Title: Wrong to Need You Series: Forbidden Hearts #2
Author: Alisha Rai
Published: November 28, 2017
Genre(s): Romance: Contemporary
Page Count: 358
Rating:
Summary from Goodreads:He wasn’t supposed to fall in love with his brother’s widow…
Accused of a crime he didn’t commit, Jackson Kane fled his home, his name, and his family. Ten years later, he’s come back to town: older, wiser, richer, tougher—and still helpless to turn away the one woman he could never stop loving, even after she married his brother.
Sadia Ahmed can’t deal with the feelings her mysterious former brother-in-law stirs, but she also can’t turn down his offer of help with the cafe she’s inherited. While he heats up her kitchen, she slowly discovers that the boy she adored has grown into a man she’s simply unable to resist.
An affair is unthinkable, but their desire is undeniable. As secrets and lies are stripped away, Sadia and Jackson must decide if they’re strong enough to face the past...and step into a future together.
I feel like maybe this book is even better than the first, and considering how much I enjoyed Hate to Want You…that’s saying something. Alisha Rai is a phenomenal author, and the fact that I really enjoy her books even though she tends to write stories that wouldn’t typically be at the top of my stack…it’s impressive. This second installment in her Forbidden Hearts trilogy is a bit different from the first, but it shows that Rai can do many things. (Side note: probably don’t read this series out of order.)
Wrong to Need You is a friends-to-lovers romance featuring a sexy bisexual Pakistani bartender widow/single-mom and her dead husband’s Japanese/Hawaiian, super-introverted and super-muscly younger brother, AKA her best friend since childhood.
Does this sound interesting to you yet? Because it should.
Based on my grand total of two books read by the author, I can tell you that Alisha Rai excels at dysfunctional-yet-loving families, mental health realness, and sexy sex. Wrong to Need You attacks each of these issues from a new angle, but those aspects remained constant. Which I loved! I may not be into forbidden sibling romances, but I am into family dynamics and honest discussions of depression and good ole sexytimes.
I think, also, that what I liked a lot of about this book is how contained the romance and the couple were. Obviously, the town is full of gossip and a feud of Romeo and Juliet proportions. There could easily have been a lot of drama going down (as there was in the first book), but Jackson and Sadia were more isolated, as characters, than Nicholas and Livvy were, and I felt like that allowed the book to breathe more, and to focus more on their developing feelings. I would characterize this as more of a slow burn romance, as Sadia and Jackson have some obstacles to overcome as friends before the story can even go towards them becoming lovers. The gradual, smoldery pacing worked really well for me here.
Another thing I enjoyed was that Rai introduced us to another family (aside from the Montagues and Capulets—I mean Chandlers and Kanes). Sadia’s very large Pakistani-American family was great. At lot of the scenes were uncomfortable, since Sadia is sort of the disappointment of the family; she’s the only one of five daughters not to attend medical school. There was a fair amount of trauma underlying those feelings of disappointment and failure, and I loved that Rai brought that into Wrong to Need You.
Obviously, at some level, I’m almost always reading a romance novel for the heroine’s personal journey, separate from the hero. And I’m happy to report that Sadia’s journey in this book was wonderful and fulfilling and satisfying at every level. Watching Sadia, who’s struggled so hard to be the perfect wife, mother, business owner, daughter, find out who she is apart from those roles was A+ excellent. And Jackson was there, supporting her even as he sorted through his own personal traumas (hooooo-boy does Jackson have some issues, my friends).
Wrong to Need You was sweet, tender, honest, difficult, and rewarding. Alisha Rai has managed to once again balance a wonderful love story atop a wobbling tower of “real life” crises, and the end result is a full, balanced story of two people finding love and maybe-forever happiness together.
