Sonali Dev Books in Order

For the full Bollywood arc: A Bollywood Affair → The Bollywood Bride → A Change of Heart → A Distant Heart
For Austen inspired family drama: Pride, Prejudice, and Other Flavors → Recipe for Persuasion → Incense and Sensibility → The Emma Project
For women centered contemporary fiction: The Vibrant Years → Lies and Other Love Languages
For a warm newer romance: There's Something About Mira → How Simi Got Her Groom Back
For a shorter second chance read: The Wedding Setup

Sonali Dev grew up in Bandra, in West Mumbai, in a home full of stories. She has said she was the child who wanted to tell the bedtime story instead of hear one. Her first public piece was a play about mistaken identities, performed at a neighborhood Diwali celebration when she was eight.

Stories came early.

Before novels took over her working life, Dev studied architecture and writing, moved around the world, started a family, and wrote for magazines and websites. She also spent time trying to break into screenwriting in Mumbai. That matters, because Bollywood left a real mark on her imagination, not just the glamour, but the mix of melodrama, humor, longing, and hard won hope.

Her path to romance fiction came later, after she was living in the Chicago area. She has talked about realizing that romance novels and Bollywood films were chasing some of the same emotional truths, love under pressure, family expectations, second chances, and the belief that joy can still be possible. She began writing novels in 2010, took creative writing classes at the University of Chicago, kept working through rejection, and eventually sold two books to Kensington. Even though The Bollywood Bride was drafted first, A Bollywood Affair became her debut in 2014.

That debut set the pattern for a lot of what readers now love about her work. In books like A Bollywood Affair and The Bollywood Bride, she pairs swoony romance with real questions about duty, independence, grief, and reinvention. A Change of Heart and A Distant Heart push even further, blending love stories with danger, loss, illness, and moral knots that do not come loose easily.

Then came the Rajes.

With Pride, Prejudice, and Other Flavors, Recipe for Persuasion, Incense and Sensibility, and The Emma Project, Dev built a series around a wealthy Indian American family in California and used Jane Austen as a jumping off point rather than a cage. Those novels bring together food, politics, public image, mental health, sibling loyalty, and romantic chaos. Readers who click with them tend to stay for the family arguments as much as the kissing.

Her newer books show how much room there is inside her range. The Vibrant Years follows three generations of women trying to make fuller, truer lives for themselves. Lies and Other Love Languages turns friendship, motherhood, and identity into a story full of secrets and emotional fallout. There's Something About Mira takes a lost ring and turns it into a warm, searching New York love story, while How Simi Got Her Groom Back mixes sister drama, immigration pressure, and fake marriage complications.

Along the way, Dev has helped widen what mainstream romance looks like. Her books have appeared on best of the year lists from major review outlets, and her work has earned honors that include a romance award from the American Library Association, an RT Reviewer Choice Award, and a RITA finalist spot. Those are nice markers, but the bigger achievement may be simpler: she has written South Asian characters and families into the center of stories that reach a wide audience without flattening where they come from.

Now based in the Chicago suburbs, Dev keeps writing novels that are funny, emotional, and alert to the messiness of family life. She likes big feelings, but she also likes consequence. That balance is a big part of why her books feel both comforting and sharp at the same time.