Whenever she’s writing a novel, Uzma Jalaluddin makes a playlist. For her latest, a holiday romance titled “Yours For The Season,” a certain track from Taylor Swift’s “Evermore” album was on rotation — and it shows.
“I listened to “‘Tis The Damn Season” a lot. I am a Swiftie, and I love that song,” said Jalaluddin, reached via video call, surrounded by boxes ahead of a pending house move from one Markham neighbourhood to another. “And, you know, ’tis the damn season!”
In hindsight, Jalaluddin can see that Swift’s melancholy track about returning to your hometown over the holidays and confronting the ghosts of old loves and your own past self may have seeped into what she was writing.
“Yours For The Season” is considerably less depressing, although just as emotionally weighty: It’s the story of a burnt-out lawyer and an aspiring food influencer who are brought together by a mutually beneficial fake-dating arrangement and bond over their complicated family relationships.
Those families, unlike in many romance novels where the protagonists seem to exist in a bubble, are front and centre in the book — a hallmark of Jalaluddin’s writing, which is typically set within the multicultural, multi-faith milieu she knows from growing up in Scarborough.
“As much as I am a sucker for swoony romance, my real interest is the family dynamics at play,” she said. “That’s what keeps me going when I’m writing a book.”
Jalaluddin has previously written three romance novels, a bestselling holiday romance in collaboration with fellow Canadian author Marissa Stapley, and the first instalment of a mystery series starring a crime-fighting widow.
In a Jalaluddin book, whether it’s the ebullient Shamsi clan populating the “Pride and Prejudice”–inspired breakout hit “Ayesha at Last” or the well-intentioned but overbearing parents who follow the heroine in “Yours For The Season” to Alaska to crash her fake-boyfriend’s Christmas celebrations, the beating heart is always found in the community that surrounds the love birds.
“When I watch a lot of the rom-coms that I’ve loved, I always think, ‘Where are your parents? Do you not have a sibling or cousins that you’re close to?’” she said. “I have a really big extended family, and if something were to happen in my life and all these hijinks were happening, they would know about it. Someone would tell them, or I’d post about it on Instagram and they’d take a screenshot and put it in the family chat.”
Jalaluddin embraces this “chorus weighing in on what we do,” to the point where readers have asked her to compile “who’s who and how are they related” character lists to help them keep track of the family, friends, colleagues and assorted folk who fill her books with noisy, chatty, heartwarming chaos.
“I always include a lot of characters — and I always give them very ethnic-sounding names,” she said. “I want to put that out into the world, and have these characters that have really rich, full and nuanced worlds which include their families and their social community.”
It’s this real-life relatability that caught the eye of comedian and actress turned producer Mindy Kaling, who published “Yours For the Season” through Mindy’s Book Studio, her Amazon Publishing imprint.
“When I first read Uzma’s writing I just thought, ‘Oh wow, she gets it.’ She’s such a romantic like me,” Kaling told the Star in an email. “She grew up loving classic rom coms like ‘Sleepless in Seattle’ and ‘You’ve Got Mail,’ and she’s made it her life’s mission to put South Asian and Muslim characters at the centre of those timeless love stories. I love that her inspirations are so delightfully mainstream, but what she creates feels completely original and deeply personal.”
Kaling is also adapting another of Jalaluddin’s novels, “Hana Khan Carries On,” for the screen, a testament to just how much she believes in the author’s voice.
“Her writing is so funny and full of heart, but it’s also about something bigger. Her books all explore this push and pull between individuality and loyalty to family, which anyone from an immigrant background really understands,” Kaling said. “Uzma can write about all that while still managing to deliver the swoony, escapist magic of a great rom-com.”
It’s a perspective, that’s particularly valuable in the holiday romance space. “For a long time, those stories have centred on the same kinds of people and traditions,” Kaling said. “Uzma brings this wonderfully fresh perspective. She writes about South Asian and Muslim characters with specificity and humour, and she shows that the magic of love and the holidays belongs to everyone.”
In some ways, though, the romance labelling on Jalaluddin’s books is a bit of a Trojan Horse. “It’s a little bit of ‘a spoonful of sugar makes the medicine go down,’” said Jalaluddin. The comforting guaranteed “happily ever after” of romance means readers are more receptive to the other ideas she’s interested in writing about. “They come along for the ride. They’re willing to get into the weeds of the identity politics I’m talking about, or gentrification and socio-economic barriers to immigrants.”
Case in point: “Yours For The Season,” whose heroine does not profess the same strong Muslim beliefs as her parents or siblings, is really about how one family navigates different levels of faith among its members.
“It’s a topic that a lot of people shy away from,” said Jalaluddin, who is an observant Muslim herself. “This is very common. Some people are at a very high level of faith, and think their orthodoxy should be practiced in a certain way. Other people think not. How do you navigate that?”
When it comes to the romance part of the stories, Kaling feels Jalaluddin is refreshingly frank. “In our community, romantic love is celebrated, but there can also be this weird undercurrent of shame, especially around women expressing desire,” she said. “Uzma handles that in such a smart, funny, palatable way. It’s relatable but still singular.”
Still, in a genre that includes increasingly explicit sex scenes, Jalaluddin’s novels lean chaste. It certainly hasn’t held her back, but she remembers an editor querying the fact that the protagonists in “Ayesha At Last” never actually kiss.
“They’re both practicing Muslims. It wouldn’t feel right for those characters,” she said. “I always tell readers that I write G-rated romances. If you’re OK with Disney, you’ll be OK with me.”
In part, she does this because she loves focusing on yearning and longing. But she’s also aiming to bring something different to the marketplace. “I’m a huge fan of spicy romance, but I love that in the same way that my books focus on very diverse communities, the romance book community is very diverse,” she said. “You can have all different levels of spice, and yet they all have sweet longing at the heart of them.”
Jalaluddin married at 23 and has been with her husband — who reads and enjoys all her books — for over two decades. While she likes writing about people falling in love, she’s also started exploring romance’s later chapters. Her recent cosy mystery, “Detective Aunty,” delves into cultural notions of marriage, and what it means.
“It’s more the conversations about relationships that interest me,” Jalaluddin said. “Everyone has their own love story, but when you add race, class, culture and faith to that, I find it fascinating.”
More festive reads
Pour yourself a hot chocolate, sit by the twinkling tree and cosy up with these seasonal reads.
“The Christmas Cure” by Kristine Winters
From the pseudonymous pen of Canadian author Karma Brown: An ER doctor is knocked unconscious at the local Christmas tree lighting and wakes up one year into the past. Cue a second chance at love with the town baker.
“Good Spirits” by B.K. Borison
If you like your holiday romances a touch spooky, you’ll love this spicy adaptation of “A Christmas Carol,” where the Ghost of Christmas Past is confusingly attractive, and our Scrooge is an antiques dealer whose greatest crime is people pleasing.
“Christmas At The Ranch” by Julia McKay
A journalist on the run from her family’s scandals gets snowed in in a picturesque town. Conveniently for Cupid, it’s the same place where she fell in love with a handsome horse rancher years ago — and they’re both still single. A-wassailing for love we go!
“Scene of Crime” by Jill McGown
Joining the long tradition of Christmas murder mysteries, this British cosy takes us into an amateur dramatic society whose rehearsals for their holiday production are rudely interrupted when a cast member’s wife turns up dead.
