REVIEW: Sugar, Spice, and Can’t Play Nice by Annika Sharma

Sugar, Spice, and Can’t Play Nice by Annika Sharma is the second book in the Chai Masala Club series. I did not read the first book in this series, but not once did I feel lost in the story. The characters were funny, endearing and totally entertaining. Let me tell you about Payal and Ayaan.

Payal is fashion-designer, living and working in New York. She dreams of having her own fashion line, but her family insists on her that she marry a serial dater in order to save their family fortune. She wants to ignore their demands, but she needs to play this smart.

Ayaan is also living in New York. He is estranged from his older brother Arun and the rest of his family treating him like the family loser. Ayaan’s family business Veer wants to enter into a merger/acquire Payal’s family business and the best way to do this is through a family marriage.

Payal and Ayaan are separately summoned home to be ordered to marry ‘for the good of the family’. They agree to the engagement, but each has their own agenda. Despite a rocky start, Payal and Ayaan start to work together marketing Payal’s clothing line and seem to have more of a connection, Can these two make what might be an arrangement that is meant to benefit their families something that will benefit themselves instead?

This was a funny, quirky, story that will keep the reader entertained from page one to the end. Recommended for an easy, lighthearted rom com.

Book Info:

Publication: May 2, 2023 | Sourcebooks Casablanca | Chai Masala Club #2

Payal is a girl on the verge―of living a life she’s always dreamt of, becoming a rising star in fashion, and…of marriage?! When her parents insist she marry fellow Londoner and serial dater Ayaan Malhotra in order to save their company, Payal has a stick it to her dysfunctional family but put her hard-earned fashion success on hold…or get engaged to save her family’s fortune and rescue her own dream-come-true life. Ayaan has always been seen as the reckless spare to his brother, the golden child heir to their parents’ company. A little wild, a little broken, and desperate to prove himself, Ayaan agrees to get engaged to Payal―on the condition that he gets 50 percent stake in his parents’ company. Neither Payal nor Ayaan anticipate the challenges of keeping their respective agendas behind the engagement to a meddlesome grandmother, a spurned ex-girlfriend, two families with stakes of their own, a fashion brand on the line, and, unexpectedly, actually liking each other. But as the two race toward an impending engagement ceremony date, they realize that maybe they aren’t just in this for business…and perhaps, love is in the cards after all.