Give Love a Chai, a contemporary romance from Nanxi Wen

My dear friend Sandra Berman joins us this week to share her thoughts on Nanxi Wen’s Give Love a Chai. Give Love a Chai is the second book in the Common Threads series, Seduction in the City World, Penny Reid Book Universe.⁣ Welcome, Sandy! We are all excited to hear what you thought of Give Love a Chai.

Sandy’s Review of Give Love a Chai:

Expectations are funny things. They color a lot of what we think and do.

I love Penny Reid’s books and most of the books in the Smartypants Romance series – these are offshoots of Penny’s books – the Knitting in the City series and the Winston Brothers series. So, given the chance to review Give Love a Chai, which has new characters but loosely ties into the Knitting in the City (KiTC) series, I was stoked! A common theme in these books is strong, smart, interesting women, and usually the men they fall in love with are also strong and interesting (and sometimes, but not always, smart 😊). If you haven’t read Neanderthal Seeks Human (first book in KiTC), stop reading this and go download it. Now. I’ll wait.

Give Love a Chai is the second book in the Common Threads series. I haven’t read the first book, but I assume something is related to knitting and connections to the characters in KiTC. Still with me?

Tia Wang is a girl geek (yay!) teaching at MIT, engaged to an American prince when she finds out she is still married to her teenage love Andrew. The book opens in Chicago, where Tia has brought divorce papers, and Andrew works for Cypher Systems (a security company run by billionaires introduced in Neanderthal Seeks Human). Tia meets grown up Andrew and finds there are still feelings after 10 years.

So far, so good. I enjoy a second chance story. Andrew and Tia are set up to be great characters. BUT – and it’s a big BUT – they don’t talk for ten years! They both have a lot of unresolved issues, many of which would have been solved if they had just talked to each other. As my friend Maddy knows, this kind of thing makes me crazy. Meanwhile, it would have been a much shorter book!

I get that not everyone is as confrontational as I am. Sometimes, in real life, people don’t communicate and it screws things up. There are a few too many coincidences (I buy that Andrew went to law school with Tia’s fiancé and best friend, but some of the connections seem forced). There is too much “telling” and not enough “showing” about the personalities and what attracts them to each other. Also, there are multiple suspense themes that fizzle out.

I might have approached this book differently if it didn’t come with all the KiTC expectations – I think I would have been more open and not expecting a fully polished manuscript, especially from a first-time author. Overall, I think Nanxi Wen has a strong voice and I look forward to her next novel.

If you read it, I would love to know what you think.