{"product_id":"radha-jais-recipe-for-romance-isbn-9780553523294","title":"Radha \u0026 Jai's Recipe for Romance","description":"\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eTo All the Boys I Loved Before\u003c\/i\u003e meets \u003ci\u003eWorld of Dance\u003c\/i\u003e in this delectable love story that combines food, dance, and a hint of drama to cook up the perfect romance.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRadha is on the verge of becoming one of the greatest kathak dancers in the world . . . until a family betrayal costs her the biggest competition of her life. Now she has left her Chicago home behind to follow her stage mom to New Jersey. At the Princeton Academy of the Arts, Radha is determined to leave performing in her past and reinvent herself from scratch.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eJai is captain of the Bollywood Beats dance team, ranked first in his class, and is an overachiever with no college plans. Tight family funds means medical school is a pipe dream, which is why he wants to make the most out of high school. When Radha enters his life, he realizes she's the exact ingredient he needs for a show-stopping senior year.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWith careful choreography, both Radha and Jai will need to face their fears (and their families) if they want a taste of a happily ever after.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"A tasty treat! Nisha Sharma always delights.\" \u003cb\u003e--MEG CABOT, author of \u003ci\u003eThe Princess Diaries\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cb\u003ePraise for \u003ci\u003eRadha \u0026amp; Jai's Recipe for Romance:\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAn NPR Best Book of the Year!\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Well paced, authentic, and page-turning\u003c\/b\u003e...A perceptive and textured romance.\" \u003ci\u003e-Kirkus Reviews\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e\"\u003c\/b\u003eThis novel offers up\u003cb\u003e a charming, swoonworthy romcom with all the best ingredients....Read this alongside Nicola Yoon’s \u003ci\u003eInstructions for Dancing\u003c\/i\u003e for a double dose of dance-centered fun.” \u003c\/b\u003e\u003ci\u003e–The Bulletin\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\"Readers will enjoy Radha’s lifelong love of dance, her newfound pleasure in Indian cooking, and Jai’s enthusiasm for Bollywood as much as their strong, mutual attraction in this \u003cb\u003eupbeat romance\u003c\/b\u003e.” \u003ci\u003e\u003ci\u003e–Booklist\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cb\u003e\"A toe-tapping dance romance treat\" \u003c\/b\u003e-NPR\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePraise for \u003ci\u003eMy So-Called Bollywood Life:\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAn NPR Best Book of the Year!\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eA RITA Award Winner for Best Young Adult Romance!\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"A\u003cb\u003e delightful and humorous\u003c\/b\u003e debut.\"\u003ci\u003e–Kirkus Reviews,\u003c\/i\u003e Starred Review\u003cbr\u003e \"\u003cb\u003eThe perfect timepass for both the Bollywood-obsessed and filmi (melodrama) novices\u003c\/b\u003e.” \u003ci\u003e–Teen Vogue\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"A strong, winsome heroine; a solid supporting cast, including family; and\u003cb\u003e a romantic triangle that rivals any Bollywood plot\u003c\/b\u003e.\"  \u003ci\u003e–Booklist\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"\u003cb\u003eCharming, romantic, and super sweet\u003c\/b\u003e. Contemporary fans will fall hard for Sharma's debut.\" -\u003ci\u003eBuzzfeed\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cb\u003eNisha Sharma\u003c\/b\u003e is the critically acclaimed author of\u003ci\u003e My So-Called Bollywood Life\u003c\/i\u003e, a \u003ci\u003eKirkus\u003c\/i\u003e starred reviewed YA romance, and NPR best book of 2018. She is also the author of \u003ci\u003eThe Takeover Effect\u003c\/i\u003e, a\u003ci\u003e Library Journal \u003c\/i\u003estarred reviewed adult contemporary romance, and the first installment of The Singh Family Trilogy. Her writing has been praised by \u003ci\u003eCosmopolitan, Entertainment Weekly, Teen Vogue, Buzzfeed, Hypable\u003c\/i\u003e, and more.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNisha lives in New Jersey with her Alaskan husband, her cat Lizzie Bennett, and her dog Nancey Drew. She credits her father for her multiple graduate degrees, and her mother for her love of Jane Austen and Shah Rukh Khan. You can find her online at nisha-sharma.com or on Twitter and Instagram at @nishawrites.\u003cp\u003eLondon, England \u003cbr\u003e January \u003cbr\u003e Radha \u003cbr\u003e Radha had to pee. \u003cbr\u003e Like, really bad. \u003cbr\u003e Honestly, she should’ve predicted it after all the years she’d been dancing. Every time she performed, her entire body re­acted . . . including her bladder. After nailing a routine she’d been working on for months at the International Kathak Clas­sics semifinals, the urge was particularly heinous. \u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003eAnd not a toilet in sight, \u003c\/i\u003eshe thought. Radha looked around backstage for her mother. If she disappeared without letting Su­jata Chopra know, the woman would have a meltdown. Sujata was even more high-strung about the competition than Radha was, since it had been her dream for Radha to perform. Being the best had never been a priority for Radha, though. The only thing that mattered to her was that she got the chance to dance.\u003cbr\u003e “Hey, Farah,” Radha said to the stage manager rushing past her. “Have you seen my mother?”\u003cbr\u003e Farah covered the mic attached to her ear and shook her head. “Did you need something?”\u003cbr\u003e “I wanted to run to the dressing room for a moment. I have to p—uh, fix my anarkali.” She motioned to her long gown, which covered her from her neck to right above her ankles.\u003cbr\u003e “If your mum asks, I’ll let her know where you are. Go ahead, love. You only have twenty minutes before you’ll have to be back in the wings again.”\u003cbr\u003e “Thanks.”\u003cbr\u003e Radha hurried down the stairs and into the basement under the stage. The hallways were empty since most of the contes­tants had left. There were only four semifinalists, so there was no point in the other contestants sticking around.\u003cbr\u003e Her ghungroos, two hundred bells on each nylon cord wrapped around her ankles, chimed as she ran on her tiptoes toward the end of the hall. She paused halfway, horrified, just as the event DJ started to play hype music. An Indian classical-dance competition shouldn’t have hype music. It was a serious occasion, and random Bollywood movie songs cheapened such a prestigious event.\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003eHoly Vishnu, I’m starting to think like my mother.\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e The basement walls vibrated with the sound, which drowned out Radha’s footsteps until she reached the dressing room.\u003cbr\u003e She stepped through the doorway, and over the faded bass from the DJ upstairs she heard the sound of conversation com­ing from the other side of the lockers.\u003cbr\u003e “Yeah, my mom sent me an SMS and said she did amaz­ing,” Diya said in her screechy voice. She was the oldest of the semifinalists—twelve years Radha’s senior—and had trained with her when they were in Rajasthan, India, a few years ago.\u003cbr\u003e “She could dance like a gorilla and she’d still win,” Rippi said. “Haven’t you heard about her mother?”\u003cbr\u003e “Sujata Roy Chopra? The famous kathak dancer, right? She stopped performing like twenty years ago. People forgot about her until Radha showed up, but from what it looks like, Su­jata controls Radha like a puppet.” Trish, a Canadian dancer, snorted. “It’s like her mother says do a chakkar, and Radha turns without question.”\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003eOh my God, \u003c\/i\u003eRadha thought. They were talking about her. She froze, hoping that her ghungroos hadn’t given her away. All thoughts of bathroom visits disappeared.\u003cbr\u003e “A few people from the committee told me that Sujata Cho­pra was seen with a principal judge after the celebratory cock­tail party,” Rippi said. “Apparently Radha’s mom and this judge were very, very friendly, if you know what I mean.”\u003cbr\u003e “I don’t think I’m following,” Trish said. “Was it just flirting or . . . more?”\u003cbr\u003e “Well, from what I was told, they left together. I believe it, too. Sujata Chopra has a reputation in the industry. She’d lie, cheat, and steal to make sure her daughter won.”\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003eNo. No way. \u003c\/i\u003eRadha felt bile burning in the back of her throat. Her mother was a little pushy, but she would never betray Radha and her father like that.\u003cbr\u003e Would she? The idea of her mother cheating . . . \u003ci\u003eOh my God.\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “Gross,” Diya said. “It makes sense why we’ve all lost to her so many times, though. Remember the Singapore competition in May? Radha choreographed her own number, and it was \u003ci\u003eawful. \u003c\/i\u003eShe still won, which confused everybody there.”\u003cbr\u003e “I can definitely see her mother cheating for her to win in Singapore,” Trish said. “I wonder if Radha knows. Like, is she the kind of person who is okay with that? She must have an idea of what Sujata is doing. Or \u003ci\u003ewho \u003c\/i\u003eshe’s doing.”\u003cbr\u003e “Even if she didn’t know about her mom,” Diya replied, “she probably wouldn’t react if someone told her. She has no person­ality at all unless she’s on a stage. If you ask her a question, it’s like you’re asking a piece of cardboard. She’s nothing, nobody, outside of dance.”\u003cbr\u003e “The fact that she’s boring and a mommy’s girl doesn’t make me feel bad for her,” Rippi said. “What does make me angry is that I spent years working for this moment, to get to the International Kathak Classics, just like you two have, and Radha gets to the finals because her mother is having an affair? That’s dirty, and it cheapens our art form.”\u003cbr\u003e Radha felt the radiating sting of Rippi’s words like a punch. Dancers could be mean to each other. She wasn’t completely clueless. But Radha had considered these dancers her peers. Instead they were picking her apart and slut-shaming her \u003ci\u003emother.\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e What was worse, they weren’t just talking about her mother cheating, but about her mother doing so to help Radha win a competition that Radha didn’t even care about.\u003cbr\u003e They had to be wrong. Her mother was pushy and demand­ing, but she would never jeopardize their family and Radha’s career like that.\u003cbr\u003e Even as she vehemently denied it in her heart, puzzle pieces from the last few months started to pop into place. Her mother had been acting stranger than usual. Then, last night, she’d said she had to go attend some business meetings. Radha hadn’t thought anything of it before putting on a sleep mask and going to bed.\u003cbr\u003e She hadn’t asked any questions. She never asked questions.\u003cbr\u003e Radha wanted to yell, to scream at Diya, Rippi, and Trish. To show them the cuts and bruises on her feet from her hours of practice. To pull out her training calendar and prove to them that she’d worked just as hard as everybody to get to where she was, maybe even harder. Four a.m. wake-up calls for early-morning practice followed by another three to five hours after school every day. No breaks, no vacations, no friends. Her fa­ther owned an Indian restaurant in Chicago, for God’s sake, but she drank protein shakes and ate steamed veggies every day of her life just to stay in shape.\u003cbr\u003e That only proved Diya’s point, though: that she had no life outside of kathak. When she was a kid, she used to say that kathak gave her “dance joy” and made her feel complete. But where did that leave her? With no personality, and a slew of competitive wins that were now questionable.\u003cbr\u003e She rocked on her heels, and her ghungroos made the faint­est ringing sound. Her breath came short and fast now as her lungs tried to pull in enough air.\u003cbr\u003e Oh my God. Was she having a panic attack? She could tell because it felt familiar, even though she hadn’t experienced one in a long time. She’d been managing her performance anxiety just fine. Especially when she focused on her love for dance, and not the onstage part. But there wasn’t a stage in sight.\u003cbr\u003e Her hand trembled as she pressed her fingertips to her lips. She breathed in deep through her nose, hoping to stop the dizziness, the urge to gasp for air. The hype music began to fade, and the three girls moved in a flurry of ruffling costumes and bells.\u003cbr\u003e “Let’s go,” Rippi said. “We don’t want to be late.”\u003cbr\u003e Radha was still standing in the doorway when they appeared from behind the lockers. Their faces were a study of shock and horror when they saw her.\u003cbr\u003e She didn’t care. Radha watched them for a moment, feeling a sickening sense of satisfaction at their discomfort, before tilt­ing her chin up. Like hell would she let the competition see her trembling, struggling to take deep breaths.\u003cbr\u003e She walked past them, hands fisted, toward the back of the dressing room. Radha focused on putting one foot in front of the other until she reached the table that had been assigned to her.\u003cbr\u003e The surface was covered in tubes, color palettes, hairpins, and safety pins. She picked up her empty bag from the floor and, with one quick jerk of her arm, swept everything into the duffel.\u003cbr\u003e She then went to her locker to put on her coat and shoes. In less than a minute she had all her things together and was ready to go.\u003cbr\u003e Her three competitors were still rooted in the spot where she’d left them.\u003cbr\u003e Radha strode forward until she was nose to nose with Rippi. The twenty-six-year-old looked fake in her stage makeup, with rosy red cheeks and eyeliner that covered most of her lids.\u003cbr\u003e Radha’s voice was as sharp as a blade. “Slut-shaming is a re­flection on you more than anyone else. Don’t \u003ci\u003eever \u003c\/i\u003etalk about my mother like that again.”\u003cbr\u003e Rippi jumped and visibly swallowed. She didn’t say another word as Radha walked around her and left the dressing room.\u003cbr\u003e She passed familiar faces, people who touched her arm, as she made her way into the lobby. She was going to keep walking until the sounds of the DJ’s horrible music went away and she could find silence at the hotel.\u003cbr\u003e Her pulse raced as she grew closer and closer to the exit doors. This place was no longer for her.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Crown Books for Young Readers","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46300149481701,"sku":"NP9780553523294","price":18.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780553523294.jpg?v=1767735337","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/es\/products\/radha-jais-recipe-for-romance-isbn-9780553523294","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}