Stay With My Heart

 

My Thoughts:

I had the privilege of reading Tashie Bhuiyan's two other YA romance novels prior to this third one: Counting Down with You and A Show for Two. What the three romance novels have in common are a head strong East Indian American female protagonist and a swoon-worthy non East Indian pretty boy. In addition, the protagonists all have very complicated relationships with their. parents. Although Liana Sarkar (Ahmed) has a strong relationship with her cousin and her queer best friend, the relationship with her widowed father is strained to the point of being dysfunctional through American eyes. These are also common threads in the three books.

What is different in Stay is the artistic medium, in this case, music. Liana gets her love of music from her parents, especially her A&R (artists and repertoire) rep father. This book uses Liana's playlists as part of the relationship build up trajectory of the two character. In addition, the chapters list a song and artist. I found myself delaying the reading to go to my Amazon music app and find the song before re reading the chapter to figure out how the song is supposed to represent a title for the chapter. I was not always successful in figuring it out, but it was an interesting journey because of the variety of music (with lots of Taylor Swift). 

I would pair this with Ander and Santi Were Here by Jonny Garza Villa or The Sun is Also a Star by Nicola Yoon. 

From the Publishers: 

Liana Sarkar lives and breathes music, hoping to follow in the footsteps of her A&R coordinator father. Maybe if she succeeds, he’ll finally give her the time of day instead of drowning himself in work to distract from the grief of her mother’s passing.

When Liana accidentally sabotages an up-and-coming local band, Third Eye, she makes it her mission to steer them towards success—without them discovering her role in their setback. But as she gets closer to Third Eye, especially their enigmatic leader Skyler Moon, it becomes harder to hide the truth.

With both her heart and their futures on the line, will Liana be able to undo the damage she’s caused?

Publication Information:

Author: Tashie Bhuiyan

Publisher: Inkyard Press (January 2, 2024)