A delicious treat filled with South Asian fervor and Canadian heart.
A young Canadian Muslim woman finds that sticking to one’s principles is not for the faint of heart, especially when you’re juggling two jobs—and a brewing romance.
Twenty-four-year-old Hanaan “Hana” Khan has her hands full: She has an internship at a local Toronto indie radio station; a job at her family restaurant, Three Sisters Biryani Poutine; and a self-produced podcast, Ana’s Brown Girl Rambles. Unfortunately, the internship is not quite the career launchpad that Hana hoped it would be. Worse, Three Sisters is in trouble despite the family’s best efforts. Wholistic Burgers and Grill, claiming to do halal right, is opening across the street, threatening to further sink the Khan family’s fortunes after 15 years of business. It doesn’t help that handsome Aydin Shah is spearheading the new restaurant with his rich father and threatening to gentrify the diverse Scarborough neighborhood. Hana’s podcast might be the one lifeline she has, especially as she finds a confidant in devoted admirer StanleyP. But Hana is not one to give up without a fight. She recruits Rashid, her newly arrived cousin from India, and other neighborhood players for a restaurant survival plan. But Cupid has other ideas. Hana finds there’s more to Aydin than his sexy silver shades and is not sure what to make of her budding feelings for the enemy. Jalaluddin has a keen ear for rapid-fire dialogue and lively characters who add plenty of color. Hana’s feistiness and occasional impulsiveness make her an endearing protagonist, and you'll root for her especially when darker events threaten to torpedo the carefully constructed community festival her family has cobbled together. Certain predictable plot elements notwithstanding, there’s plenty of lighthearted whimsy to warm a reader’s heart.
A delicious treat filled with South Asian fervor and Canadian heart.Pub Date: April 13, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-593-33636-6
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Berkley
Review Posted Online: March 2, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2021
BOOK TO SCREEN
Bailey hits it out of the park with her latest spicy romance.
Two ambitious athletes plus one fake-dating arrangement—what could go wrong?
Though it’s only his first season for the Boston Bearcats hockey team, Robbie Corrigan has a well-established reputation as a playboy. He’s got major skills on the ice, and he’s also much more likely to love ’em and leave ’em than he is to build any long, meaningful relationships. Naturally, he’s just met the one woman who seems completely resistant to his charm: Skylar Page, a Boston University softball pitcher. When they meet over a friendly Saturday morning baseball game, Robbie instantly makes a poor impression by bragging to his teammates about his latest conquest within Skylar’s hearing. He thinks she’s gorgeous, though, and when he sets his sights on her, he’s surprised that she doesn’t seem to know it. Despite her initial distaste for Robbie, Skylar grudgingly confesses that she could use his help. If they pretend to date, maybe her current crush—her brother’s best friend—will finally sit up and take notice of her in a romantic way. The timing is less than ideal, since Robbie will have to team up with Skylar in the Page family’s latest wilderness competition, but it turns out that Robbie’s willingness to play fake boyfriend stems from some very real feelings. He wants to prove to her that he’s a changed man, and redeeming himself in her eyes starts with making sure she knows that she can really trust him. The latest addition to Bailey’s Big Shots series is a sexy, feel-good romance brimming over with the author’s trademark humor and dirty talk. While Skylar and Robbie’s dynamic doesn’t quite reach the level of enemies-to-lovers—he’s so head-over-heels for her that there’s no room for any real mean-spiritedness—their playful snark doubles as a welcome dash of foreplay in the lead-up to some seriously steamy scenes. Robbie’s efforts to show Skylar that he’s turned over a new leaf also result in some of the book’s best moments, emphasizing his commitment to becoming the type of man he knows she deserves.
Bailey hits it out of the park with her latest spicy romance.Pub Date: Sept. 9, 2025
ISBN: 9780063380837
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Avon/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 30, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2025
A tender and moving portrait about the transcendent power of art and friendship.
An artwork’s value grows if you understand the stories of the people who inspired it.
Never in her wildest dreams would foster kid Louisa dream of meeting C. Jat, the famous painter of The One of the Sea, which depicts a group of young teens on a pier on a hot summer’s day. But in Backman’s latest, that’s just what happens—an unexpected (but not unbelievable) set of circumstances causes their paths to collide right before the dying 39-year-old artist’s departure from the world. One of his final acts is to bequeath that painting to Louisa, who has endured a string of violent foster homes since her mother abandoned her as a child. Selling the painting will change her life—but can she do it? Before deciding, she accompanies Ted, one of the artist’s close friends and one of the young teens captured in that celebrated painting, on a train journey to take the artist’s ashes to his hometown. She wants to know all about the painting, which launched Jat’s career at age 14, and the circle of beloved friends who inspired it. The bestselling author of A Man Called Ove (2014) and other novels, Backman gives us a heartwarming story about how these friends, set adrift by the violence and unhappiness of their homes, found each other and created a new definition of family. “You think you’re alone,” one character explains, “but there are others like you, people who stand in front of white walls and blank paper and only see magical things. One day one of them will recognize you and call out: ‘You’re one of us!’” As Ted tells stories about his friends—how Jat doubted his talents but found a champion in fiery Joar, who took on every bully to defend him; how Ali brought an excitement to their circle that was “like a blinding light, like a heart attack”—Louisa recognizes herself as a kindred soul and feels a calling to realize her own artistic gifts. What she decides to do with the painting is part of a caper worthy of the stories that Ted tells her. The novel is humorous, poignant, and always life-affirming, even when describing the bleakness of the teens’ early lives. “Art is a fragile magic, just like love,” as someone tells Louisa, “and that’s humanity’s only defense against death.”
A tender and moving portrait about the transcendent power of art and friendship.Pub Date: May 6, 2025
ISBN: 9781982112820
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: July 4, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2025
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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