Oh those lovely second-chance love stories. Especially those about lovers who distanced themselves and found their way back to each other. And more so, if these new beginnings involve people who's been together more than apart through their lives.
Arezou Amin sophomore's book from her Love in Tehranto series is charming, engaging, and above all, full of hope and belonging. It follows the story of two characters who had supporting roles in her first book of the series - "The Aroosi Arrangement", an amazing book which is a must-read - but now focusing on their own love story. From that book, I knew Kasra Ferdowsi was a favourite character for me, because of his personality as the best friend of the main character and to have now the opportunity to learn more about him and his romantic struggles, it was amazing. As the honorary President and CEO of the unofficial Kasra Fan Club, I was delighted to learn we would have this book about him and Zahra, his love interest.
And what a true delight it was! Zahra (also known as Zay) and Kasra have been together for a long time, on and off, until they decide to break up for good. After being away for quite a time, they come back into each other lives due to a family emergency when Nowruz is about to happen. Then this situation allows them to decide if they want to get back together and make it work, or if they just move on with their lives.
Of course, as I just mentioned, Nowruz plays a main focus on this story. Nowruz, the Persian New Year, is a 3,000-year-old celebration of Spring, rooted in the ancient religion of Zoroastrianism, which begins in the first day of the Iranian calendar, usually around March 20th or the Spring Equinox, and lasts for 13 days. These festivities involve a number of activities, like large gatherings of friends and relatives, street festivals, bonfires, fireworks and such. And this celebration serves as a fantastic backdrop for the process Zay and Kasra are going through, and at the same time, it gives us readers a fantastic introduction to the life of the Iranian community in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA), especially if we are not familiar with it.
One of the things I love about reading fiction books is being gifted the opportunity to enhance your cultural knowledge by reading stories situated on other countries, communities, and learning more about their traditions. But above all, even with all the differences we can learn about, is realizing that we all are humans who love, suffer, laugh and live with the same kind of emotions, feelings, and challenges. And I can see that because Arezou makes a fantastic job by presenting us not only with the impact and the grieving process both protagonists are facing after breaking up their long-time relationship, but also their family and friends. If a break-up is hard for those directly involved, it also affects those close with the former couple - of course not with the same intensity, but at a certain extent brings separation and distance from people who used to be close to them. And that feeling might be familiar whether as the main one involved on a break-up, or close to someone who's been through a break-up, which turn former significant ones into strangers.
Another thing I found quite interesting is the parallels one can find between immigrants communities, where even if the challenges faced by each community might be of a different nature, there are commonalities created by the situation of living in one country but having another one in your heart, and this is reflected in the blend of traditions, language, cuisine, art and folklore. And like I said, this shows how even if we might be different, there are a lot of things in common between us all - despite not being visible from the outside.
I loved reading this book as well as the first one (which I still need to write my review, BTW - shame on meeee) and I cannot recommend it enough! Loved learning more about the Iranian-Canadian community as well as these fictional characters from the Love in Tehranto series who are so organic, and relatable in a lot of ways. And as I love music, I created a playlist with both some songs that were popping in my head while reading this book and some tunes posted on social media by the author (see playlist in Spotify here.)
The Nowruz Negotiation by Arezou Amin was released on April 14th, 2026 both in physical and digital formats. Thank you Arezou Amin for the ARC!
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