Anticipated Titles from Up-and-Coming AAPI Authors

In 1978, Congress established Asian/Pacific American Heritage Week, and in 1992, this celebration was expanded to the whole month of May. In 1997, AAPI Heritage Month was further divided into two groups—Asian and Native Hawaiian/Other Pacific Islander.

Take a look at some of these hot new books below and discover a new author to fall in love with.

Romance

How to End a Love Story by Yulin Kuang

Thirteen years before the start of the book, Helen Zhang's younger sister, Michelle, took her own life by jumping in front of Helen's classmate Grant Shepard's car. Ever since, Helen and her family have channeled all of their grief and anger into despising Grant. Now a successful YA novelist, Helen leaves New York City for sunny L.A. to join the writing team for a TV adaptation of her work. Then, she learns that Grant is leading the team. Michelle can barely bring herself to be civil toward him and her anxiety and anger over having to work together casts a pall over the writers' room. Slowly, however, she sees Grant's talent and comes to be impressed by how diligently he takes care of the people on the team. Like Helen, Grant is scarred by the past, but he also senses that he and Helen belong together if only she would give him a chance. – Publisher’s Weekly review

Despite this being her debut novel, Yulin Kuang is no stranger to writing. She adapted Emily Henry’s People We Meet on Vacation to film. She is also adapting Henry’s Beach Read to film and will be directing the movie. She immigrated from China as a child and has been writing fanfiction ever since. Check out her website here.

Say You'll Be Mine by Naina Kumar

Kumar debuts with a swoonworthy contemporary novel that marries a grumpy-sunshine romance with a deep exploration of familial relationships. Bubbly middle school English teacher Meghna Raman has been harboring feelings for one of her best friends, Seth, since college, but when he asks her to be his best man at his upcoming wedding, she's forced to accept that he'll never feel the same about her. Determined not to attend the event alone, she finally gives in to pressure from her parents to consider an arranged marriage. Stoic engineer Karthik Murthy, who craves approval from his distant father but also fears becoming just like him, thinks he can avoid a repeat of his parents' dysfunctional relationship by never getting married. Unfortunately, this philosophy does not stop his mother from searching for a suitable match for him. When Karthik and Meghna are set up by their parents, they see an engagement of convenience as the answer to both of their problems: Meghna gets a wedding date and Karthik gets relief from parental pressure. Now they just have to make sure they don't accidentally fall in love. It's a diverting convergence of romance tropes given weight by some deep emotions. This should earn Kumar plenty of fans. – Publisher’s Weekly review

Naina Kumar is a lawyer by day and a reader and writer of romance at night. She lives in Texas, close to her family whose antics provide endless inspiration. When she’s not writing, she enjoys taking her rowdy rescue dog on walks, rewatching Gilmore Girls on a loop, and shopping at HEB (a huge Texas grocery chain). Visit her website here.


Contemporary Fiction

888 Love and the Divine Burden of Numbers by Abraham Chang

Young Wang has received plenty of wisdom from his beloved uncle: don’t take life too seriously, get out on the road when you can, and everyone gets just seven great loves in their life―so don’t blow it. This last one sticks with Young as he is an obsessive cataloger of his life: movies watched, favorite albums—all filtered through Chinese numerology and superstition. He finds meaning in almost everything, for which his two best friends endlessly tease him. But then, at the end of 1995, when Young is at New York University, he meets Erena. She’s brilliant, charismatic, quick-witted, and crassly funny. They fall in love and, for Young, it feels so real that he’s thrilled and terrified. As Young and Erena’s relationship blossoms, we get flashbacks to Young’s first five loves. That means Erena is “number six.” Was his uncle wrong―is she the one and only? Or are they fated for failure to make room for Young’s final, seventh love? A love letter to Western pop culture, Eastern traditions, and being a first-generation New Yorker, Abraham Chang’s dazzling debut reminds us that luck only gets us so far when it comes to matters of the heart.

Abraham Chang is an award-winning published poet who received his MFA from the NYU Creative Writing Program and has worked in the publishing industry since 2000. He lives in Queens with his wife—and a substantial collection of Blu-rays, vinyl records, comic books, and action figures. 888 Love and the Divine Burden of Numbers is his debut novel. Visit his website here.

Double Exposure by Elissa Sloan

Maiko Fox and Adrian Hightower were young, beautiful, in love, and famous. The latest model to grace the Valentina Posh runway show and the hottest new superhero actor were Hollywood’s breakout couple. They were in every magazine, all over the most popular celebrity-blogs, and on countless E! News stories. They starred in a blockbuster film together, reaping box-office gold. Fans were at a fever pitch. No one could get enough of Madrian, the couple that printed money for the studios, for the paparazzi, for themselves. But then, their relationship crumbled. Years later, with Adrian topping the Hollywood A-list as a writer and director, dating the country’s biggest pop star, and Maiko starring in movies for her celebrated producer-director husband, they live totally different lives. But they can never be too far apart. Madrian is still a box office draw, and the studios keep throwing them together. As the two grow more and more entangled again professionally, Maiko and Adrian have to reckon with themselves: are they happy with their current lives? Or have they grown to be better people when with each other?

Elissa R. Sloan grew up in Houston, Texas. Born to a Japanese immigrant mother and Jewish American father, Elissa understands the importance of representation in stories and media. She has two previously published novels: The Unraveling of Cassidy Holmes and Hayley Aldridge Is Still Here. Learn more about Elissa Sloan on her website.

Thriller

The Return of Ellie Black by Emiko Jean

YA bestseller Jean (Tokyo Ever After) makes a smooth transition to adult fiction with this atmospheric and surprise-packed thriller. Missing and presumed dead for two years, Washington State teenager Ellie Black is discovered alive one night, wandering out of the forest near the small town of Coldwell Beach. Det. Chelsey Calhoun is assigned to the case and has the dazed, underweight Ellie admitted to the hospital while she convenes with the traumatized girl's family. At first, the news thrills Ellie's parents. Soon, however, Ellie starts behaving strangely; without warning, she stops cooperating with the investigation, refusing to answer Chelsey's questions about where she's been. When Chelsey has the bloody sweatshirt Ellie was wearing when was found analyzed, the DNA turns out to match a different missing person. All the while, Chelsey muses on how Ellie's case might be linked to her own sister's decades-old disappearance. Is there something sinister lurking in the woods outside of Coldwell Beach? Jean deftly alternates Chelsey and Ellie's perspectives from one cliffhanger to the next, keeping the pages flying. With shocking twists and style to spare, this confirms Jean as a writer worth seeking out. – Publisher’s Weekly review

Emiko Jean is a New York Times best-selling author of adult and young adult fiction. She lives in Washington with her husband and two kids. Learn more about her on her website.

The Night of the Storm by Nishita Parekh

August 25, 2017. Jia Shah has moved to Houston, Texas, after a recent divorce. An immigrant from India, she is coping with single parenthood, a new job, and an ex-husband who wants custody of their teenage son, Ishan. As Hurricane Harvey heads for Houston, Jia gets an evacuation order and heads to her sister's house in the upscale suburb of Sugarland. Her sister, Seema, enjoys the privileges of wealth while her husband, Vipul, behaves inappropriately with Jia. When Vipul's brother, Raj, and his white wife, Lisa, show up, things get even more complicated. Grandma, the authoritarian matriarch, plays favorites with her sons and their wives, and everyone considers Jia a problem because she is divorced. As the storm becomes more destructive and two people die mysteriously at the house, the situation becomes dire. Who is the murderer? Will they survive the storm? Parekh's impressive debut combines a variation on the locked room mystery with social commentary on the immigrant experience and the role of women in Indian culture. – Booklist review

Nishita Parekh was born and raised in Mumbai and now lives in Texas with her husband and toddler. She is a software programmer but a writer at heart, and loves writing about her experiences as a woman and an immigrant. The Night of the Storm is her first novel. Visit her website here.


Literary Fiction

Real Americans by Rachel Khong

In 1999, New York City college student Lily is scraping by with an unpaid internship when she meets the impossibly handsome, unfathomably wealthy Matthew. She abruptly cuts off their romance when their class differences overwhelm her, but fate intervenes. They marry and have a son, who appears to have none of Lily's Chinese American heritage, looking like blond-haired, blue-eyed Matthew. Narrating the novel's second part, teenage Nick doesn't know his father's identity or why he isn't in their lives, and, pushed by his best friend, endeavors to find out. The book's final and most staggering third is voiced by May, the scientist mother Lily has been estranged from since a shocking revelation following Nick's birth. And so, readers learn what Lily may never: the story of May's life, beginning in a rural Chinese rice farm, surviving famine and worse, and achieving her goal of attending university in Beijing until Mao's Cultural Revolution forced her to make an impossible choice. – Booklist review

Rachel Khong’s debut novel, Goodbye, Vitamin, won the California Book Award for First Fiction and was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for First Fiction. In 2018 she founded The Ruby, a work and event space for women and nonbinary writers and artists in San Francisco’s Mission district. Check out her website here.

Cinema Love by Jiaming Tang

This resonant and textured debut traces the secret lives of gay men and their wives in 1980s China and their loneliness in contemporary New York City's Chinatown. As a young man, Old Second leaves his village in shame after his family discovers his sexuality. In the city of Fuzhou, he falls in love with a man named Shun-Er, whom he meets at the Workers' Cinema, which is known for showing war films to a gay clientele who meet for sex in the screening rooms. Out of convenience, Old Second marries Bao Mei, a woman who works at the cinema's ticket counter, and they immigrate to New York City in the 1990s. A parallel narrative follows Yan Hua and her marriage to Shun-Er, who dies by suicide in 1989 and whose ghost continues to haunt her after she comes to the U.S. as a "puppet wife" to Frog, the "discount-bin husband" her family paid in exchange for her green card. Tang laces the narrative with Dickensian details of Chinatown's underground economy (Frog and Yan Hua live in a cramped, $6 per night "motel" room shared by many others in bunk beds), and lyrically portrays Old Second's longing for same-sex intimacy ("A barrier has been erected around his heart, and though he can look past it like clean glass, he finds there are certain thresholds he can no longer cross."). Tang announces himself as a writer to watch with this unshakable novel. – Publisher’s Weekly review

Jiaming Tang is a queer immigrant writer who lives in Brooklyn. He holds an MFA from the University of Alabama and is a 2022-23 Center for Fiction Emerging Writer Fellow. Cinema Love is his first novel. Visit his website here.

Memento Mori by Eunice Hong

Don’t look back. Did Eurydice want to return from the underworld? Did anybody ask? In this brilliant portrait of rage and resilience, a Korean woman tries to connect with her younger brother and grapple with family tragedy through bedtime stories that weave together Greek mythology, neuroscience, and tales from their grandmother’s slipping memory. Recasting the myths of Eurydice, Orpheus, Persephone, and Hades through the lens of a Korean American family, Eunice Hong’s debut novel offers a moving and darkly funny exploration of grief, love, and the inescapability of death.

Eunice Hong won the Red Hen Press Fiction Award for Memento Mori, her first novel. A serial hobbyist, she weaves scarves and wall hangings that adorn the back of her closet, and sometimes creates jewelry inspired by the ancient world. When she isn’t writing, weaving, or brandishing a jewelry torch, Eunice is the director of the Davis Polk Leadership Initiative and lecturer in law at Columbia Law School. She was previously a litigation associate and a law clerk. Read more about her and her work on her website.

Five-star Stranger by Kat Tang

Would you hire someone to be the best man at your wedding? Your stand-in brother? Your husband? In Kat Tang's exciting and resonant debut, a rental stranger—a companion hired under various guises—walks the line between personal and professional in surprising new ways. Five-star Stranger follows a man who is a top-rated performer on the "Rental Stranger" app where users can hire a pretend fiancé, a wingman, or an extra mourner for a funeral. Referred to only as Stranger, the narrator navigates New York City under the guise of the characters he plays, always maintaining a professional distance from his clients. When a nosy patron threatens to upend his long-term role as father to a young girl, Stranger begins to reckon with his attachment to his pretend daughter, her mother, and his own fraught past. Now, he must confront the boundaries he has drawn and explore the legacy of abandonment that shaped his life. Five-star Stranger is a strikingly vivid novel about the commodification of relationships in a gig economy, isolation in a hyperconnected world, and the risk of asking for what we want from those who cannot give. This is the story of a man who finds out who he is by being anyone but himself.

Kat Tang is a former lawyer turned fiction writer with an MFA in creative writing from Columbia University. She spends most of her time thinking about writing, and sometimes she even writes. Five-star Stranger is her debut novel and she is hard at work on a second novel. Find out more about her on her website.


Fantasy

Ocean's Godori by Elaine Cho

Ocean Yoon is a disgraced Alliance pilot serving on the only ship that will have her; Theophilus (Teo) Anand is the playboy younger son of a family with vast industrial wealth; and Haven Sasani, serving in the Alliance because of his father's stories, is navigating the difficulties of being a Mortemian. The crew of the Ohneul is drawn into the aftermath of a terrorist attack because of Teo and Ocean's history—when he escaped the destruction of the Shadowfax, he programmed his escape pod to take him to Ocean, where he knew he would be safe. The story's framework is drawn with familiar solar system-colonization tropes—terraforming is unevenly distributed, the privileged rely on the exploitation of those trapped in poorly maintained mining colonies, and there is a great deal of political frustration seething below the surface—and an Alliance based in Korea. The real strength of the book, however, is in the relationships between family and friends, the living and the dead, and the ways these threads of connection motivate and inform characters. This is an entertaining debut with satisfying cultural-background details for the characters and the world and plenty of room for development. – Booklist review

Elaine U. Cho is a writer who lives in Seattle. There, you might have seen her slinging coffee, shelving books at Elliott Bay Book Company, or performing at various music venues. She has an MFA in Flute Performance from CalArts and is a kyudo practitioner. This is her debut novel. She also loves writing about film. Learn more about her on her website.

Goddess of the River by Vaishnavi Patel

Ganga, joyful goddess of the river, serves as caretaker to the mischievous godlings who roam her banks. But when their antics incur the wrath of a powerful sage, Ganga is cursed to become mortal, bound to her human form until she fulfills the obligations of the curse. Though she knows nothing of mortal life, Ganga weds King Shantanu and becomes a queen, determined to regain her freedom no matter the cost. But in a cruel turn of fate, just as she is freed of her binding, she is forced to leave her infant son behind. Her son, prince Devavrata, unwittingly carries the legacy of Ganga's curse. And when he makes an oath that he will never claim his father's throne, he sets in motion a chain of events that will end in a terrible and tragic war. As the years unfold, Ganga and Devavrata are drawn together again and again, each confluence another step on a path that has been written in the stars, in this deeply moving and masterful tale of duty, destiny, and the unwavering bond between mother and son.

Vaishnavi Patel is a lawyer focusing on constitutional law and civil rights. She likes to write at the intersection of Indian myth, feminism and anti-colonialism. She is the author of the New York Times bestselling novel, Kaikeyi. Vaishnavi grew up in and around Chicago, and in her spare time, enjoys activities that are almost stereotypically Midwestern: knitting, ice skating, drinking hot chocolate, and making hotdish. Visit her website to learn more.

The Stardust Grail by Yume Kitasei

Maya Hoshimoto is a thirtysomething graduate student at Princeton University. She left behind her life as an art thief, one who specialized in stealing alien artifacts and returning them to their civilizations. Now that she's in hiding because of her disastrous—and deadly—last job, Maya plans to stay on Earth for the near (and far) future. But then her old friend Auncle, who is a member of the alien species called the Frenro, asks for her help to find a powerful object that has been missing for over two centuries, an object that could save the Frenro from extinction. Maya joins Auncle and their crew on this quest, but there are others who are also looking for the object, and even more who are willing to destroy the object and the Frenro entirely. Plus, Maya is having visions of a future that seems to hold betrayal and the possible destruction of humanity. Kitasei writes an emotional roller coaster of a space quest, highlighting friendship, family, and the ostracism of those believed to be different. The prose is as intimate as the universe is wide. – Library Journal review

Yume Kitasei is the author of The Deep Sky and The Stardust Grail. She is Japanese and American and grew up in a space between two cultures—the same space where her stories reside. She lives in Brooklyn with two cats, Boondoggle and Filibuster. Learn more about her on her website.

The Emperor and the Endless Palace by Justinian Huang

At once page-turning and deeply thoughtful, Huang's excellent debut conjures a sweeping gay love story that unfolds across multiple timelines. In 4 BCE China, a low-ranking clerk is tasked with capturing the young emperor's attention. The assignment initiates a story of love and betrayal, destined to echo through centuries. In 1740 China, an isolated and curious innkeeper is drawn to assist an intriguing young man and his grandmother, which requires bringing in the help of a former lover. Finally, present-day L.A. sees a semi-closeted college student drawn into queer high society by a mysterious artist who has, somehow, captured the student's face over the ages. As Huang toggles between periods, these seemingly unrelated narratives intricately weave together, revealing a powerful story of romance reincarnated that feels impressively epic in scope, given the limited page count. Drawing deeply from Chinese history and myth to create a central couple readers will have no choice but to root for, this mesmerizing debut romantasy is not to be missed. – Publisher’s Weekly review

Born to immigrants in Monterey Park, California, Justinian Huang studied English at Pomona College and screenwriting at the University of Oxford. He is now based in Los Angeles with Swagger, a Shanghainese rescue dog he adopted during his five years living in China. The Emperor and the Endless Palace is his debut novel.


Historical

The Stone Home by Crystal Hana Kim

Kim transforms an ignominious slice of modern Korean history into a mesmerizing exploration of family bonds repeatedly tested by tortuous circumstances. In May 1980, 15-year-old Eunju and her mother are arrested for begging. Teen brothers Youngchul and Sangchul were captured outside their neighborhood mart, falsely accused of theft. They are all sent to the Stone Home, where their lives briefly intersect. It's an alleged rehabilitation center for Korea's undesirables, who are to be retrained and returned to society as productive citizens. In reality, it's a penitentiary, sanctioned by a militarized government determined to banish the unwanted and unhoused in preparation for South Korea's unveiling as an international powerhouse rising from the ashes of war to welcome the world for the 1988 Olympics. Eunju and Umma are assigned to Little House, where women are taught to obey and serve the boys and men. The brothers live in Big House, work brutal hours, and attempt to survive the treacherous hierarchies of violent abuse. Thirty years later, an American stranger finds Eunju wielding a symbolic knife that literally cuts open their conjoined past. Deftly traversing decades and viewpoints as Eunju and Sangchul alternately reveal their fates, Kim's second novel is a wrenching, haunting read as her breathtaking storytelling provides indelible testimony to witness and behold.

Crystal Hana Kim’s first novel was the highly acclaimed If You Leave Me, which was named a best book of 2018 by over a dozen publications. She is a contributing editor at Apogee Journal and lives in Brooklyn, New York with her family. Learn more about her on her website.

Daughters of Shandong by Eve Chung

Chung chronicles in her stirring debut the trials and tribulations of a family's abandoned women during the Chinese Revolution. It's 1948 and the wealthy Ang family is upset that their daughter-in-law, Chiang-Yue, still hasn't borne a male heir after having three daughters. As the Nationalist Party retreats from the communists, imperiling the Angs, Chiang-Yue's husband forsakes her and the children and flees from their home in the rural Shandong province with his extended family. Alone, Chiang-Yue and the girls face the wrath of a communist mob. Hai, the oldest at 13, is spat on and tortured. They survive, however, thanks to help from workers who reciprocate Chiang-Yue's past kindness. Driven from their home, the four trek to the city of Qingdao to find the Angs, though Hai's headstrong middle sister Di never wants to see their father again. The women eventually learn he's in the Nationalist stronghold of Taiwan. Through it all, Hai vows to become self-sufficient so she can escape the sexist traditional beliefs that have made their lives so hard. Chung portrays the characters' stark circumstances in lyrical prose. Readers will be moved by this humanizing account of a turbulent period in China's history. – Publisher’s Weekly review

Eve J. Chung is a Taiwanese American lawyer and women’s human rights specialist. She has worked on a range of issues, including torture, sexual violence, contemporary forms of slavery, and discriminatory legislation. Her writing is inspired by social justice movements and the continued struggle for equality and fundamental freedoms worldwide. She currently lives in New York with her husband, two children, and two dogs. Check out her website here.


Nonfiction

Disability Intimacy by Alice Wong

The much-anticipated follow up to the groundbreaking anthology Disability Visibility—another revolutionary collection of first-person writing on the joys and challenges of the modern disability experience, and intimacy in all its myriad forms. What is intimacy? More than sex, more than romantic love, the pieces in this stunning and illuminating new anthology offer broader and more inclusive definitions of what it can mean to be intimate with another person. Explorations of caregiving, community, access and friendship offer us alternative ways of thinking about the connections we form with others—a vital reimagining in an era when forced physical distance is at times a necessary norm. But don't worry, there's still sex to consider—and the numerous ways sexual liberation intersects with disability justice. Plunge between these pages and you'll also find disabled sexual discovery, disabled love stories and disabled joy. These 25 stunning original pieces—plus other modern classics on the subject, all carefully curated by acclaimed activist Alice Wong—include essays, photo essays, poetry, drama, and erotica: a full spectrum of the dreams, fantasies, and deeply personal realities of a wide range of beautiful bodies and minds. Disability Intimacy will free your thinking, invigorate your spirit, and delight your desires.

Alice Wong (she/her) is a disabled activist, writer, editor, and community organizer. Alice is the founder and director of the Disability Visibility Project, an online community dedicated to creating, sharing and amplifying disability media and culture.

Three Years on the Great Mountain by Cristina Moon

Told with immersive detail and a unique Asian American female perspective, Three Years on the Great Mountain chronicles Moon's straight-up-the-mountain training regimen at Chozen-ji, conducted every day and often through the nights. Through the spiritual forging of daily Zen meditation, manual labor, swordsmanship and Japanese tea ceremony, she discovers a newfound conviction that self-mastery and spiritual growth can take fierce form. Embraced by local Hawaiian and Japanese culture, and a community of discipline, respect, and discovery, she discovers a profound sense of home.

Cristina Moon is a Buddhist priest, writer, and strategist who lives at Daihonzan Chozen-ji, a Rinzai Zen temple and martial arts dojo in Honolulu, Hawaii, known for its rigorous method of mind, body, and spiritual training. After a global career in human rights and social change, she now lives in the secluded grounds of Chozen-ji helping others develop the sensitivity and strength needed to stay calm amid chaos and accord with the myriad changes of today's fast-moving world. Learn more on her website.


Teen

The Last Bloodcarver by Vanessa Le

In the dark underbelly of the fantasy city-state of Theumas, 18-year-old Nhika ekes out a living peddling homeopathic remedies to upper-class clients desperate enough to fall for her scam. After a home visit goes awry, Nhika is outed as a bloodcarver—people with the feared ability to access and manipulate biological processes with a single touch-—and kidnapped and sold on the black market. Though she expects to be forced into using her abilities for nefarious deeds, Nhika is instead bought by the scions of the Congmi, one of the wealthiest industrialist families in the city, who seek her bloodcarving to heal the comatose last witness to their patriarch's suspicious death. Reluctant to get involved in such high-stakes political drama but eager for the opportunity to use her gift to heal, Nhika steps into a world of glamour, intrigue and hidden agendas. But her already impossible task is further complicated by Ven Kochin, a mysterious and infuriating doctor's assistant who keeps inserting himself into her investigation. Le expertly crafts a Vietnamese-inspired dark fantasy debut via visceral and exquisitely rendered prose, intertwining a murder investigation with themes of unresolved grief, medical ethics, and lost heritage. – Publisher’s Weekly review

Vanessa Le is a Vietnamese American author from the Pacific Northwest. She is currently a medical student at UC Irvine. She loves anything science fantasy. Nowadays, you can find her writing or gaming when she should really be studying. Visit her Goodreads to learn more about her and the upcoming sequel that she is working on.

Arya Khanna's Bollywood Moment by Arushi Avachat

Arya Khanna's senior year is chock-full of activity. For one, her older sister, Alina, is back home after being gone for years, and as co-maid of honor, Arya is busy helping Alina prepare for her weeklong wedding activities. Not only does Arya have to deal with stressful wedding preparations, but she also has to help unravel the complexity of relationships among her family and her friends. When the annoying Dean, a boy who stole the student council presidency from her, becomes something more than her academic rival, Arya finds herself growing in ways she never thought she would. Avachat's fun, atmospheric debut admirably joins the ranks of YA romance. Even though Arya is flawed, she is a lovable character whom the reader can easily root for. And even though the romance is well written and satisfying, it is ultimately Arya's relationship with her family that lies at the heart of the story. This rich Bollywood-esque tale is filled to the brim with Punjabi culture and unadulterated familial love. – Booklist review

Arushi Avachat is a writer from the Bay Area, California. She currently studies English, Political Science, and South Asian Studies at UCLA, where she can be found sipping caramel lattes and pretending to be productive at Kerckhoff Coffee House. She is a contributor to the young adult anthology Study Break. Arushi loves dark chocolate, Jane Austen books, and California winters. Read more about her and her work on her website.