Stevie‘s review of Ayesha at Last by Uzma Jalaluddin
Contemporary Women’s Fiction published by Berkley 04 Jun 19
I’m always happy to read new takes on Pride and Prejudice, particularly since so many varied authors are putting their own personal twists on the characters, plot and themes, while shifting the setting into communities that Jane Austen might never have envisioned her tales reaching. This time, our protagonists are members of Toronto’s Muslim community, parts of which are as keen to see their family members make a good match as any Regency parents – not to mention aunts and uncles – ever were. Our heroine, Ayesha Shamsi – the Lizzie Bennet character – wears a hijab, but is less traditional than many others, preferring to develop her career rather than find a husband. Although, as the story opens, she is starting to doubt her choice of profession and is unaware that one of her best friend’s co-workers, a more devour Muslim, is secretly developing an interest in her.
Khalid Mirza, the Mr Darcy character, recently moved into the area where Ayesha’s family have been living for some time. He is happy to live quietly and trusts that his mother will find him a suitable bride when the time is right. That doesn’t stop him from observing his neighbour as she rushes to and from her home, and when the pair find their paths crossing, he reluctantly strikes up a friendship with her. Ayesha finds Khalid to be stuffy and judgemental, but is forced to work with him on the organising committee for the local Mosque’s upcoming youth event – the only snag being that she started out in her role by pretending to be her flighty, marriage obsessed cousin, Hafsa – an amalgam of Lydia Bennet and Charlotte Lucas – who wants to use the event to launch her embryonic event-planning business, and there never seems to be a right time for Ayesha to reveal the truth. Especially with her cousin blackmailing her into continuing the pretense.
Khalid, of course, has secrets of his own. His sister was sent to India in disgrace following a scandal and quietly married off. He keeps in contact with her and sends her money, neither of which his mother is likely to condone. When Khalid’s mother learns of his friendship with Ayesha, including the mistaken identity problem, she hatches a plan to marry him off to the far more eligible Hafsa. And the plot nearly succeeds.
There’s a Wickham character too, of course, and the roles of Mr. and Mrs. Bennet are mostly taken up by Ayesha’s grandparents. I loved watching the plot unfold and was keen to see which plot threads followed those of the original story and which diverged. I also enjoyed the subplots concerning Ayesha’s best friend, Khalid’s office mate, and their highly prejudiced – though she’d never admit it – director. I was also charmed by the ladies whose rather raunchy website project Khalid is landed with after upsetting said director, and amused by the supposedly inspirational texts sent to Ayesha by this novel’s equivalent of Mr. Collins.
All in all, this was an excellent first novel, and I’ll be watching out for more books from the author.
Grade: B
Summary:
Ayesha Shamsi has a lot going on. Her dreams of being a poet have been set aside for a teaching job so she can pay off her debts to her wealthy uncle. She lives with her boisterous Muslim family and is always being reminded that her flighty younger cousin, Hafsa, is close to rejecting her one hundredth marriage proposal. Though Ayesha is lonely, she doesn’t want an arranged marriage. Then she meets Khalid, who is just as smart and handsome as he is conservative and judgmental. She is irritatingly attracted to someone who looks down on her choices and who dresses like he belongs in the seventh century.
When a surprise engagement is announced between Khalid and Hafsa, Ayesha is torn between how she feels about the straightforward Khalid and the unsettling new gossip she hears about his family. Looking into the rumors, she finds she has to deal with not only what she discovers about Khalid, but also the truth she realizes about herself.
Read an excerpt.
