Maya’s Laws of Love give readers a little glimpse inside the world of a Pakistani woman. The story was well written and enjoyable to read! The author created a good cast of characters and the romance was a really cute story.

3.5⭐️ rounded up!

This follows a young Pakistani girl named Maya who is on her way to Pakistan for her arranged marriage when some mishaps occur and she’s stuck sitting next to a jerk named Sarfraz who also happens to be traveling to Pakistan.

Along her journey she gets into multiple fiascos and her plane is grounded delaying her arrival to Pakistan where she gets stuck with none other than Sarfraz.

Coming to the conclusion they’re both stranded they decide to make the best of it and spend the few days of their delay together.

There were so many cute parts in this book I enjoyed especially all of the beautiful pakistani culture shown, I was obsessed!!!


The sweet moments between Sarfraz and Maya made me giggle and I definitely did not see the plot twist coming!!!


This book was such a cute rom com with such sweet and funny moments I’d def rec it for a fun read!!

A road trip riddled with bad luck is always fun for comedy and bonding! Readers will love seeing Maya learn what she wants and who will make her happy.

While this story is a romance, it focuses a lot on Maya's self-discovery. I related a lot to her struggle to not give in to the expectations others had for her. It can be easy to want people you love to be happy and let that overshadow what makes you happy.

I really enjoyed the book's exploration of arranged marriage and how it is viewed in different cultural contexts. I found myself agreeing with the book's view of arranged marriage even if it is not something I would ever choose.

This book is funny, has interesting characters, and is well written. I enjoyed learning more about Pakistani culture and what it is like to live in another country and try to maintain cultural identity. I will note that readers who don't like cheating under any circumstances will not enjoy this one. I usually don't enjoy characters developing feelings for someone else in a relationship but in this case, I thought it made sense.

🌶️ - Only kissing.

I was so excited when I came across this book - the cover art is gorgeous and grabbed my eye and the premise really intrigued me. I’m always a fan of a romance read that can also allow me to experience/ learn about another culture. An arranged marriage, travel woes, and a love story? Yes please!

I loved that the story was one that involved a trip to Pakistan for a wedding. We got a glimpse into another culture via the parts of the story and it was great getting to see Maya representing a Canadian-Palestinian experience.

While I’m not generally a fan of a traditional love triangle - I am definitely a fan of the arranged marriage to meeting your true match trope. I loved was watching the relationship and interactions between Maya and Safaraz evolve as they went from annoyed seat mates to reluctant travel companions to more.

I don’t want to spoil anything, but needless to say this was just a really charming and sweet romance read. Definitely I’ll recommend to friends or fans of this type of read.

Thank you to the publisher for the opportunity to read an early copy! All thoughts and opinions are my own and freely offered.

✨ The Highlights✨

- Forced Proximity
- Enemies to Lovers
- One bed
- He falls first
- Clean Rom-Com

✨ The Feels ✨

This was such a cute and charming love story! Maya was relatable, funny, and endearing. I enjoyed the banter between the main characters, the familial relationships, and Sarfaraz in general! He was just so incredibly patient and sweet. You could tell he truly cared for Maya and couldn’t help but protect her in anyway he could. I also enjoyed reading about the wedding culture! I will say I found the pacing to be a tad slow and the writing felt a bit choppy at times. It took me a bit to get invested in the story but I’m glad I did because the HEA was 🤌🏻

✨ The Spoiler Free Details ✨

Maya Mirza is a bride-to-be convinced she's cursed in matters of the heart. Despite her conviction in her romantic misfortune, Maya is poised to embark on an arranged marriage journey to Pakistan with a seemingly perfect match—a successful doctor who checks all the boxes on her list. Marriage first, love later—she's certain of the formula. However, fate has other plans in store. Along her disastrous journey to be wed, Maya befriends an unlikely, handsome 😏 stranger and finds her beliefs challenged.

Thank you to NetGalley and Harlequin Trade Publishing for the ARC of Maya's Laws of Love!

Maya is getting ready to leave Canada for her arranged marriage in Pakistan. She knows her future husband from college and its not love but she hopes it could be someday. She really just agreed to the marriage so her mother would allow her to teach abroad for 2 years in South Korea. Maya is unlucky in love and in life, so much so that she truly believes she is cursed. Through a series of unfortunate travel events, her plane is forced to land in Switzerland and she becomes closer and closer to her seatmate, Sarfaraz. Sarfaraz was rude in the airport, rude on the plane, and rude upon landing but they continue to cross paths and he begins to soften. Once they finally make it to Pakistan, will Maya be able to go through with the wedding? Or has she finally found love somewhere else?

Overall I enjoyed this novel. Maya's independence is admirable and the novel tries to highlight that as much as it can. I did feel the characters were a bit inconsistent but I think Khawaja has promise as an author and I look forward to reading her future works. My biggest issue was with Sarfaraz. He is such a jerk that I don't entirely believe Maya could come to love him. The jumps from him being a jerk to him being sweet are inconsistent and stretch belief.

I did enjoy learning about Muslim customs but I have seen other reviewers say that some of the events that happen in the story do not align with halal beliefs. I am not Muslim but even I thought as I was reading that the behaviors were not what I thought I knew were acceptable within the structures of the religion. I saw these reviews on Goodreads and encourage you to check them out if you are considering reading this book based on the religious aspects alone.

If you're looking for a cute and fun romcom that is clean, with lots of cultural influence thrown in, this is a good debut to pick up. I found it to be really fun though some of the pacing throughout the story didn't feel completely smooth. There were certainly some things that happened that weren't entirely believable, but it was still a cute read and a fun time. I think with some real work on pacing this could have been a super quick read for me and besides that the writing style was easy to read and consume. For a debut I felt like this is a great start and would look forward to seeing what else the author had in the future.

Wow! What a debut novel by Alina Khawaja!

Maya's Laws of Love is a quick-moving, witty/banter filled romantic comedy book that will keep you on your toes of someone who is cursed in life and in love. Alina informs the reader at the beginning of her book that this Desi romance is specific to her experience and her direct impact within Canadian-Pakistani culture. This is important to remember for non-Muslim readers as this book represents just a portion of a vast religion and culture.

In Maya's Laws of Love, the reader enjoys a sense of wanderlust; while, also dealing with the reality of anxiety and continuous runs of bad luck. Maya and Sarfaraz don't start out as "enemies" per se but they definitely don't get along. Which, is hard for them when they're stranded together for 11 days through Switzerland, Islamabad, and a smaller village on the way to Karachi. They travel together and learn what it means to have someone in your corner, something neither of them had for this meet cute.

Maya and Sarfaraz face danger, vulnerability, becoming creative in ways their religion/culture would NOT support, and even pretend to be fake engaged. You have grumpy/sunshine and one bed tropes to keep you occupied till Maya is reunited with her fiance, who just so happens to be Sarfaraz's half brother no one told her about.

Alina writes a powerful debut novel filled with love, wanderlust, friendship, building trust, sticking up for yourself, finding yourself, dealing with trauma, and so much more! There's a lot packed in but it is SO worth the read.

Lastly, two other things I enjoyed were the short chapters -- they just kept me hooked, and the epilogue. In a lot of romance epilogues we see down the road of our couple - maybe a baby, etc. Alina opens the epilogue with Maya returning to therapy to share about all she learned once she found love and found herself. The epilogue solidifies Maya's journey to healthy living, mental fortitude, and coping skills that benefit her and those around her. This was so unique, so powerful, and I hope I see more epilogues like this in the future.

Well done book. 5 stars. 0 chili peppers. 5 angsty bell peppers for our close-door romance readers :)
Make sure to check this book out!

I loved this forced proximity, forbidden romance, opposites attract romance that centers two Pakistani-Canadian Muslim leads.

Maya is cursed. She will forever be unlucky in love, so she's (1) created Maya's Laws (based on Murphy's Law) to dictate her choices and (2) has agreed to an arranged marriage with a man she likes ok, but does not love. On her way to the wedding, in Pakistan, everything that can go wrong with travel does and she increasingly relies on her grumpy seat mate Sarfaraz. Despite her unluckiness, Maya is a firm believer in love and soul mates; grumpy Sarfaraz who is a divorce attorney does not believe in such things. But as they spend time together stranded in a foreign country, Maya starts to feel things for him that she's never felt before and that she certainly doesn't feel for her intended. Can Maya finally be lucky in love?

I loved the interspersing of Maya & Sarfaraz's religion and Pakistani heritage in the ways they interacted with each other and those they meet in their journey. This is a no-spice romance because of their religion, but it didn't feel judgy in ANY way for those who make different choices. This was true as well in the nuanced conversations about arranged vs. love matches. I also absolutely felt the growing love between Sarfaraz and Maya throughout their adventures and I am an absolute softie for a "he's a grump for everyone but her". Both Maya and Sarfaraz have complicated family situations and I loved the way in which they both grew from their hard pasts as well. It did start off a bit slowly, but once Maya was en route to Pakistan in picked up quickly. If you're looking for a new South Asian author to add to your TBR, I very much recommend Khawaja!

Anyone who has ever found that the “course of true love never did run smooth” is certain to want to read this book. It is a story that will make readers hope for Maya’s happiness. She has certainly had a difficult time finding her one and then facing dilemmas. For example, should she go through with her arranged marriage? Is a divorce lawyer a good marriage prospect? How many things can go wrong on the way to Pakistan? The pages just turn quickly in this book making it a perfect pick for when a pick me up kind of book is what is needed.

Mirza is convinced she is cursed to have bad luck for the rest of her life, especially in love. She lives her life by a set of 'laws' that explain her bad luck.

She is about to be married and is on route to her destination wedding in Pakistan, but it is a disaster from the start. Her seatmate ends up being a grumpy lawyer, that as mishap after mishap happens ends up being her travel companion through a grounded flight, an unexpected stop in Switzerland, a bus breakdown, and more. They get very close over the tumultuous journey, and Maya starts to doubt who is the right guy for her.

I think this book was so well executed. I loved reading a book about a culture that is different to my own. The love story was so well paced, and you could feel as the characters fell in love over the length of the novel. The main characters grew over time and it all felt so organic. There was such a good balance of romance, serious topics, humour, culture, and growth.

Thank you NetGalley for this ARC read.

Maya is trying to cope with the fact that she is to marry her arranged fiancé in Pakistan. She tries to talk herself into the idea of falling in love with him until the trip overseas puts a dent in her plans after meeting a divorce lawyer during her travels.

•Enemies to Lovers and Forced Proximity

A beautiful, feel good #ownvoices romance debut featuring a Canadian Pakistani teacher who finds herself agreeing to marry a man she barely knows in order to please her mother. I loved this grumpy/sunshine, opposites attract, travel romance that sees Maya questioning everything she thought she knew about life and love when she ends up falling for a complete stranger when she least expected. Great on audio and perfect for fans of authors like Farah Heron and Uzma Jalaluddin. Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an early digital copy in exchange for my honest review! I'm excited to read more from this new Canadian author!!

Steam level: kissing only

Thank you Netgalley for this ARC, in return these are my honest thoughts.

I started off really liking this story, I found the character of Maya endearing. I loved how she loved kdramas and still believed in love despite what she had experienced. She was a little imature, but lots of girls are still in their early twenties.

The character of Sarfaraz was cynical and divorce lawyer, but I thought he was Maya’s perfect match. The balanced each other out well. I really was rooting for their romance. I normally hate cheating tropes, but the arranged
marriage made me understanding of why it happened.

I really liked this book, but then the reveal happened and honestly it just ruined the story for me. It felt like it was an unnecessary reveal just to create more drama.

I was checked out of the story aftet that. I think if you took that part out it would have made the story better.

Hard to get into at first but in the end very sweet. Maya is about to get married to her arranged fiance of three years. She is ok with the idea of eventually loving her fiance after they get married until she makes an instant connection with someone else and realizes what is possible.

With a lot of travel mishaps on her way to Pakistan, she comes to realize her motives to get married are independence from what she sees as an overbearing culture more than a desire to get married. I appreciated the exploration of self-discovery, culture, and family expectations.

🌶️- Acknowledges the existence of sex but in my opinion very clean.

Read if you like:
•Vacation flings
•Impossible Love
•Sunny vs grumpy
•Forbidden Love
•Enemies to Lovers
•Forced Proximity

“No one is incapable of love, but we all have the ability to sabotage our own happiness, even if we don’t realize it.”

I really enjoyed this book. It was an sweet, adorable heartwarming romance. I love the desi representation in this book and how the author went about explaining the culture in her story. I always enjoy reading books that have desi culture but I enjoyed this book even more because I felt I could relate to the FMC Maya as a desi woman. This story reminded me of all the classic Bollywood movies I adore so much.

Thank you NetGalley and Alina Khawaja for this ARC in exchange for my honest review.

This was a cute story. It even had a meet cute. Well, not really cute at first but as time goes on (for them) it turns into a funny story. Anyways, this book was deeply cultural. It's not my place to say if it's a great representation for muslim or desi people since I'm neither, but I can attest that it painted their culture in a beautiful picture. The pacing of this book was a little oft for me. It felt a little all over the place, and I don't even mean the plot itself. I wished we could've seen more of Maya in a finally fulfilled, happy, and loving relationship. We only got a snippet of it in the epilogue. I want more of them.

Thank you NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review

I feel like this book was the perfect setup for me to like, but for some reason, I just didn't jive with the writing style of it. I don't know.

Thank you so much Harlequin Trade Publishing and NetGalley for a free ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I was very intrigued by the premise of this book, but I did not love the writing style and ended up dnf'ing at 9%. We (as the reader) are being told everything instead of being shown what happens leading the reading experience to feel rather clunky. I wanted to continue reading but did not feel engaged enough to do so.

I will say that I absolutely loved the author's note and the care that she put into representing a Pakistani Muslim,

I enjoyed the take on the author's on story telling. As the chapters continue, the story continues to get better. I always enjoy romance stories where I learn something about other cultures. This was my first with strong heritage weaved into the tale. This story was given to me by NetGalley for my honest opinions.