Enemies to Lovers

Rai follows Partners in Crime with another wildly entertaining rom-com/caper mash-up. Brooklynite Sejal Chaudhary makes a living by taking bar bets on her impressive card tricks. It’s not the most stable life, but Sejal never plans for more than the short term. She feels like she can’t, given that her imprisoned mother was the head of the crime syndicate known as Cobra, her aunt Rhea may have usurped her mother’s place, and her horrible ex-boyfriend Alexei, a member of the Ivanovitch mafia family, is after her. When a mark gets aggressive, Sejal asks the tallest (and handsomest) man at the bar to be her fake boyfriend to protect her—only for him to reveal he’s an FBI agent. Except he’s lying: he’s actually Georgetown librarian Krish Anand, a survivalist on a mission to find his little brother, the real FBI agent actually on Sejal’s case, who disappeared after getting framed by Cobra. Sejal needs Krish’s protection to get to Vegas and acquire the blackmail material she needs to get Alexei off her back, and Krish needs Sejal to find Cobra’s leader, but their winding, mishap-strewn road trip makes them realize they just might need each other in other ways as well. It’s a ton of fun watching these two guarded people navigate increasingly sticky situations and slowly learn to let each other in. Add in plenty of humor and propulsive action, and readers will want to race through this in a single sitting. (Apr.)