Check out our review of Partners in Crime by Alisha Rai. A standalone contemporary romance with a slow burn second chance arranged marriage trope.
Disclosure: I received this book for free from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review. This post contains affiliate links. That means we receive a small commission at no cost to you from any purchases you make through these links.
contemporary romance
Partners in Crime by Alisha Rai
Standalone
October 18, 2022
Tropes
buy or add to tbr
Partners in Crime by Alisha Rai Book Review
Partners in Crime was the high-stakes heist romance I didn’t know I needed. When her aunt passes and Mira Patel is suddenly reunited with an ex at the reading of her will, she thought the awkwardness would end there. But when her family’s shady past catches up to her, Mira and Naveen find themselves on the run from the notorious mafia boss known only as Cobra. On a whirlwind journey that will take them from L.A. to Las Vegas, and from the nicest casinos to the seediest locales on the Strip, Mira and Naveen will both have to stop running from their past if they hope to explore a possible future together. Often playing out like a heist story rather than a second-chance romance, Partners in Crime is definitely different from any other story I’ve read from Alisha Rai. I know I can count on Rai to feature diverse characters throughout her romances. What started as another disappointing match from matchmaker Hema Auntie – the last in a long line for Mira – quickly turns into a heist that also has Mira and Naveen confronting their family history as well as their love for each other. I loved that while Mira’s past is far more important to the overall story plot, Naveen is also no stranger to cutting family ties that need to be mended. Both Mira and Naveen mirror each other in terms of familiar pitfalls and personal lows, and it was obvious from the very beginning that no one else could possibly understand the other as well as they do. I spent most of the story just wishing that Naveen and Mira would realize how much they belong together. Fortunately, Rai gave us plenty of action throughout the plot to keep me entertained. While I’m no stranger to mafia romance, I haven’t read a romance in a while where the main characters are on the run from the crime bosses so this romance was a nice change of pace for me.
While Mira and Naveen are fantastic main characters, their relationships with others (or lack thereof) is so important to who they are that I would be remiss to not mention all the intriguing secondary characters throughout this book: from family members they still talk to, to the ones they don’t acknowledge; to old friends lost, to new acquaintances gained. Partners in Crime is far more than just a second-chance love story. Rai gives us two characters who are fighting to not let their families’ past transgressions define who they are in the present. Both Mira and Naveen were complex characters within an even more complex family dynamic. While I loved their slow-burn, second-chance romance, it was truly the heist and race across Vegas that kept me entertained throughout the story.