The Marriage Clock

Leila has to find a husband in three months—or her parents will do it for her . . . “You’ll want to read this in one sitting.” —Susan Elizabeth Phillips, #1 New York Times–bestselling author of Simply the Best

One of Pop Sugar’s Best Books to Put in your Beachbag this Summer

To Leila Abid’s traditional Indian parents, finding a husband is as easy as match, meet, marry. Yes, she wants to marry, but after twenty-six years of singledom, even Leila is starting to get nervous. And to make matters worse, her parents are panicking, the neighbors are talking, and she’s wondering: Are her expectations just too high?

But for Leila, a marriage of arrangement clashes with her lifelong dreams of a Bollywood romance, where real love happens before marriage, not the other way around. So she decides it’s time to stop dreaming and start dating if she wants to satisfy her parents’ expectations while also fulfilling her own western ideals of love. But after a series of speed dates, blind dates, online dates, and even ambush dates, the sparks just don’t fly. Now, with the marriage clock ticking and her three-month deadline looming, Leila must face the possibility of not finding “the one” . . .

“Once you dive into The Marriage Clock, it’ll be impossible to tear yourself away.” —Cosmopolitan

“Raheem’s debut uses chick-lit tropes to smartly skewer modern ways of dating and to bring humor to more traditional South Asian ones.” —Booklist

“The author portrays this experience in an authentic and at times funny and heartbreaking way, and Leila’s struggles will speak to many. The ending may surprise some readers and make others applaud. [A] charming and humorous novel.” —Library Journal

“A joy to read.” —Julia Phillips, author of the National Book Award finalist Disappearing Earth