Jalaluddin takes on my favourite of Austen’s books, Persuasion. And honestly, knocks it clean out of the park.” –Olivia Waite, The New York Times

Nada Syed is stuck. On the cusp of 30, she’s still living at home with her brothers and parents in the Golden Crescent neighbourhood of Toronto, resolutely ignoring her mother’s unsubtle pleas to get married already. While Nada has a good job as an engineer, it’s a far cry from realizing the start-up dreams for her tech baby, Ask Apa, the app that launched with a whimper instead of a bang because of a double-crossing business partner. Nothing in her life has turned out the way it was supposed to, and Nada feels like a failure. Something needs to change, but the past is holding on too tightly to let her move forward.

Nada’s best friend, Haleema, is determined to pry her from her shell… and what better place than at the giant annual Muslim conference downtown, where Nada can finally meet Haleema’s fiancé, Zayn? And did Haleema mention Zayn’s brother Baz will be there?

What Haleema doesn’t know is that Nada and Baz have a past – some of it good, some of it bad, and all of it secret. At the conference, that past all comes hurtling back at Nada, bringing new complications and a moment of reckoning. Can she truly say goodbye to what once was, or should she hold tight to her dreams and find their new beginnings?

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Shelf Life Books | Calgary Public Library | Audible

BE CURIOUSER

• Radio: Uzma Jalaluddin on her latest novel Much Ado About Nada – Q with Tom Power, CBC
• Uzma Jalaluddin’s Latest Novel Explores Female Ambition Inside the Muslim Community – Shondaland

A multi-faith holiday rom-com about the delightful havoc that occurs when Christmas, Ramadan, and Hanukkah all fall at the same time, and two strangers-turned-friends are snowbound in the small, charming town of Snow Falls along with the cast and crew of a holiday romance movie, nosy family members, and their lifelong crushes.

(Co-written with Marissa Stapley.) As strangers and seatmates, Maryam Aziz and Anna Gibson fly to Toronto over the holidays – Maryam to her sister’s impromptu wedding and Anna to meet her boyfriend’s wealthy family for the first time. Neither expect that severe turbulence will scare them into confessing their deepest hopes and fears to one another. At least they’ll never see each other again. And the love of Maryam’s life, Saif, wasn’t sitting two rows behind them hearing it all. Oops.

An emergency landing finds Anna, Saif, Maryam, and her sister’s entire bridal party snowbound at the quirky Snow Falls Inn in a picture-perfect town, where fate has Anna’s actor-crush filming a holiday romance. As Maryam finds the courage to open her heart to Saif, and Anna feels the magic of being snowbound with an unexpected new love – both women soon realize there’s no place they’d rather be for the holidays.

GET THE BOOK

Shelf Life Books | Audible

BE CURIOUSER

• Watch Uzma Jalaluddin in Conversation with Pam Rocker. –Wordfest Imagine on Air
• Uzma Jalaluddin’s 5 nostalgic reads: the books that shaped the reader and writer she is today. –Toronto Star
• ‘Much Ado about Nada’: An Islamic spin on a classic love story. –The Michigan Daily
• Uzma Jalaluddin takes on Jane Austen’s Persuasion in her latest modern Muslim retelling of a rom-com classic. –CBC
• Three Summery, Swoonworthy New Romance Novels. –The New York Times