Freshman Fever

In this comedic, full of heart standalone novel, college just got spicy.

Raj, Shruti, Max, Asifa, and Nisha are starting freshman year-and chaos follows.

At UT Dallas, Raj's boyfriend Max flies in from Yakutsk amid Russo-American tensions and bonds with his roommate Sully, a Kazakh-American dudebro with a heart of gold. Raj and Shruti launch Kumar Fancy x Shroom Chai-a nail salon/chai bar-through a student startup program. It becomes the next big thing... until a shady rival shop pops up, clearly stealing their idea. Suddenly it's a Real Housewives-coded turf war, complete with glitter, gossip, and sabotage.

Meanwhile in the Bronx, Asifa and Nisha start at SUNY Maritime and are nearly robbed on day one-until two mysterious Y2K-era girl gangsters save them. They stumble into Sylheti Spice, a cozy Bangladeshi chai spot with magical tea and a slow-burn spark between Asifa and Zain, the owner's feminist son with a blue-eyed cat named Dairy Milk on his shoulder.

But Sylheti Spice is in danger. A Queens gang, Cosa Norte, is extorting them-and the cops are no help. To protect the shop, Zain secretly cuts a deal with Los 174, a rival gang that once saved them, offering free food in exchange for protection. One member, Dino, becomes Zain's friend-and maybe more to Nisha. Now Zain holds enough intel to take everyone down... but doing the right thing might cost him everything.

You better buckle up readers, because freshman year just got spicy. Welcome to college.