Review by Booklist Review
"Get in and get out" is overworked and over-stressed associate lawyer Sameera Malik's plan for attending her company's holiday party. When Sameera meets cute cater-waiter Tom Cooke at the event, however, time is suddenly no longer of the essence. After Sameera helps Tom up his samosa game in a social media post that goes viral, it fuels online rumors that the two of them are a couple. This leads to a proposal from Tom: if Sameera will help him with some more culinary posts, he will introduce her to a wealthy friend in need of new legal representation. However, this strict business arrangement quickly turns messily personal when both of their families mistake Sameera and Tom's fake online flirting for the real thing. Family, faith, and food are all important ingredients in Jalaluddin's (Detective Aunty, 2025) latest exemplary contemporary romance as her protagonists not only navigate celebrating Christmas in a small Alaska town, but also explore the traditions involved with Eid al-Adha, all while dealing with old family expectations and the new possibility of a future together.
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
Jalaluddin delivers romance treasure: a plausible fake-dating premise and a surfeit of laugh-out-loud moments. Atlanta singletons Sameera Malik and Tom Cooke are navigating professional turbulence while nursing wounds from relationship rifts. When their paths cross at Sameera's firm's holiday party, chemistry sparks--but it's professional synergy that prompts their connection. Layoffs are coming at the boutique law firm where Sameera works as an associate, putting her job and independence in jeopardy. Tom is a chef who uses YouTube to drum up catering business while dreaming of hosting his own TV cooking show. A decline in his online engagement jeopardizes both sides of his livelihood. So after some motherly intervention places Tom in Sameera's path a second time--sensing the barest whiff of a secret romance, Tahsin Malik hires him to cater her party for Eid--Tom captures the spunky attorney in a video, and it's a hit. Recognizing that he got "more attention from that candid video…than any others in the past six months," he and Sameera negotiate a deal. She'll fake date him for two months and record six videos, and Tom will smooth the way for his wealthy best friend Andy Shaikh to become Sameera's prospective client. Precarity also stokes Sameera's insecurity, since she's already feeling like the black sheep of her successful Muslim Desi family--with a sister pursuing a Ph.D. at Oxford and a father retired as head of neurosurgery at Emory, "if she wasn't an associate at the [law firm], who was she? Nobody." Just when you might worry that the book is so realistic as to lack the fun and froth of a great holiday rom-com, Jalaluddin ups the family shenanigans to 11 as Sameera's mother and Tom's stepmom hijack the proceedings like matchmaking mamas from the Regency era. Soon, the entire Malik family embarks on a meet-the-parents holiday jaunt at Tom's fabulous family estate in Alaska, where they're practically royalty, and hijinks and culture clashes and shady side deals ensue. An intercultural holiday rom-com that fully nails the promise of its premise. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
