By Bill Gaither
Members met on November 16, 2025, for a deep and delightful discussion of Sonali Dev’s contemporary romance novel Recipe for Persuasion. Romance novel author and member Nancy Martin-Young led the discussion. Regional coordinator Sara Tavela presided. This was a Virtual Book Club meeting.
With keen insights and richly evocative slides, Nancy led members through a discussion of the social and literary influences on Sonali Dev’s writing; parallels between Recipe for Persuasion and Jane Austen’s Persuasion; techniques in Dev and in Austen for showing the male point of view; the use of food in Recipe for Persuasion to drive the narrative; the presence of dark elements in Recipe for Persuasion; how Austen might have reacted to Dev’s novel; and whether members would recommend the novel to romance novel readers.
Sonali Dev (b. 1972) is an Indian-American writer of contemporary romance novels, including a Bollywood series and a Raje Family series, of which Recipe for Persuasion is the second installment. Her works typically blend Indian and American cultures and often confront a repressive cultural element or instances of discrimination based on race, gender, wealth, or culture.
Growing up in India, Dev experienced the pressure of certain traditional cultural norms, such as the submissive and silent role that was expected of women. The classic Indian TV series Trishna, based on Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, with its outspoken female lead character Rekka, had a profound liberating effect on Dev. In going on to read the novels of Jane Austen, Dev was struck by the importance of second chances in Austen and by the social and psychological effects in Austen of speaking truth to privilege. Another important influence on Dev’s writing was Bollywood films, which are emotionally dramatic and in which family and community play an important role.
Neither in plot nor in character is Recipe for Persuasion a close imitation of Jane Austen’s Persuasion, but parallels can be found. Both novels are second-chance romances. In both novels, the eventual reunion of the separated lovers plays out in the contexts of the family of the heroine and the professional associates of the hero. In both novels, a bold action by the hero leads to the reunion. A direct reference to Persuasion comes at a crucial point when the hero Rico, seeking to win back Ashna’s love, says to Ashna’s cousin that he is “half agony, half hope.” Numerous minor parallels in character and place can also be traced. But members generally judged that, despite the title, the affinities of Recipe for Persuasion to Persuasion are more incidental than essential.
Members explored contrasts in the ways in which the authors reveal the thoughts and feelings of their heroes. In Recipe for Persuasion, the omniscient narrator frequently reports Rico’s thoughts and feelings about Ashna and even devotes entire chapters to his musings. In contrast, Austen in Persuasion shows Frederick Wentworth’s character and his feelings about Anne Elliott through outward signs, including his actions, his spoken words, and his passionate letter to Anne.
Members discussed the important ways in which food figures in the narrative of Recipe for Persuasion. Ashna’s and Rico’s partnership on the cooking show enhances their relationship and brings out not only the ways in which they can work as a team but also the memories that they share. The exploration of Ashna’s cooking anxiety leads to insights into her psychological traumas related to her father, and her overcoming of the cooking anxiety is one indicator of her psychological recovery. Her creativity in blending spiced teas, along with her many positive social ties, shows that her wholeness of self is not totally submerged by her depression and by her psychological issues.
Dark themes that add emotional power and intensity to the narrative are not directly depicted. Instead, historical incidents of alcoholism, abandonment, corrosive verbal abuse, and even rape are vividly reflected in the memories of Ashna and her mother and in the effects upon their lives. It is notable that these dark elements are not hinted at on the book cover or in the publisher’s blurb.
There are agreeable and satisfying parallels between the separate successful struggles by Ashna and her mother, separated by some thirty years, for self-empowerment and for freedom in the choice of a mate.
Although many members could not forgive Ashna’s mother for abandoning Ashna during her teenaged years, members also recognized the element of presentism in the novel, in which grown children often do not understand the depth of the struggles that their parents might have faced.
In discussing how Jane Austen might have viewed this novel, members felt that Austen would have been delighted to have her works become the inspiration for other authors, especially inasmuch as Austen herself was influenced by past models.
Members generally would recommend the book to romance novel readers, but would warn readers about the dark themes and the resulting psychological traumas that are portrayed in the novel.
Up Next
Our annual hybrid December meeting will take place on December 7th, and we’re going to learn about Jane Austen and the harp and hear some harp music with our member Julia Adams. On December 16th, the night of Jane Austen’s 250th birthday, we are having our first-ever Virtual Regency Ball!