Uzma Jalaluddin

And I wrote three more rom-coms after Aisha, I last, and I love each and every one of them.

But the entire time I was thinking about that mystery that I had started outlining way back in 2017.

And then finally I said, I need to do this.

You know, life is short and I want to write a mystery sort of inspired by Agatha Christie, who is, you know, like a favorite of mine.

And so that's what it is.

All of my friends are actually surprised that I write rom-coms and all of my readers are surprised that I write a mystery.

Yeah.

It was actually my agent, it never even got to my editor or publicist.

But yeah, my agent said, you know, write, continue writing rom coms.

And it was more of a career advice.

It was very strategic.

And of course, if I had wanted to, I could have pushed back and said, No, I'm going to write what I want next.

But instead, I was, you know, I

You work with an agent because of their industry expertise.

You trust them, right?

I trust her, yeah.

And I thought it actually makes a lot of sense that if I've written one rom-com and then I write a mystery and then I want to write sci-fi and then I want to write fantasy, I think it would work.

confuse my readership.

And it would be more difficult to kind of establish the readership that you hope will maybe travel with you and try different genres, which I think has happened to a certain extent.

But I've also picked up new readers with Detective Auntie, readers who only read mystery.