Happy Monday bookworms! Today I'm coming to you with a very special author interview! I had so much fun chatting with Priyanka Taslim all about her debut book, The Love Match! This book was one of my favourite reads of 2022 so I was super excited to chat with Priyanka all about it! Be sure to grab a copy when it comes out tomorrow! You can order it here!
Synopsis: Zahra Khan is basically Bangladeshi royalty, but being a princess doesn't pay the bills in Paterson, New Jersey. While Zahra's plans for financial security this summer involve working long hours at Chai Ho and saving up for college writing courses, Amma is convinced that all Zahra needs is a "good match", Jane Austen style.
Enter Harun Emon, who's wealthy, devastatingly handsome, and...aloof. As soon as Zahra meets him, she knows it's a bad match. It's nothing like the connection she has with Nayim Aktar, the new dishwasher at the tea shop, who just gets Zahra in a way no one has before. So, when Zahra finds out that Harun is just as uninterested in this match as she is, they decide to slowly sabotage their parents' plans. And for once in Zahra's life, she can have her rossomalai and eat it too: "dating" Harun and keeping Amma happy while catching real feelings for Nayim. But life-and boys-can be more complicated than Zahra realizes. With her feelings all mixed up, Zahra discovers that sometimes being a good Bengali kid can be a royal pain.
content warnings
Grief from losing a parent 2 years prior, one instance of fat phobia
Mentioned: the Bangladeshi Liberation War, homophobia (off page), past bullying/racism (brief, off page) â Discussed: class/status through a Bangladeshi and diaspora lens, colorism and sexism in South Asian communities
Hello Priyanka! Welcome to Page by Paige Books! I am so excited to chat with you today. To get things started I'd love to get to know you a bit more. Could you share 3 fun facts about yourself?
I'm so excited to be here! Some fun facts about me are: 1) I use the account name @bhootbabe on most social media and only other South Asians might know that "bhoot" means ghost! 2) Like Zahra, I have two younger siblings. 3) The Love Match is the first contemporary romance novel I've ever written. Everything before was fantasy-although all the coffee shop AU fanfics I used to write might have helped prepare me! Congratulations on your debut novel, The Love Match! I had such a fun time reading it, I couldn't put it down! What was your experience like publishing your first book? Was it how you had imagined it would be? Thank you SO much for reading! It makes me so happy you enjoyed the book! Honestly, I always tempered my expectations before selling The Love Match because I thought the chances of it happening might be small, since publishing is still such an uphill battle for marginalized authors, so everything that has happened has felt like a dream! There are challenges, of course, but for the most part, it's been more than I ever hoped and I try to remind myself of that often. When I read The Love Match, I couldn't get enough of Zahra. She was such an engaging main character. What is your writing process when it comes to creating relatable and lifelike characters? I appreciate that SO much! To me, characters are always the most important part of a book and I can't begin writing until I know-or at least start to know-who they are. I pull from reality a lot. People are complicated. They're all the main characters in their own lives and so I try to write characters who exist as more than props for the protagonist. They have their own interests and ambitions and little background plots happening, even if I don't always mention every detail on page. Similarly, with Zahra, she's more than any one thing. She loves her family and friends, she has this fear of loss, she dreams of studying writing, she's falling in love for the first time, she can't sing very well and sometimes she's clumsy-these details can feel disparate but all of these little quirks come together to make the real people we know too, and I try to bring that to life on page. I'm delighted that it worked for you!
Your cat Loki is adorable! I love seeing photos of him on your Instagram, and learning that you added a cat to The Love Match to include him was such a cute touch! Has he been a helpful writing partner?
This is now my favorite interview ever, haha. He absolutely has been in his own way! I started writing the book during the start of the pandemic and it was such a hard time. Loki arrived around then too. Having him there to love and take care of and play with has done wonders for my mental health. Even now, more than two years after the fact, it helps to have him around when I need a break to gather my thoughts. He's not one of those cats that likes to watch while I write, though. He loves to wander around the house too much and gets bored if he sees me sitting in one place too long, which is why I'm lucky he's got other fans when he needs attention.
Whenever I finish a book that I enjoy, I tend to think about some of the day to day aspects about the characters' lives, especially in terms of music! I was wondering what songs would be on Zahra, Harun, and Nayim's playlists? Do they have favourite music artists?
I think Zahra would have a lot of popular Bollywood and kpop songs on there, as well as various female artists who sing about things she relates to. She'd be a Swiftie for sure. Harun would have anime soundtracks and rap music on his; I can totally see him using that music to concentrate and keep himself motivated while swimming or studying. In the book, at one point, he's listening to a local Paterson rapper. Nayim, who is a musician himself, would be a fan of classic rock from all over, but also epic song and dance numbers from Bollywood movies/natoks, Bengali folk music, etc. I can see him having an ear for lots of music.
Along with The Love Match, there are so many exciting books coming out in 2023. Do you have any other releases coming out next year that you'd recommend?
Yes, I love this question! There are so many but just a few that I'm looking forward to are: The Dos and Donuts of Love by Adiba Jaigirdar, the sequels of Drizzle, Dreams and Lovestruck Things by Maya Prasad and The Stardust Thief by Chelsea Abdullah, The Ivory Key by Akshaya Raman, and Only a Monster by Vanessa Len, The Blue Bar by Damyanti Biswas, Kismat Connection by Ananya Devarajan, A Grim and Sunken Vow by Ashley Shuttleworth, Last Chance Dance by Lakita Wilson, Always the Almost by Edward Underhill, Blood Debts by Terry J Benton, The Next New Syrian Girl by Ream Shukairy. I'll stop there but there are lots more I can't wait to read!
I especially enjoyed that in The Love Match, you not only focused on Zahra's romantic relationships, but also her relationships with her family and friends. What is the main message that you'd like readers to take away from reading your book?
It means so much to me that you enjoyed the various relationships! One element that was frequently missing for me when I read a romance novel before there was a movement toward more diverse romances, was that many had relatively small casts and mainly focused on the protagonist's relationship with her love interest(s). Meanwhile, I think many BIPOC readers can relate to even their love lives feeling like a family affair. I certainly can, so I wanted to give Zahra this larger sense of community that's adding both more love and more pressure to her life. I think the message I'd want readers to take away from the book, however, is that your happiness is ultimately your own and putting what's in your heart first isn't selfish, especially if you're someone like Zahra who so often worries about others at her own expense.
I really enjoyed your writing style! I've saved so many great quotes from the book that I loved. Do you have any favourite quotes from The Love Match that you could share?
This is definitely my favorite interview now! You're so sweet, thank you! I always struggle with remembering favorite quotes, but one that has always been a favorite that describes Zahra's relationship with her mom, who is honestly probably the second most important character of the book, despite my fondness for Nayim and Harun, is: "Once upon a time, I had Amma to thank for my love of storytelling, but now she's become the reason I guard my hopes so deep inside my chest, where a callous comment can't blow them away like a stolen wish on dandelion fluff." Zahra, like many oldest daughters in immigrant families, puts all of this pressure on herself to be a perfect daughter, but no one can be perfect all the time and expectations can sometimes become insurmountable, which is a journey she and her mother have to take in the book.
I related to Zahra's love of books and writing, and found her determination inspiring! Did you always know that you wanted to be a writer?
I think I did for most of my life, because I've loved reading since I first learned to do it and had an almost reverential attitude toward books-but it was around when I was maybe twelve that I started actually writing. That's around when I started writing fanfiction and it lit a fire in me when it came to writing. That started being my source of joy, eventually branching into original stories. I never see myself stopping because I love it so much, stress and all.
Thank you so much for chatting with me today about The Love Match! After loving your first book, I can't wait to read more of your work! Do you have any upcoming projects that you're currently working on?
Thank you so much for having me! This has been such a wonderful interview! I have a second YA romance from Simon & Schuster that I can't wait to tell everyone about. It will also have big, boisterous Bengali families, a spunky heroine, and love in unexpected places-but in the meantime, I recently announced my adult debut, From Mumbai, with Love, a women's fiction novel with a generous helping of romance on the side about a young woman who, in the wake of her mother's death, discovers the father she never knew is not only alive with a whole other family, but that they're very wealthy and in a succession war for their multibillion dollar company. It's perfect for fans of Succession and Crazy Rich Asians, with a dash of Princess Diaries, and can be added on Goodreads for the time being. It's quite different from The Love Match but still has some shared themes, so hopefully readers who like The Love Match will enjoy this one too!
Author Information
I could talk about The Love Match with Priyanka all day! I highly recommend it to everyone looking for a heart warming story to start off the year. Don't forget to order your copy! If you had a chance to interview your favourite author, what would be the first question you would ask them? Let me know in the comments below!
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AuthorPaige is a bookstagrammer and blogger who loves all things bookish. From fantasy to mystery she can’t get enough! She’s always ready to recommend you a book and she can talk about her favourites all day. When she’s not reading, you can find her watching Marvel movies, playing video games, and taking bookstagram photos. Visit her on Instagram and Twitter for more updates. Categories
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