It’s Asian American and Pacific Islander heritage month, so I figured I’d share my roundup of reviews of books with AAPI representation. I encourage you to diversify your reading all year, but now is a great time to start!
Personally, I’m trying to read more books by Pacific Islander authors. As you’ll see below, the books in this list currently skew heavily towards the “Asian” part of AAPI.
Keep in mind that since I read mostly romance and thrillers, that’s what you’ll find here. I’m also way behind on reviewing what I’ve read. If you’re familiar with Looker Studio, you can use the slicers in this post to see all the AAPI books I’ve read by year! These lists below live-update, so as I add reviews for more AAPI books, you should see them here.
I’m working on fine-tuning this list more so that it’s easier to find what you’re looking for. For now, though it’s just all of the books with AAPI representation I’ve reviewed on this blog, in order of when I reviewed them. I hope you find something you love!
Have more recommendations? Drop them in the comments!
Table of Contents
All Books with AAPI Representation
Lillie Vale | Wrapped With A Beau
The Book: Wrapped With a Beau by Lillie ValePublished: September 26, 2023 by G.P. Putnam’s SonsDate read: September 26, 2023 The Characters: Elisha and Ves Buy it on Bookshop.org | Amazon This page contains affiliate links. I may earn a small commission from qualifying purchases made through links on this site.The Plot (from Goodreads):As a successful film liaison, Elisha Rowe has her heart set on one thing and one thing only: putting her hometown back…
Naina Kumar | Say You’ll Be Mine
The Plot (Goodreads): In this utterly charming debut romance, a teacher with big dreams joins forces with a no-nonsense engineer to survive an ex’s wedding and escape matchmaking pressure from their Indian families. Their plan? Faking an engagement, of course. Meghna Raman’s parents wanted her to be an engineer, but instead she’s followed her passion, becoming a theater teacher and aspiring playwright. But when she discovers that her beloved writing partner, best friend, and secret…
Cara Tanamachi | The Second You’re Single
The Book: The Second You’re Single by Cara TanamachiPublished January 31, 2023 by St. Martin’s GriffinDate read: April 4, 2023 The Characters: Sora and Jack Buy it on Bookshop.org | Amazon This page contains affiliate links. I may earn a small commission from qualifying purchases made through links on this site. The Plot (from Goodreads): Freelance writer Sora Reid believes in inertia. She’s the odd one out in a close-knit family of go-getters, including her…
Roselle Lim | Sophie Go’s Lonely Hearts Club
The Plot (from Goodreads): Newly minted professional matchmaker Sophie Go has returned to Toronto, her hometown, after spending three years in Shanghai. Her job is made quite difficult, however, when she is revealed as a fraud—she never actually graduated from matchmaking school. In a competitive market like Toronto, no one wants to take a chance on an inexperienced and unaccredited matchmaker, and soon Sophie becomes an outcast. In dire search of clients, Sophie stumbles upon…
Suzanne Park | The Christmas Clash
The Plot (from Goodreads): Chloe Kwon can’t stand Peter Li. It’s always been that way. Their families don’t get along either: their parents operate rival restaurants in the Riverwood Mall food court―Korean food for the Kwons and Chinese food for the Lis. Now it’s the holiday season and Chloe’s the photographer at the mall’s Santa Land, and Peter works at the virtual reality North Pole experience right across the atrium. It’s all Chloe can do…
Julie Tieu | The Donut Trap
The Plot (from Goodreads): Jasmine Tran has landed herself behind bars—maple bars that is. With no boyfriend or job prospects, Jasmine returns home to work at her parents’ donut shop. Jasmine quickly loses herself in a cyclical routine of donuts, Netflix, and sleep. She wants to break free from her daily grind, but when a hike in rent threatens the survival of their shop, her parents rely on her more than ever. Help comes in…
Julie Tieu | Circling Back To You
The Plot (from Goodreads): Cadence Lim has transformed from behind-the-scenes number cruncher to an integral part of the sales team at Prism Realty. But despite moving up the corporate ladder, her complicated relationship with her estranged elderly father weighs heavily and she can’t seem to shake the desire for a new beginning. At least Cadence can always lean on her favorite co-worker and co-conspirator, Matt Escanilla. A top broker with an unsuccessful love life, the…
Jayci Lee | Booked On A Feeling
The Plot (from Goodreads): Lizzy “Overachiever” Chung, Esq. has her life mapped out neatly: * Become a lawyer. Check. * Join a prestigious law firm. Check. * Make partner. In progress. If all goes to plan, she will check off that last box in a couple years, make her parents proud, and live a successful, fulfilled life in L.A. What was not in her plans was passing out from a panic attack during a pivotal…
Amy Lea | Set On You
The Influencers Series Set On YouExes and O’sThe Catch The Plot (from Goodreads): Curvy fitness influencer Crystal Chen built her career shattering gym stereotypes and mostly ignoring the trolls. After her recent breakup, she has little stamina left for men, instead finding solace in the gym – her place of power and positivity. Enter firefighter Scott Ritchie, the smug new gym patron who routinely steals her favorite squat rack. Sparks fly as these ultra-competitive foes…
Kirthana Ramisetti | Dava Shastri’s Last Day
The Plot (from Goodreads): Dava Shastri, one of the world’s wealthiest women, has always lived with her sterling reputation in mind. A brain cancer diagnosis at the age of seventy, however, changes everything, as she decides to take her death—like all matters of her life—into her own hands. Summoning her four adult children to her private island, she discloses shocking news: in addition to having a terminal illness, she has arranged for the news of…
Sonya Lalli | A Holly Jolly Diwali
The Plot (from Goodreads): Twenty-nine-year-old Niki Randhawa has always made practical decisions. Despite her love for music and art, she became an analyst for the stability. She’s always stuck close to home, in case her family needed her. And she’s always dated guys that seem good on paper, rather than the ones who give her butterflies. When she’s laid off, Niki realizes that practical hasn’t exactly paid off for her. So for the first time…
Jenny Lee | Anna K Away
The Plot (from Goodreads): How the mighty have fallen. Anna K, once the golden girl of Greenwich, CT, and New York City, has been brought low by a scandalous sex tape and the tragic death of her first love, Alexia Vronsky. At the beginning of the summer, her father takes her to the other side of the world, to connect with his family in South Korea and hide her away. Is Anna in exile? Or…
Thien-Kim Lam | Happy Endings
The Book: Happy Endings by Thien-Kim LamPublished May 18th 2021 by AvonDate read: May 17, 2021 The Characters: TrixieAndre Buy it on Bookshop.org | Amazon The Plot (from Goodreads): Trixie Nguyen is determined to make her sex toy business a success, proving to her traditional Vietnamese parents that she can succeed in a nontraditional career. She’s made a fresh start in Washington DC, and her first pop-up event is going well—until she runs into the…
Jenny Lee | Anna K
The Plot (from Goodreads): Meet Anna K. At seventeen, she is at the top of Manhattan and Greenwich society (even if she prefers the company of her horses and Newfoundland dogs); she has the perfect (if perfectly boring) boyfriend, Alexander W.; and she has always made her Korean-American father proud (even if he can be a little controlling). Meanwhile, Anna’s brother, Steven, and his girlfriend, Lolly, are trying to weather a sexting scandal; Lolly’s little…
Sara Desai | The Dating Plan
The Book: The Dating Plan by Sara Desai, 2021 The Characters: DaisyLiam Get it on Amazon. The Plot (from Goodreads): Daisy Patel is a software engineer who understands lists and logic better than bosses and boyfriends. With her life all planned out, and no interest in love, the one thing she can’t give her family is the marriage they expect. Left with few options, she asks her childhood crush to be her decoy fiance. Liam…
Books by Authors with AAPI Heritage
Elle Marr | The Family Bones Spoilers
The Plot (from Goodreads): What makes a psychopath? A young woman delves into her family’s shadowy legacy. Psychology student Olivia Eriksen’s family is notorious among true-crime buffs. Faced with a legacy of psychopathy that spans generations, Olivia has spent much of her academic life trying to answer one chilling question: Nature or nurture? Although she’s kept a safe distance from her blood relatives for years, Olivia agrees to attend a weekend reunion. After all, her…
Amy McCulloch | Midnight
The Plot (from Goodreads): In this pulse-pounding thriller, a once-in-a-lifetime trip to Antarctica—to camp beneath the legendary midnight sun—becomes a desperate battle for survival against a killer determined to follow their prey to the ends of the earth. THE SUN NEVER SETS AND THIS KILLER NEVER SLEEPS Olivia Campbell has always dreamed of spending a sunlit night on the frigid Antarctic continent. But as an actuary who assesses risk for a living, she never imagined…
Jennifer Hillier | Jar of Hearts
The Plot (Goodreads): This is the story of three best friends: one who was murdered, one who went to prison, and one who’s been searching for the truth all these years . . . When she was sixteen years old, Angela Wong—one of the most popular girls in school—disappeared without a trace. Nobody ever suspected that her best friend, Georgina Shaw, now an executive and rising star at her Seattle pharmaceutical company, was involved in…
Amy McCulloch | Breathless
The Plot (from Goodreads): Journalist Cecily Wong is in over her head. She’s come to Manaslu, the eighth-highest peak in the world, to interview internationally famous mountaineer Charles McVeigh on the last leg of a record-breaking series of summits. She’s given up everything for this story—her boyfriend, her life savings, the peace she’s made with her climbing failures in the past—but it’s a career-making opportunity. It could finally put her life back on track. But…
SC Lalli | Are You Sara?
The Plot (from Goodreads): Two women named Sara each get into a rideshare. . . but only one makes it home alive. Which Sara was the real target? Law student Saraswati “Sara” Bhaduri holds down two jobs in order to make her way through school, but it’s still a struggle. She’s had to do things to pay the bills that most people wouldn’t expect from “a nice Indian girl.” It seems like an ordinary busy…
Jennifer Hillier | Things We Do In The Dark
The Plot (from Goodreads): When Paris Peralta is arrested in her own bathroom—covered in blood, holding a straight razor, her celebrity husband dead in the bathtub behind her—she knows she’ll be charged with murder. But as bad as this looks, it’s not what worries her the most. With the unwanted media attention now surrounding her, it’s only a matter of time before someone from her long hidden past recognizes her and destroys the new life…
Amanda Jayatissa | You’re Invited
The Plot (from Goodreads): When Amaya is invited to Kaavi’s over-the-top wedding in Sri Lanka, she is surprised and a little hurt to hear from her former best friend after so many years of radio silence. But when Amaya learns that the groom is her very own ex-boyfriend, she is consumed by a single thought: She must stop the wedding from happening, no matter the cost. But as the weeklong wedding celebrations begin and rumors…
Amanda Jayatissa | My Sweet Girl
The Plot (from Goodreads): Ever since she was adopted from a Sri Lankan orphanage, Paloma has had the best of everything—schools, money, and parents so perfect that she fears she’ll never live up to them. Now at thirty years old and recently cut off from her parents’ funds, she decides to sublet the second bedroom of her overpriced San Francisco apartment to Arun, who recently moved from India. Paloma has to admit, it feels good…
Alafair Burke | Find Me
The Plot (from Goodreads): She calls herself Hope Miller, but she has no idea who she actually is. Fifteen years ago, she was found in a small New Jersey town thrown from an overturned vehicle, with no clue to her identity. Doctors assumed her amnesia was a temporary side effect of her injuries, but she never regained her memory. Hope eventually started a new life with a new name in a new town that welcomed…
Alafair Burke | The Wife
The Plot (from Goodreads): When Angela met Jason Powell while catering a dinner party in East Hampton, she assumed their romance would be a short-lived fling, like so many relationships between locals and summer visitors. To her surprise, Jason, a brilliant economics professor at NYU, had other plans, and they married the following summer. For Angela, the marriage turned out to be a chance to reboot her life. She and her son were finally able…
Catherine Dang | Nice Girls
The Plot (from Goodreads): Growing up in Liberty Lake, Minnesota, Mary was chubby, awkward, and smart. Earning a scholarship to an Ivy League school was her ticket out; she was going to do great things and never look back. Three years later, “Ivy League Mary” is back—a thinner, cynical, and restless failure. Kicked out of Cornell at the beginning of senior year, she won’t tell anyone why. Working at the local grocery store, she sees…
South Asian Representation
Arushi Avachat | Arya Khanna’s Bollywood Moment
The Plot (from Goodreads): Shaadi preparations are in full swing, which means lehenga shopping, taste testing, dance rehearsals, and best of all, Arya’s sister Alina is home. The Khannas are together again, finally, and Arya wants to enjoy it. So she stifles her lingering resentment towards Alina, plays mediator during her sister’s fights with their mother, and welcomes her future brother-in-law with open arms. (Okay, maybe enjoy isn’t exactly right.) Meanwhile at school, Arya’s senior…
Lillie Vale | Wrapped With A Beau
The Book: Wrapped With a Beau by Lillie ValePublished: September 26, 2023 by G.P. Putnam’s SonsDate read: September 26, 2023 The Characters: Elisha and Ves Buy it on Bookshop.org | Amazon This page contains affiliate links. I may earn a small commission from qualifying purchases made through links on this site. The Plot (from Goodreads): As a successful film liaison, Elisha Rowe has her heart set on one thing and one thing only: putting her…
SC Lalli | Are You Sara?
The Plot (from Goodreads): Two women named Sara each get into a rideshare. . . but only one makes it home alive. Which Sara was the real target? Law student Saraswati “Sara” Bhaduri holds down two jobs in order to make her way through school, but it’s still a struggle. She’s had to do things to pay the bills that most people wouldn’t expect from “a nice Indian girl.” It seems like an ordinary busy…
Amanda Jayatissa | You’re Invited
The Plot (from Goodreads): When Amaya is invited to Kaavi’s over-the-top wedding in Sri Lanka, she is surprised and a little hurt to hear from her former best friend after so many years of radio silence. But when Amaya learns that the groom is her very own ex-boyfriend, she is consumed by a single thought: She must stop the wedding from happening, no matter the cost. But as the weeklong wedding celebrations begin and rumors…
Kosoko Jackson | I’m So (Not) Over You
The Plot (from Goodreads): It’s been months since aspiring journalist Kian Andrews has heard from his ex-boyfriend, Hudson Rivers, but an urgent text has them meeting at a café. Maybe Hudson wants to profusely apologize for the breakup. Or confess his undying love. . . But no, Hudson has a favor to ask–he wants Kian to pretend to be his boyfriend while his parents are in town, and Kian reluctantly agrees. The dinner doesn’t go…
Amanda Jayatissa | My Sweet Girl
The Plot (from Goodreads): Ever since she was adopted from a Sri Lankan orphanage, Paloma has had the best of everything—schools, money, and parents so perfect that she fears she’ll never live up to them. Now at thirty years old and recently cut off from her parents’ funds, she decides to sublet the second bedroom of her overpriced San Francisco apartment to Arun, who recently moved from India. Paloma has to admit, it feels good…
Lillie Vale | The Shaadi Set-Up
The Plot (from Goodreads): High school sweethearts Rita Chitniss and Milan Rao were the golden couple, until the day he broke her heart. Now, six years later, Rita has turned her passion for furniture restoration into a career and has an almost-perfect boyfriend, Neil. The last thing she needs is for Milan to re-enter her life, but that’s exactly what happens when her mother, an unfailing believer in second chances, sets them up. Milan is…
Kirthana Ramisetti | Dava Shastri’s Last Day
The Plot (from Goodreads): Dava Shastri, one of the world’s wealthiest women, has always lived with her sterling reputation in mind. A brain cancer diagnosis at the age of seventy, however, changes everything, as she decides to take her death—like all matters of her life—into her own hands. Summoning her four adult children to her private island, she discloses shocking news: in addition to having a terminal illness, she has arranged for the news of…
Sonya Lalli | A Holly Jolly Diwali
The Plot (from Goodreads): Twenty-nine-year-old Niki Randhawa has always made practical decisions. Despite her love for music and art, she became an analyst for the stability. She’s always stuck close to home, in case her family needed her. And she’s always dated guys that seem good on paper, rather than the ones who give her butterflies. When she’s laid off, Niki realizes that practical hasn’t exactly paid off for her. So for the first time…
Annika Sharma | Love, Chai, and Other Four-Letter Words
The Plot (from Goodreads): A charming NYC romance by co-host of the Woke Desi, for fans of: • multicultural connections • strong friendships and families • a “will they/won’t they” story with powerful stakes • the city that never sleeps • bucket list adventures • characters who fight outside expectations and pressures to build the life they want Kiran needs to fall in line. Instead, she falls in love. Kiran was the good daughter. When…
Sara Desai | The Dating Plan
The Book: The Dating Plan by Sara Desai, 2021 The Characters: DaisyLiam Get it on Amazon. The Plot (from Goodreads): Daisy Patel is a software engineer who understands lists and logic better than bosses and boyfriends. With her life all planned out, and no interest in love, the one thing she can’t give her family is the marriage they expect. Left with few options, she asks her childhood crush to be her decoy fiance. Liam…
Books set in Asia and the Pacific Islands
*This section coming soon*
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