The Marriage Code

Burroughs debuts with a fun but slightly stilted take on the enemies-to-lovers trope. Seattle programmer Emma puts all her energy into work after turning down her boyfriend’s marriage proposal. So when Rishi, an app developer from the Bangalore office of Emma’s company, threatens to poach her passion project, Helix, Emma is understandably upset. Meanwhile, Rishi hopes moving to Seattle to work on Helix will put his parents’ plan to find him a suitable wife on pause. But then Emma talks the bosses into putting her back in charge, and management decides to move the Helix app team from Seattle to Bangalore. Though they got off on the wrong foot, Emma will do anything to get the brilliant Rishi on her team, including designing a web crawler to help Rishi find his perfect wife. But Emma’s code doesn’t account for the chemistry already brewing between the two of them. Unfortunately, though Burroughs sets up seemingly insurmountable differences in Emma and Rishi’s cultures and values, their issues resolve with little real conversation. Most frustratingly, Burroughs lets Emma off the hook for an early racially insensitive comment comparing Rishi to a colonizer. The effective comedy and cute premise will draw readers in, but many will be unconvinced by the romance itself. Agent: Kimberly Brower, Brower Literary (Jan.)