ten years prior.

Sonali Dev transports readers with Incense and Sensibility

Yash Raje is running for governor. He’s tired of the same old people and policies running California into the ground and he has spent his almost forty years trying to focus on what can happen when people have hope.

As the state’s would-be first Indian American governor, there’s a lot riding on his shoulders; he’s spent his life in public service working toward this moment while also striving to be the perfect son.

When Yash is shot during a rally, his concern is for his bodyguard and friend when he collapses on top of him and won’t get up. Abdul has a brand new baby at home and a whole life in front of him. It sends Yash into a tailspin.

Stress management coach India Dashwood knows how to help her high-achieving clients find their inner peace. She grew up in a family of yoga instructors and she has turned her knowledge into a successful career. When her best friend brings her brother Yash to her for help, they can’t ignore the chemistry that still burns between them even though a decade has passed since their first fateful meeting.

Dev builds a spectacularly diverse world full of charismatic characters. The younger members of the Raje family have found ways to allow their interests to blossom under the watchful eye of their loving mother and old-school father. If you’ve read the other books in The Rajes Series then you’ll be happy to know that the whole Raje family shows up throughout Yash and India’s story.

What I love about Dev’s writing is that she celebrates old-world traditions while welcoming and embracing new ones. The Raje family has a storied history in India and they’re paving a new path in the United States. Though Yash is running for office and his sisters are living their best lives, they all still celebrate their past…even when the past tends to complicate the present. In this case, it’s old family ties and a focus on the future that have always kept Yash from realizing his love for India.

Dev’s prose is stunning and it’s so very easy to get caught up in the world she builds. She brings the story to life in such vivid detail that you can practically smell the incense in India’s studio and you can feel Yash’s anxiety as he tries to gather his wits after the shooting.

Incense and Sensibility is more than just a love story, it’s a story about family and hope. If you’re looking for the perfect summer escape, then look no further. This is it.

Incense and Sensibility is available now.