When Dimple Met Rishi meets Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda in this rom com about two teen girls with rival henna businesses.
When Nishat comes out to her parents, they say she can be anyone she wants—as long as she isn’t herself. Because Muslim girls aren’t lesbians. Nishat doesn’t want to hide who she is, but she also doesn’t want to lose her relationship with her family. And her life only gets harder once a childhood friend walks back into her life.
Flávia is beautiful and charismatic and Nishat falls for her instantly. But when a school competition invites students to create their own businesses, both Flávia and Nishat choose to do henna, even though Flávia is appropriating Nishat’s culture. Amidst sabotage and school stress, their lives get more tangled—but Nishat can’t quite get rid of her crush on Flávia, and realizes there might be more to her than she realized.
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Adiba Jaigirdar was born in Dhaka, Bangladesh, and has been living in Dublin, Ireland from the age of ten. She has a BA in English and History from University College Dublin, and an MA in Postcolonial Studies from the University of Kent.
She’s the author of several young adult books, including The Henna Wars, which was selected as one of the best YA books of all time by Time Magazine, winner of two KMPG Children’s Books Ireland awards, and was a semi-finalist for Best Young Adult Fiction in the Goodreads Choice Awards, Hani and Ishu’s Guide to Fake Dating, which was a Midwest Indie Bestseller, shortlisted for the Irish Book Awards, nominated for Best Young Adult Fiction in the Goodreads Choice Awards, and one of Kirkus’ best books of the year. Her other young adult books include, A Million to One, which was nominated for an Irish Book Award, The Dos and Donuts of Love, which was one of Kirkus’ best books of the year, and Rani Choudhury Must Die, which received a starred review from School Library Journal. She co-writes young adult books with Faridah-Abike-Iyimde, author of Ace of Spades and Where Sleeping Girls Lie. Their first-co-written book is Four Eids and a Funeral.
Her debut adult romance, The Perfect Match, will publish in 2026 with Orion, and her debut middle grade, Nadia Islam, On The Record, will publish in 2026 with Quilltree/HarperCollins (US) and Hachette Children’s Group (UK).
She has also contributed non-fiction essays to Allies: Real Talk About Showing Up, Screwing Up, And Trying Again, and Writing In Color: The Lessons We’ve Learned.
Adiba has been a mentor in Pitch Wars, Author Mentor Match, Avengers of Colour, and the Desi Kidlit Community Mentorship Programme. She has written for Bookriot, The Irish Times, and the Irish Examiner, and is a former editor for Cultured Vultures. She’s also been featured in Buzzfeed, Autostraddle, Teen Vogue, Cosmopolitan, and The Guardian. When not writing, she can be found ranting about the ills of colonialism, playing video games, and expanding her overflowing lipstick collection.
https://adibajaigirdar.com/
