Courting Samira

With this sweet contemporary, Awad (Bitter and Sweet) introduces 27-year-old magazine editor Samira Abdel-Aziz, a Palestinian Muslim living with her parents in Sydney, Australia. For Samira, dating is a family endeavor, requiring the approval of her parents and her suitor’s parents, as well as back-and-forth negotiations between the families with the understanding that marriage is the goal. After a string of lackluster arranged matches, she meets handsome, charming Menem by chance at a team-building retreat with her office. They run into each other again when it turns out that Menem’s brother is marrying Samira’s bridezilla cousin, and she learns that he is Lebanese, Muslim, single, and interested in her. They decide to keep the fact that they’ve already met each other quiet and clandestinely work to get their parents to set them up. All is going well, until another suitor, her childhood friend Hakeem, makes a play for Samira’s heart and she reluctantly finds herself at the center of a love triangle. Awad brings a great deal of nuance, specificity, and heart to her depiction of Muslim culture, especially the differences between Samira’s Palestinian and Menem’s Lebanese backgrounds. Readers will have no trouble rooting for Samira to find true love. Agent: Katy McEwen, Pantera Press. (Nov.)