Naina Kumar’s Flirting with Disaster is an angsty second chance romance between a married couple trapped together by a hurricane. This is a reimagining of Sweet Home Alabama, but set in Houston during a hurricane with Indian American protagonists. I have somehow never watched Sweet Home Alabama, so I don’t know where it tracks and where it diverges. I can tell you that it’s a good read. It’s out January 14.
Meena plans to fly into Houston, get her estranged husband to sign the divorce papers he has been ignoring, fly back to DC and get her relationship with her boyfriend, and their shared political ambitions, back on track. Unfortunately, she has failed to notice that Houston is preparing for a hurricane, which will make landfall that evening. She’s stuck. With her husband. Who she hasn’t seen or spoken to in years. By the way, if you think it’s unrealistic that someone would not know a hurricane was headed towards the city they were about to visit, I have lived in DC and complete lack of awareness about what’s happening outside the sphere of interest is a common characteristic of DC lawyers and lobbyists.
The book is all from Meena’s perspective so everything we know about Nikhil is filtered through Meena. Kumar gives us enough so that we know Nikhil is still deeply in love with Meena, while also letting us understand why Meena doesn’t see it. As they ride out the storm together, we see the things that drew them together and drove them apart. Meena grapples with the way her parents’ conditional love has driven her ambitions and begins to understand that Nikhil struggled with his own insecurities. Usually, I prefer dual point of view romances, but Kumar made the correct call here. If we were allowed into Nikhil’s head, we would lose a lot of the tension.
There’s a point about a third of the way in where Kumar lays out the problem and the solution. The emotions are often raw, but always grounded in character growth and development. Can Meena and Nikhil trust each other with their soft spots and work together? This is a romance, so the answer is yes. The joy is reading along as they figure it out. I knew after reading Say You’ll Be Mine that Naina Kumar is an author to watch. Flirting with Disaster is a confident second book.
I received this as an advance reader copy from Dell and NetGalley. My opinions are my own, freely and honestly given.