Ayisha Malik

“For whom the wedding bells toll”

Sofia Khan is Not Obliged (2015) by Ayisha Malik

December 27, 2023 by drmllz 4 Comments

I wrote a review of Dorothy B. Hughes’s bleak noir novel Ride the Pink Horse (1946) as part of my Bingo this year, and said something about how it implodes comforting myths, and Emmalita commented, which was lovely, about how she came back to romance because sometimes people need escape from noir and need comforting myths (I paraphrase). I chewed this over in my head for a few weeks, and ended up digging out an unread romance novel I bought a while back, Sofia Khan […]

She can bake and write

The Secret Lives of the Amir Sisters by Nadiya Hussain

February 4, 2019 by Chris 1 Comment

If the primary author’s name sounds familiar, she is the Nadiya from Great British Baking. This is her first novel, and it was written with Ayisha Malik. The book centers on four sisters – Fatima, Bubblee, Farah, and Mae. Bubblee and Farah are twins. The title is somewhat misleading as what secrets there are not really the sister’s (honesty, the one you think might be Bubblee’s never shows) but those of their family. Additionally, the book is almost wrapped about too neatly – though a […]

A truth universally acknowledged: dating is hard.

February 2, 2017 by pluiedenovembre 2 Comments

I enjoyed this book immensely but I have some issues with the style and also with the ending. Still, I heartily recommend it if you want a light, fun read that tells a story from a point of view many of us are not familiar with: a thirty something Muslim woman who is devout and modern at the same time. Sofia Khan works in publishing. She’s newly single and her sister is getting married. Her parents worry that she will never find a husband and […]

Muslims! They’re just like us!

January 25, 2017 by J 4 Comments

…anyone who says love is all that matters hasn’t quite grown up. Sofia Khan is a lot of things: a fair-to-middling book publicist, a hijabi, a second-generation Londoner, and a modern girl. She is not a romantic, and she most definitely does not need a man, especially her former fiancé who expected her to move in with his family following the wedding. An off-hand joke during a meeting leads to a book deal: Sofia has been contracted to write a book dating as a modern Muslim girl. Writing […]

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