A heart-warming, queer rom-com about first love and identity that utilizes a beloved romance trope: faking dating!

HANI AND ISHU’S GUIDE TO FAKE DATING
by Adiba Jaigirdar
Page Street Publishing/St. Martin’s Press, May 2021

Everyone likes Hani Kahn—she’s easy going and one of the most popular girls at school. But when she comes out to her friends as bisexual, they invalidate her identity, saying she can’t be bi if she’s only dated guys. Panicked, Hani blurts out that she’s in a relationship…with a girl her friends absolutely hate—Ishita Dey. Ishita is the complete opposite of Hani. She’s an academic overachiever who hopes that becoming head girl will set her on the right track for college. But Ishita agrees to help Hani, if Hani will help her become more popular so that she stands a chance of being elected head girl. Despite their mutually beneficial pact, they start developing real feelings for each other. But relationships are complicated, and some people will do anything to stop two Bengali girls from achieving happily ever after.

Adiba Jaigirdar is a Bangladeshi and Irish writer and teacher and the author of The Henna Wars, which Kirkus called “impossible to put down.” She is also a contributor for Book Riot. She lives in Dublin, Ireland.