“Love doesn’t come when it’s convenient…It crashes into your life when you least expect it”.
Zara Patel is a lawyer and celebrity enthusiast who enjoys matchmaking but avoids falling in love due to her parents’ divorce. Jay Donovan is former military personnel who is too busy for love because he spends all his time working as the CEO at his own security company. After Zara and Jay meet at a paintball bachelor and bachelorette party, they strike up a deal whereby matchmaker Zara finds Jay’s perfect match (to appease his single mother) and Jay introduces Zara to some of the A-list clients he works with. But, after Zara and Jay are constantly thrown together at the singles table during the wedding season, Jay becomes inexplicably drawn to Zara’s spunky and untamed personality and Zara comes to crave the comfortable stability that is Jay. When their sexual attraction becomes undeniable, Zara and Jay put their deal on hold to have a fling…but will they be able to keep love off the table?
The Singles Table is the third book in Sara Desai’s Marriage Game trilogy but, although it would probably enhance your reading experience, you don’t need to have read the first two books beforehand. This book is a sexy and fun romance novel featuring the enemies to lovers, opposites attract, and grumpy with sunshine tropes. I highly recommend this book to lovers of romance novels like Get a Life, Chloe Brown by Talia Hibbert, It Happened One Summer by Tessa Bailey, Only When It’s Us by Chloe Liese, and The Hating Game by Sally Thorne. The Singles Table deals with themes such as chaos and order, darkness and light, love and heartbreak, companionship, family, loneliness, quest for power, mental health, self preservation, and work-life balance. The moral of this story is that everyone is worthy of love and love is worth the risk of heartbreak. Also, the characters discover that, “life is short and you have to live your truth, embrace your joy, and pursue your dreams”.
I loved Zara and Jay’s relationship in this book; the grumpy with sunshine trope paired with Jay’s “you touch her, and I’ll kill you” protective attitude about Zara was very intriguing and engaging to read. Coupled with the humorous elements sprinkled throughout this book—like Zara’s quirky co-workers and clients (including a boss who carries a lightsaber and a client who impersonates a tiger) as well as Zara’s clumsy and rebellious antics (such as chasing after Lin-Manuel Miranda for an autograph and shooting Jay in the butt with a paintball gun)—make for a fun read.
On the negative side, I wasn’t a huge fan of Zara’s Aunties’ meddling matchmaking schemes whereby they were constantly preoccupied with trying to one-up each other by throwing together the most single people with little regard for compatibility, but based on other reviewers, this can often reflect the norm for Desi aunties. This book was slightly slow to start too, but once Zara and Jay’s attraction to each other becomes irrefutable, the story gets a lot more exciting.
Overall, The Singles Table exceeded my expectations, and I would highly recommend it to fellow romance readers!
The Singles Table is available from Amazon, Book Depository, and other good book retailers, like your local bookstore.
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Synopsis | Goodreads
Opposites attract in this romantic comedy about a free-spirited lawyer who is determined to find the perfect match for the grumpy bachelor at her friend’s wedding
After a devastating break-up, celebrity-obsessed lawyer Zara Patel is determined never to open her heart again. She puts her energy into building her career and helping her friends find romance through the wedding season. She’s never faced a guest at the singles table she couldn’t match, until she crosses paths with the sinfully sexy Jay Donovan.
Former military security specialist Jay has no time for love. His life is about working hard, staying focused, and winning at all costs. When charismatic Zara crashes into his life, he’s thrown into close contact with exactly the kind of chaos he wants to avoid. Worse, they’re stuck together for the entire wedding season.
So they make a deal. She’ll find his special someone if he introduces her to his celebrity clients. But when their arrangement brings them together in ways they never expected, they realize that the perfect match might just be their own.
