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Arcady Dalca is a mage who specializes in shape-shifting, a thief and also the scion of the most infamous family in the city of Vatra. Their grandfather, the Plaguebringer, was widely believed to have caused the Strikes, virulent and deadly diseases that swept the world. But Arcady does not believe their grandfather was capable of such destruction and has embarked on a quest to discover the truth. Part of that quest requires stealing the Plaguebringer’s seal, a dragonstone amulet that allows the wearer to wield magic, and using its power to shape-shift into a new identity. But the spell Arcady casts to claim the seal rips a hole in the Veil separating worlds and lets an invader through: Everen, the last male dragon, failed seer and prince of a dying world. Everen wants to tear the Veil wide open, letting his fellow dragons back into the world that banished them so that they can escape extinction and wreak vengeance on humankind for their betrayal. Everen is trapped in human form, but he can regain his full power if he wins Arcady’s complete trust—and then kills them.
In writing Dragonfall, author L.R. Lam was clearly inspired by fantasy authors like Anne McCaffrey and Robin Hobb, both of whom have written iconic tales starring dragons. But Lam also injects this classic high fantasy quest with a healthy dose of sexual tension. The romance between Arcady and Everen is central to the plot, since the fates of both humans and dragons hinge on their bond. And while all is not well in their relationship by the book’s end, it seems clear that by the planned trilogy’s conclusion, these Veil-crossed lovers will be united, saving the world in the process.
Lam employs many common tropes of both romance and high fantasy, but their world building is still delightfully imaginative and richly detailed. Despite banishing dragons centuries ago, humans still worship them as gods, with different dragon deities being associated with different kinds of spells. All of the magic in Dragonfall involves asking the world to reshape itself in a specific way, which means that all humans who possess seals have the capacity to manipulate themselves or their environments to fit their needs or desires. Lam delves headlong into the philosophical implications of this, constructing a society built almost entirely around fluidity. This extends from architecture built on a premise of ephemerality, because it can be magically adjusted at any moment, to a concept of gender wholly based on personal preferences, as many people can change their appearances at will. Everen, whose world is one of rigid roles and clearly demarcated boundaries, finds this embrace of inconstancy confounding. But for the genderfluid Arcady, such liberation is the bedrock of existence. Lam’s deep exploration of this fascinating society beautifully balances the somewhat pulpy genre elements.
Grimdark aficionados should steer clear, but Dragonfall will delight fans of well-designed worlds, heroes’ journeys and slow-burning romance. Here there be (sexy) dragons.
In Happy Place, New York Times bestselling author Emily Henry returns with a tender contemporary romance full of vulnerability, growth and love.
Every year for the last decade, college sweethearts-turned-engaged couple Harriet and Wyn have joined their friends at a cottage in Maine for a weeklong getaway. It’s something they’ve always looked forward to—but not this year. Because Harriet and Wyn broke up six months ago, and they haven’t told their friends yet. Uncertain of how the group will take the news, they don’t want a cloud hanging over their very last trip to the cottage, which is going up for sale.
For a whole week, Harriet and Wyn must play the part of a couple in love to preserve their ruse, including sharing the cozy master bedroom. As the vacation plays out, Harriet and Wyn get over their initial nervousness and fall back into sweet little routines and playful banter as their passion for each other resurfaces. The trip might be just what Harriet and Wyn need to find each other again.
Happy Place feels very much like the Henry that fans have come to adore through rom-coms such as People We Meet on Vacation and Book Lovers, but this time with the added complexity of a larger cast. Harriet and Wyn’s coupledom is one of the foundations of their close-knit friend group, and Henry illustrates the benefits and challenges of being in a relationship that’s also a vital part of a community. Happy Place also makes room to explore one of Henry’s perennial concerns: how women internalize misogyny and societal pressures. Harriet is an overworked surgical resident, and her aversion to causing waves and speaking up about her own wants, needs and limits has pushed her to a breaking point. Her placative nature leads her to stew in her own stress, constantly pushing things down and never relieving her simmering anxiety. In addition to regaining her connection with Wyn, the week at the cottage teaches Harriet that her problems—whether romantic, professional or emotional—don’t have to be shouldered alone.
Harriet and Wyn’s chemistry is effervescent, bubbling up each time they remember how and why they fell in love in the first place. They’re the perfect combination of sweet, sexy and silly, and it’s obvious why everyone (including, eventually and undoubtedly, the reader) is rooting for their happily ever after. Happy Place proves that Henry is a writer with “no skips,” her oeuvre as expertly crafted as a perfect summer playlist.
Fans of the fake-dating trope will love The Boyfriend Candidate, Ashley Winstead’s charming rom-com. When her cheating boyfriend dumps her, librarian Alexis Stone dons a red dress and heads to a swank bar to find a one-night stand. All goes well, until a fire alarm leads to her being caught on camera with the man she’s about to bed: Logan Arthur, a politician who’s running to be the governor of Texas. Logan and his team persuade Alexis to pretend she’s his longtime, previously secret girlfriend until the election. Luckily, Logan is extremely attractive and his progressive policies match her own. Cue shy Alexis finding her voice and the brash Logan continually getting distracted by the enchanting librarian. Told in Alexis’ fresh first-person voice, this heartwarming romance has both poignant introspection and a hero who sacrifices his dignity when faced with kittens and gerbils.
The Secret Service of Tea and Treason, India Holton’s delightful third installment in her Dangerous Damsels series, takes place in a fantasy version of Victorian England populated by pirates, witches and spies. Alice Dearlove is a top operative with a dangerous new assignment: Find a secret weapon and stop the assassination of Queen Victoria. But to do this, she must pretend to be the wife of her professional rival, Daniel Bixby. The highly entertaining adventure that follows includes flying houses, cutthroat pirates, scary witches, farcical fun, whimsical wordplay and a castle with secret passages and professional ghosts. Daniel and Alice race around England to try and solve the case, all while putting out (literal) fires, falling in love and engaging in tender scenes of sensual awakening.
Family pressures and personal ambition clash in Sugar, Spice, and Can’t Play Nice by Annika Sharma. Fashion designer Payal Mehra has a spectacular no-strings-attached night with Ayaan Malhotra, the son of family friends and someone who is as commitment-averse as she. Unfortunately, the morning after is such a disaster that both assume they’ll never see each other again. Then their families put forth a business proposition to the couple—one that will be sealed with an arranged marriage. While both initially loathe the idea, Ayaan and Payal realize how beneficial their union could be. She’ll get funding for her clothing line and save her family’s business, while he’ll get 50% of his family’s company. They decide to go ahead with the engagement, believing they can break things off before they get dire. Readers will root for Payal and Ayaan, both of whom are buffeted by family expectations and disappointment yet persevere. Their slow journey to confidence in themselves and contentment in each other is layered with lush descriptions of South Asian fashion and food.
Must-reads for May include the latest from bestselling historian David Grann and romance superstar Emily Henry, plus the long-awaited second novel from Abraham Verghese.
Our Migrant Souls is one of the most important pieces of Latino nonfiction in several decades. Turning the last page, you will feel the weight of history on your shoulders.
Emily Henry’s effervescent and tender Happy Place is as expertly crafted as a perfect summer playlist.
Gareth Hanrahan’s gritty and rousing fantasy novel The Sword Defiant explores what happens after the good guys win.
Abraham Verghese, probably the best doctor-writer since Anton Chekhov, upends all of our expectations again and again in his long awaited follow-up to Cutting for Stone.
Firekeeper’s Daughter author Angeline Boulley returns to Sugar Island with a thriller that urges readers to consider: Who owns the past?
David Grann’s narrative nonfiction masterpiece about an 18th-century man-of-war that ran aground in South America reveals humanity at its best and worst, from heroism to cannibalism.
Julia Lee’s piercing discussions of Asian American identity are likely to challenge readers across the ideological spectrum. In fact, she even challenges her own views.
The Weeds requests the reader to observe and look for connections, to question structures and patterns, and to discover new ways of seeing.
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Centuries ago, the humans of Lumet banished dragons. But in a ritual gone wrong, shape-shifting thief Arcady accidentally lets the last male dragon back into the world. Trapped in human form while on this side of the Veil, Everen is intent on ripping apart the Veil between worlds so that his people can return, but the dragon finds himself forging a surprising bond with Arcady.
There is such a great balance between romance and fantasy in Dragonfall. How do you envision this evolving as you continue the trilogy?
From the beginning, it was always meant to be a pretty equal balance. I absolutely love “romantasy,” as it’s been coined. I decided to try my hand at it because I thought it would be really fun to essentially smuggle a paranormal shifter romance into a fantasy setting with a lot of history and lore and see if I could get away with it. I really love playing with romance tropes, too, so I sprinkled in enemies-to-lovers and made it so the characters are in forced proximity but can’t really physically touch, which resulted in a lot of slow burn. I’m not opposed to it shifting more one direction or the other as I go on; it’ll end up being whatever best serves the story, I expect.
“I’m not good with binaries in general—shades of gray are far more interesting.”
When talking about this book, you’ve mentioned writers like Robin Hobb and Anne McCaffrey, both of whom have created iconic dragons. Were there any fictional dragons that were particularly inspirational to you?
I have been wanting to write my own take on dragons for ages, but it took awhile to find my angle (which was apparently making them turn into quite hot not-quite-humanoids, giving them feathers like dinosaurs, and having them reproduce via parthenogenesis and be mostly female due to rising temperatures in a dying world). Dragons are, after all, the ultimate fantasy creature, but I always wanted to know more. In many stories and myths, dragons are the monsters to be slain, or creatures that were in some way fundamentally unknowable. I knew early on that I wanted to tell this story partly from a dragon’s point of view. What would a dragon society be like?
When I was younger, I was very into Patricia C. Wrede’s Enchanted Forest Chronicles. As you mentioned, Robin Hobb and Anne McCaffrey have some of my favorite dragons. There are also, of course, the dragons in “Game of Thrones” and “House of the Dragon.” Other big inspirations were Rachel Hartman’s Seraphina and Shadow Scale, which have dragons that turn into humans as well. More recently, I adored The Priory of the Orange Tree by the incredibly talented Samantha Shannon. I enjoyed Julie Kagawa’s Talon series as well. I’m also inspired by film, and one of my comfort movies is the Russian film I Am Dragon, which has gorgeous fairy-tale aesthetics and a dragon learning how to be human who seemingly never learns to wear a shirt.
What were you reading while you were writing Dragonfall, and in general, how do you approach reading while writing?
I see reading and writing as intrinsically linked and believe that part of my job is to read both the classics that came before and the work that’s coming out now. I feel like we’re in a new golden age of fantasy. While drafting Dragonfall, I reread some old favorites such as The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch, some Mercedes Lackey and N.K. Jemisin’s The Fifth Season (a big influence on me merrily using first-person direct address for Everen’s point of view). And I read new titles such as Rage of Dragons by Evan Winter, The Jasmine Throne by Tasha Suri, The Unbroken by C.L. Clark, The Bone Shard Daughter by Andrea Stewart and more. I also read history, science fiction and nonfiction and listened to audiobooks and podcasts about all sorts of things—writers should always just be magpies and pick up anything shiny, in my opinion.
One of the central plot points in Dragonfall is the Strikes, a disease that gives people black markings on their skin and interferes with their ability to use magic. What were your inspirations for this disease and for how your society responded to it?
I was inspired by the Black Death, which had several resurgences, and by how the radical reduction in population shifted medieval society. The peasant class changed, feudalism’s days were numbered and you had more people moving from the country to the cities, particularly London. I also really liked the idea of there being such a heavy cost to using too much magic. However, I wrote most of the book during the U.K.’s various COVID-19 lockdowns in 2020 and 2021, so that inevitably had an impact, intentionally or otherwise.
As a reader, rather than a writer, do you gravitate toward stories where who the “good guys” are depends on where you’re standing, or ones with a consistent villain? Why?
As a reader, I’ve always found unambiguously good or evil characters a little boring, I have to say. I’m not good with binaries in general—shades of gray are far more interesting. I love antagonists who believe they are the hero or who are doing things that aren’t necessarily evil. I also love a good corruption or redemption arc. Antagonists in stories can exist to remind you that, under the right circumstances, you could very well turn into a villain yourself. Or other people might make you a villain in their minds, even if it’s not necessarily rooted in your actions, because it’s an easier narrative to tell themselves. In the right light, a hero could make a terrible decision in the name of “the greater good.” The greater good doesn’t mean much to the people who suffer the actual negative consequences of that decision. It’s rarely as simple as the Chosen One versus the Dark Lord or good always triumphing over evil.
“All art is political, even if it chooses to uphold the status quo.”
What appealed to you about creating a signed lingua franca like Trade?
I always wondered why sign language isn’t taught by default in schools. It would make society a lot more accessible for deaf people, and it would have so many other useful applications. In a world where there was a more standardized sign language dialect, you could at least communicate basic things across language divides. Inevitably, things would be lost in translation or nuance would be lost, but you’d have an easier starting point. So I imagined that Trade arose as a result of needing to haggle at markets, though it can also be used for things as innocuous as telling your friend what drink to order from the other side of a crowded tavern or as important as clarifying your gender.
Your magic system is one where language can directly alter the world, and that idea harmonizes beautifully with the nuanced ways you handled gender and status. Is that a connection you see as well? What was important or meaningful to you about exploring the power of language?
I had a reader message me asking if I was a linguist because of the choices I made in Dragonfall, which delighted me. I’m not, but I made a lot of deliberate decisions about how language functions in Lochian society, so this is a nice excuse to geek out about it a little. Humans recite spells, which are really mangled words of the dragons’ language, Celenian. (This greatly offends Everen the dragon.) I worked with a linguist, my friend Seumas MacDonald, who created Celenian as a working language, and we’ll keep developing it over the series. Language can be such a tool of power, as Babel by R.F. Kuang demonstrates so beautifully. Humans already stole dragons’ magic and their world. Stealing their language to wield that magic without even remembering what their ancestors did is salt in the wound.
In Loc, it’s considered rude to assume a stranger’s gender, no matter how they present. A percentage of society can shape-shift, and healing magic can change a fair amount about the body, so biology isn’t seen as something immutable and unchanging, and gender roles are likewise fluid. You therefore default to “they” until that person quickly flashes their gender in Trade, often not even breaking the conversation. It’s a sign of trust and familiarity, like when you switch from the formal to informal “you” in languages like French and Spanish.
Status is also important. If you really respect someone or they’re higher class than you, you capitalize They and there’s a certain inflection to spoken speech. So nobility, clergy, rich merchants or guilders, or those who teach at the university might all be referred to with that honorific. You see it playing out in characters’ attitudes as well: One of the characters, priest assassin Sorin, uses They for most people she meets because she sees everyone as higher status than her, whereas Arcady, a genderfluid thief who despises a lot of the nobility and rages against society’s unfairness, largely refuses to use that honorific for the rich.
If you had a choice of dropping into this world, would you choose to be a human or a dragon?
Oh, dead easy. No contest. Why be human when you could be a dragon? And fly?
How do you balance aspiration and escapism with social critique in your work?
When I’m teaching, I ask new writers to consider this, too. I sigh a bit when people complain about “politics in their fantasy” as if it’s something new. All art is political, even if it chooses to uphold the status quo. In epic fantasy, there’s often a strong pro-monarchy angle, for example, and gender roles can be regressive in the name of “historical accuracy” despite these medieval-inspired worlds having things like potatoes and, you know, magical creatures. Those are political decisions, technically. That said, you don’t want to have a diatribe, either. It can be a difficult balance, and no writer will get it right for every reader. Fantasy can defamiliarize elements of our world or society, but it does it at more of a distance than contemporary fiction. The mirror is distorted.
For Dragonfall, I tried to focus on story and character first. As I mentioned, in Loc there’s no judgment in regard to sexuality or gender, whereas another country, Jask, is patriarchal. I suppose it is still subversive to imagine a world that tolerant, even in fantasy. I wrote Dragonfall as an escape when I was stuck inside most of the time. We’re seeing rising threats to transgender and reproductive rights, and the rhetoric and vitriol is honestly quite frightening, both in my original home of the U.S. and my current home in the U.K. This book is launching when queer books are increasingly getting banned. Even saying this in this interview makes me a little anxious. Are people going to say I’m banging on about politics instead of just focusing on the book? But I can’t exactly separate them out.
I obviously hope readers enjoy meeting these characters and falling into the world of the Lumet, but perhaps the book will make them think, too.
Abby Jimenez’s Yours Truly is a sweet, simmering and sparkling slow-burn romance that exemplifies everything readers adore about her work: It’s one part tropey rom-com, two parts drama. The angst, the laughs and the characters are perfectly balanced as two bighearted doctors rediscover joy with each other despite being rivals for the same promotion.
Dr. Briana Ortiz is an emergency room superstar at Royaume Northwestern, one of the most prestigious hospitals in Minnesota. Her personal life, though, is a disaster. Between her soon-to-be ex-husband giving in to his secret, long-standing love for their mutual friend and her younger brother’s life-threatening kidney disease, Briana is barely keeping it together.
Into this chaos enters hotshot Dr. Jacob Maddox, who threatens the one good thing Bri’s been counting on: her promotion to chief of emergency medicine. Jacob’s gruff manner during their first interactions amplifies the offense. But, like Bri, Jacob is dealing with hefty personal baggage, namely the fact that his brother is engaged to Jacob’s ex-girlfriend. With both his ex and his brother in residence at his old hospital, Jacob needed a fresh start. But being an outsider at Royaume adds pressure to his chronic social anxiety.
Jacob and Bri’s tribulations are a lot, but they’re rendered with a meticulous authenticity. (Per the author’s note, several of their issues reflect challenges Jimenez herself has faced.) Briana’s emotional abyss is heart-rending. Once the divorce is final, Bri worries that “my rage would finally burn out, and I’d be left with what was left of me.” Jacob’s strain is just as affecting. His new job means dealing with the pressure of meeting new people and Briana’s instant hostility. And at family events, his brother and his ex rely on him to pacify Jacob’s fiercely loyal family. It’s a perfect storm of triggers, and Jimenez paints a realistic portrait of someone successfully coping. Jacob juggles pressures with generosity and grace: Early on, he writes an Austen-worthy apology letter to defuse the misunderstandings between himself and Briana.
Briana emotionally supports Jacob by pretending to be his girlfriend during his whirlwind of family obligations, and their connection blooms in truly lovely ways under the veil of platonic friendship and fake dating. Perhaps Yours Truly’s one weakness is that the burn is excruciatingly slow, even as the unresolved sexual tension sizzles. Their chemistry is both sweet and hotter than a brushfire, but Briana has tremendous difficulty seeing Jacob’s feelings. While her emotional blindness is understandable, given how it springs from deep hurt, readers may yearn for Bri and Jacob to spend more time enjoying their bright and sparkling energy as a couple. Still, Jimenez has created one of the finest cinnamon roll heroes ever written in Jacob, and Briana and Jacob’s tender connection and deep bond shines at the very center of Yours Truly.
Canadian Chinese lawyer Ariadne “Ari” Hui feels unappreciated, undermined and misunderstood at work. Despite her dedication and strong work ethic, her hopes to be instrumental in a big case are dashed by a new hire who happens to be white—just like the rest of her co-workers. But her work strife is briefly forgotten when she returns home to find an unfamiliar man sleeping on her sofa. The handsome stranger turns out to be Choi Jihoon, her roommate’s charming cousin who is visiting from Seoul, South Korea. Ari is initially resistant to spending time with him, but Jihoon’s joyful approach to life helps liberate her from her stifling beliefs about work and life. The cool, reserved Ari finds herself melting—until she discovers what Jihoon does for a living.
Lily Chu’s sweet, entertaining The Comeback will have readers rooting for the two very different characters at its heart. Ari is consistently relatable, and her efforts to be a good daughter and fulfill her father’s desire for her to have a successful career are laudable. While the portrayal of the racial politics of Ari’s workplace can be didactic at times, Chu does effectively highlight the variety of cultural misconceptions and insensitivities that plague Ari, such as when people assume that because she is Chinese, she should speak Chinese, or that, at the very least, her parents should have an accent. The mysterious Jihoon is equally intriguing as he skulks around Toronto with Ari before revealing his secret. It’s clear that both lack a firm sense of self, and their individual journeys to understand what they truly want make for a gratifying read.
The story’s eventual foray into dazzling Seoul adds to the appeal, with Chu credibly portraying the trendy costumes, enigmatic personalities and huge fan bases of K-pop stars. She balances out the dazzle of this world by also showing how its denizens must commit to hourslong rehearsals, give up their autonomy and endure a distinct lack of privacy.
Filled with tender moments, The Comeback will delight fans of rom-coms like Last Tang Standing and Crazy Rich Asians.
Flirty and modern, Just as You Are by Camille Kellogg is a sapphic retelling of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice.
Liz Baker is an occasionally impulsive yet organized Leo who loves her friends, enjoys her job and sees the bright side of almost any situation. She’s even got a positive outlook on the news that the queer magazine where she works, The Nether Fields, is about to shut down. After four years of writing sex and relationship advice articles, she’s looking forward to starting the novel she’s always wanted to write. But there’s a big downside, too: Liz and her three roommates face is that they all work at The Nether Fields, and the possibility of all four of them finding new employment and paying their bills is slim, to say the least. Fortunately, a pair of wealthy lesbians swoop in at the eleventh hour to save the day.
Daria Fitzgerald is a reserved, no-nonsense businessperson with a keen mind to match her sharp suits. She’s the complete opposite of her fellow investor in The Nether Fields, Bailey Cox, whose open, friendly personality and enthusiastic outlook put many of the staffers at ease. But Daria is unimpressed by Liz’s laundry-day get-up of cargo pants and a cardigan, confident that Liz’s personal style reflects a lazy professional ethic. Oh, how wrong she is.
Like Austen, Kellogg makes astute observations about social class, bias and the strength to be found in friendships. She cannily updates the biological Bennet sisters into the found family of Liz and her roommates but maintains the classic opposites-attract dynamic of the original novel: Reserved and clearly wealthy, Daria immediately butts heads with bold, practical and working-class Liz. Their journey to understanding is worth the chatty and introspective ride, and Austen fans will appreciate Kellogg’s clever changes to the beloved source material.
A Love Catastrophe is a delightfully heartfelt rom-com with much ado about cats (and some ado about dogs).
Newly hired NHL data analyst Miles Thorn has his hands full. His mother is in the hospital, and her cat, Prince Francis, is acting up. Enter the indomitable Kitty Hart, aka the Kitty Whisperer, the optimistic owner of a cat care and training service with a robust social media following. Although Kitty is irked by dog lover Miles’ scornful attitude toward cats, she still finds him quite fetching. And although Miles is a bit bewildered by Kitty’s boundless devotion to and adoration of the felines she works with, he still wishes he hadn’t been so rude when he first met her. As Miles and Kitty attempt to overcome a bad first impression and curb Prince Francis’ destructive behavior, will Kitty’s charms work on Miles as well as the cat?
Author Helena Hunting amusingly sets up the initial division between the sunny Kitty and the overwhelmed and grumpy Miles. He’s not quite in the territory of misanthropes like Fredrik Backman’s Ove; rather, Miles is understandably (and often charmingly) cranky due to his circumstances. Kitty’s sunny and loving disposition, even when she is strict with naughty cats, makes her immediately likable, while Miles’ attempts to be less aggravated by his mother and Prince Francis are endearing.
While there are plentiful cute moments between Miles and Kitty, especially in their disagreements about their preferred species, both are also working through complex family relationships and painful past experiences. Hunting perfectly balances levity and heartwarming sincerity to create a purr-fectly sweet, uplifting and playful romance.
Before I picked up Sarah Adler’s debut novel, I had no idea that what I needed in life was a love story about grounded flights, olive oil spills, broccoli trivia, precisely three tablespoons of cremated remains and that weird thing where you always run into people you know at the airport. If you’re in the mood to giggle helplessly while falling in love with absurdly endearing characters, then Mrs. Nash’s Ashes will be just what you need, too.
Former child star Millicent Watts-Cohen left acting behind years ago, but she is still famous enough to get asked, “Hey, don’t I know you?” by an endless string of people—some sweet, some obnoxious and some just plain gross. One might expect Millie to be cynical or jaded, but she stubbornly insists on being pure sunshine, open and optimistic. Her wholehearted romanticism leads her to transport the titular bag of ashes to Florida. Mrs. Nash was Millie’s roommate and, despite their decadeswide age gap, her best friend. The love of Mrs. Nash’s life was Elsie, a nurse she met during World War II. Because a future together seemed impossible, they went their separate ways, and Elsie reportedly died 10 years later. But after Mrs. Nash dies herself, Millie discovers that Elsie is still alive, in hospice at a retirement center in Florida. As a last gift to Mrs. Nash, Millie decides to bring her ashes to Elsie, reuniting the two women at last.
Unfortunately, that mission hits a snag when a technical snafu grounds swarms of airplanes. But luckily, the world’s grumpiest white knight rides to Millie’s rescue. Hollis Hollenbeck, a friend of Millie’s ex, might grouse and grumble, but he saves Millie starting with the very first scene of the book, in which he fends off a particularly icky fan. After the rental cars are snapped up, he offers her a lift with him to Florida. Hollis insists that he’s only helping her for his own peace of mind (he’s convinced Millie would cheerfully assist some creep in kidnapping her if left to her own devices), but she has him pegged right from the start. He’s not nice—not at all. But he’s kind. And also really hot, of course.
Opposites attract plus a road trip isn’t a new combination. In the reader’s guide, Adler references the O.G.: It Happened One Night, Frank Capra’s classic 1934 rom-com. Many have followed in Capra’s footsteps, but the familiarity of the plot doesn’t take one iota of pleasure away from watching Hollis and Millie come together. Millie’s a delight, quirky and sweet without ever seeming saccharine or insincere. And Hollis is almost more endearing for how hard he tries not to be sweet. He’s doing everything he can to keep from being charmed, but all his defenses fall by the wayside whenever Millie needs him. Romance readers will know that Millie and Hollis’ story has a happy ending, but it’s not the destination that matters. It’s the journey—and this journey is an absolute treat.
Author Uzma Jalaluddin returns with another classic love story retelling set in Toronto’s Muslim community. While her last romance took inspiration from ’90s rom-com classic You’ve Got Mail, Much Ado About Nada offers a contemporary twist on Jane Austen’s Persuasion.
Nada Syed feels blocked, both professionally and personally. She had high hopes for her app Ask Apa, which would have offered users culturally sensitive advice. But after being betrayed by a business partner, she finds herself working an engineering job that stifles her creativity and desire to do good. With her 30th birthday on the horizon, she’s questioning all the decisions that have led to her being single, living with her parents and failing to become the successful tech CEO she’s always dreamed of being.
Haleema, Nada’s best friend, thinks attending Deen&Dunya, a Muslim conference full of fandom and fun, will help Nada get out of her rut. Haleema’s fiancé, Zayn, and his brother, Baz, are joining them, but unbeknownst to Haleema, Nada and Baz have a long and tumultuous history. Despite being thrown together for the duration of the conference, both Nada and Baz want to keep their complicated feelings for each other a secret.
Jalaluddin has a real talent for crafting protagonists, and Nada is just as complex and enjoyable as the heroines of Ayesha at Last and Hana Khan Carries On. Nada faces all the unfair societal and familial pressures that can weigh on women as they enter their 30s, and her feeling of a giant clock ticking away her remaining time to accomplish goals will hit home for a lot of readers. Jalaluddin adds depth and specificity to this experience by showing how these pressures manifest in Nada’s Muslim community and family.
Nada and Baz’s cheeky romance is the perfect balance to Much Ado About Nada’s social commentary. Their interactions sizzle with sexual tension as they dance around each other, and their adorable mutual attraction is charmingly obvious to everyone but them. Baz and Nada’s eventual union is a sure thing from the moment they reunite, but it’s still a delight to see them get there in their own time.
One of the best things about Jalaluddin’s work is the sheer amount of joy she brings to her characters, her writing and her happily ever afters. She clearly delights in reinventing known classics, using beloved heroines as a foundation to create modern women who don’t want or need to sacrifice their ambitions for other parts of their lives. With Much Ado About Nada, Jalaluddin has written yet another winner—and this time it’s one with a particularly heartwarming, tender and feminist resolution.
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