by Sonali Dev
Thanks first and foremost to Annika, Mihir, and Manoj, for their endless, albeit amused, support and to my parents, for their unconditional pride. The creation of any story comes second only to our family, even though our vacations might forever be interrupted by deadlines.
Writing a soccer player was exciting (read: terrifying) and I could never have hoped to capture the nuances of the game without the patient sermons from my sports-mad nephew, Sarang Navkal. You are brilliant and I’m sorry for all the times I laughed when you cried for the loss of your team. It was unforgivable of me. Thanks also to Lynne Hartzer, for making sure my soccer cleat did not end up in my mouth. For those of you who take such things seriously, I apologize for taking liberties with the historical accuracy of World Cup and Premier League wins.
My deepest thanks to Patricia Friedrich and Frances de Pontes Peebles for sharing their invaluable cultural expertise and their lovely books. I love Rico deeply and he could not be who he is without your generous input. Any inconsistencies are all my own.
Now to the heart of my writing process, my beta readers and critique partners: Emily Redington Modak, Sally Kilpatrick, Virgina Kantra, Falguni Kothary, Robin Kuss, Katherine Ashe, Nishaad Navkal, and Priscilla Oliveras. Thank you a million times over; without your eagle eyes and insights I couldn’t say anything halfway coherent.
A huge thanks to my editor, the endlessly patient, kind, and brilliant Tessa Woodward, who finds the diamonds even when I send them to her in a sack of coal. To my agent, Alexandra Machinist, for letting me bask in her baddass brilliance. To the entire William Morrow and Avon team: Pam Jaffee, Imani Gary, Elle Keck, Kayleigh Webb, and Kaitie Leary, my endless gratitude for your tireless and creative support.
Finally, as always, my greatest thanks to you, dear readers; if not for you I would not enjoy the greatest of all privileges: living my dream.
P.S. Insights, Interviews & More . . .*
About the Author
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Meet Sonali Dev
About the Book
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Behind the Book Essay
Reading Group Guide
About the Author
Meet Sonali Dev
Award-winning author SONALI DEV writes Bollywood-style love stories that let her explore issues faced by women around the world while still indulging her faith in a happily ever after. Sonali’s novels have been named best books of the year by NPR, Library Journal, the Washington Post, and Kirkus Reviews, and they regularly garner multiple starred reviews. She lives in the Chicago suburbs with her very patient and often amused husband, two teens who demand both patience and humor, and the world’s most perfect dog.
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About the Book
Behind the Book Essay
Any Jane Austen fan worthy of that title can identify the exact moment when they first connected with her work. My connection, ironically enough, was through a retelling. I was in seventh grade, growing up in Mumbai, when a TV show based on Pride and Prejudice came out. It was called Trishna. This was way back in the eighties, when the dinosaurs roamed the earth, decades before television shows became the norm for consuming stories.
It was a faithful scene-by-scene, character-by-character retelling that transferred Austen’s story to a contemporary Indian setting. Mr. Darcy was played by a popular male model, and all the girls in my school—years before Colin Firth stepped out of that pond in a wet shirt—were overcome by Darcymania. For me, however, the magic was Lizzie Bennet (named Rekha in the show), an opinionated, irreverent girl who didn’t bother with pandering to men (or anyone else for that matter) so they might find her desirable. It was like finding myself, like having the blueprint of who I wanted to be validated. The fact that she was loved for those precise reasons just made everything better.
I ran to the library, checked out Pride and Prejudice, and was lost forever. I followed it up with Emma, Sense and Sensibility, and Persuasion. I found all of Austen’s heroines to be delightfully fallible without a trace of self-loathing or self-recrimination, which seemed the norm for all the women in the literature I was reading. It was terribly freeing.
Austen’s heroines dealt with their flaws as though they were simply part of being human, something they admitted to when their characters experienced growth. And their solution was to improve where needed and dig in their heels where not needed. They were also sharply observant—even unapologetically critical—of the ridiculousness of societal norms and rules, another thing that was abundant in the world I grew up in, and which definitely felt ridiculous to me. So my connection to her writing has always felt seminal to me as a person.
I’ve visited the UK several times, but the desire to visit Jane’s homes was always at the back of my mind. A pilgrimage I knew I would go on when I was ready for it. Something I couldn’t push into, but that would come to me when the time was right.
It wasn’t until I had written Pride, Prejudice, and Other Flavors and Recipe for Persuasion that I fully understood how much of who I am and what I believe about relationships is built on the foundation of Austen’s books. It wasn’t until I grasped this connection that a trip to Hampshire magically and with no effort at all fell in my lap.
I visited her home in Chawton on a drizzly November day, dragging my husband along so he could meet the woman who was at least partially responsible for shaping the obstinate, headstrong girl he’d married. We strolled from her humble home to her brother’s substantially less humble house down a cobbled, meadow-lined path that might as well have been a time machine, if you ignored the stray car. On the way, we stopped at the chapel she worshipped in.
Back at the house she lived and wrote in for eight years and finally died in, I ran my fingers across the walls she’d walked past; read the letters she’d written to her family; and touched the tiny, terribly uncomfortable–looking desk she wrote at (despite the sign that told me not to). I walked the halls and rooms where the stories I love churned and formed in Austen’s head.
I stood too long in the room where she fell ill too young, tears streaming down my face for no apparent reason, except that I was awed. Awed by the connection I, and so many people, continue to feel with her words. Awed by the power of this thing she loved to do, as do I. Despite all the years, culture, and technology separating us, as I stood there in that room, in that moment, I knew at least one thing that she had experienced: the terror and joy of telling stories.
If I were to sit down with my laptop in that very room, there would be a certain something I’d have to reach for to string together the words I wanted to say, that nebulous process of making stories; that terror of getting them wrong, or right; that obsession over the telling of them. This was the connection that erased all that separated us. This was the connection I felt in her room as palpable as the cold draft coming through her window.
It struck me, standing where she had stood, that this connection is what we seek when we read. To merge into someone else, to become them and experience the world as they do, and to have their story entertain us, inform us, maybe even change us. Something about finding that with someone who lived so long before me and so differently than I do was exactly what I needed. So, I tucked it away in my heart for the times when I’ll inevitably need help with the terror and joy of telling stories—the thing Jane and I will always share.
Reading Group Guide
Food has a significant role in how the characters relate to one another. Are there certain foods that have special meaning to you? Did you enjoy how the characters use food to help deepen their understanding of one another?
Sports also play a big part in the lives of these characters. Discuss how playing sports (or in Rico’s case, not playing) affects their relationships with themselves and one another.
So many characters in this book are hiding different aspects of their histories. What are the things that the characters hide behind? What does each one learn in the end?
Ashna and Shoban both feel they are very different from each other, though, in fact, they have many similarities. How does that add to the tension of the story? What are some of their biggest similarities and differences?
There are some very difficult scenes involving marital rape and alcoholism. How do these add to your understanding of how Shoban and Ashna come to be who they are?
Shoban believes that by staying away she is making a better choice for both Ashna and herself. Do you think she’s right?
Family, both found family and family by blood, is incredibly important to each of these characters. Discuss how the nature of these bonds impacts their stories.
So much of this novel is about second chances. Discuss how that theme comes across in the story. Do you believe in second chances?
Would you watch a season of Cooking with the Stars? Who would you root for?
Recipe for Persuasion borrows some of its motifs from Jane Austen’s Persuasion. If Jane Austen were reading this book, what do you think she’d say?
Also by Sonali Dev
Pride, Prejudice, and Other Flavors
A Distant Heart
A Change of Heart
The Bollywood Bride
A Bollywood Affair
Copyright
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
P.S.™ is a trademark of HarperCollins Publishers.
RECIPE FOR PERSUASION. Copyright © 2020 by Sonali Dev. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
Cover design and illustration by Kimberly Glyder
FIRST EDITION
Digital Edition MAY 2020 ISBN: 978-0-06-283908-4
Version 03192020
Print ISBN: 978-0-06-283907-7
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