First published in 2018 by HarperCollins Publishers, Toronto, Canada.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 337-9)

Ayesha Shamsi is a secular Muslim who lives with her boisterous extended family in Toronto. She wants to be a famous spoken word poet, but dreams won't support family or pay off debts. So she takes the stable (but boring, as her friend Clara reminds her) path of substitute teaching. She's never had a boyfriend, and though she's lonely, she wants no part of an arranged marriage. But when she begins working with Khalid, a conservative, handsome young Muslim man, on a fundraiser for the mosque, she has to deal with both her attraction to him and her irritation with his complacency. Once her gorgeous young cousin becomes engaged to him, however, Ayesha is torn between how she feels about the straightforward Khalid and her suspicions about his wealthy family. Taking it upon herself to investigate rumours about them, she finds she has to deal with not just what she discovers about Khalid, but also the truth of what she realizes about herself. Khalid Mirza yearns for less complicated times. Before he was asked to organize a singles mixer at his local mosque. Before he was put in charge of the website for a lingerie company. Definitely before he fell for the electrifying poet he accidentally first met at a bar that he didn't want to be at in the first place. He misses the old days, when everyone puzzled over his traditional clothes, and assumed, rightfully, that his super-controlling mother was arranging his marriage. It's no wonder he stumbles on the path paved for him by tradition.