[a desi rivals to lovers college story ] Pallavi wouldn't have cared for the Best Outgoing Student Award if not for her plan to escape from what she considers an awful fate. Winning the award is her ticket out of this country. She needs it. Turns out, Atharva Krishnan, her annoyingly attractive classmate, is aiming for the same award for reasons unknown. Sometimes, she wonders if he is only after it so he could piss her off. Atharva and Pallavi instantly become sworn rivals, grappling for a win over the other so it can fetch them the coveted prize at the end of their course. Who will win this battle of wits? By the end of three years, will they remain rivals or cross the line to become something more?

Aadi, unexpectedly, finds himself rooming with his friend's friend - a runaway bride. He had intended it to be a simple, temporary living arrangement. Obviously, fate had other plans. ──── wordcount: -- words the sweet bakes compendium # 2 © starlane 2026

She writes love stories. But she wasn't expecting to live in one. Harper Lin's debut novel made her the next big thing in romance. That was two years ago. Now she's surviving on delivery apps and denial, holed up in her apartment, writing absolutely nothing. When her agent begs her to write something (their careers depend on it!), Harper does the only thing she can think of: she writes the most clichéd meet-cute in existence, steps outside to get coffee, and gets hit by a car. She wakes up to find the scene she wrote has come to life. Literally. What follows is a series of increasingly unhinged meet-cutes manifesting in Harper's real life, a mysterious new neighbor who owns her book, a best friend who thinks the spreadsheet is a cry for help, a neighbor down the hall who has very strong opinions about smut, and the slow dawning realization that the magic isn't giving her what she asked for. It's giving her what she actually wants. Which would be nice. If she knew what that was. [Standalone] Single POV | Romantic Comedy | Magical Realism

[ desi second chance romance, ex-bestfriends to lovers ] ━━━━━━━━━━ where nakshatra walks back into the city she once adored, after twelve years, the same city where she had walked away from adarsh ━━━━━━━━━━ - a novel