Good Intentions is so absorbing, compelling and beautifully written. Its ending brought me close to tears – what an incredibly assured debut. I can't wait to see what Kasim Ali writes next’ Beth O’Leary, author of The Flatshare But no relationship is perfect. For Yasmina, the complexities of family and cultural expectation are something she wants to navigate with Nur by her side. For Nur, the pressures of being the ‘good son’ are suffocating, and soon threaten everything he wants for his future with Yasmina. Can he find a way to offer her everything she deserves? I found Good Intentions moving, modern and utterly engaging. What a talent' Rhik Samadder, author of I Never Said I Love You What the book also does well is not let Nur off the hook for his behaviour. I mentioned that the way it ends is the only logical way, but there’s also this. Nur is repeatedly told that he is treating Yasmina badly, even though he continually shifts the blame on his family instead, and he’s not …babied (for want of another word) when it all goes wrong because of it. He has to take responsibility for it all. This interest in relationships and their complexity is something he is taking into his next novel. The second book in the same deal as Good Intentions, which was snapped up for a six-figure sum in 2020—after Ali wrote the novel over six weeks in 2019—is, Ali says, a book about a toxic friendship spanning 10 years.

The only outlier to this trend, Brown suggested, is the Irish writer Rob Doyle, whose second novel, Threshold (2020), is by his own description a “gloves-off, messy exploration of my own damaged male psyche and masculinity itself”. But Doyle believes that as a male novelist writing honestly about sex, “You’re kind of despised. It can feel a bit like having some weird contagion, that you ring a bell when you come into town, and people can clear out.” this is technically a romance, but it is the story of nur and yasmina during their relationship - the book opens with them being in an already 4-year long relationship. nur is a british pakistani muslim and yasmin is a british sudanese muslim - i loved the explorations of race, religion, and familial vs romantic love. the book gave a lot of insight into culture, tradition, and family ties. i really enjoyed reading this. A sensitive, smooth-toned and absorbingly honest novel that makes us question our inner worlds, at a time when this kind of self-examination might be the thing that saves us' Diana Evans, author of Ordinary PeopleI am fascinated by parents,” Ali explains. “Along with the whole masculinity thing, those are the two things I’m completely fascinated by. What I’m really interested in is the question of: do we give our parents a chance to evolve with us? Or do we just accept that they are who they are?” Three woman who join together to rent a large space along the beach in Los Angeles for their stores—a gift shop, a bakery, and a bookstore—become fast friends as they each experience the highs, and lows, of love. There is something of a Sally Rooney vibe to this story about twentysomethings navigating adult waters (the snappy dialogue, the conflicted emotions, the relationship dramas) . . . This timely, savvy novel is recommended."

Kasim Ali: This might sound rehearsed but I want South Asian boys to be able to read a book about people who look and behave like them. We need to do away with the narrative given to South Asian men which is that they’re super aggressive and violent, or very withholding and closed off. Also the terrorist angle, which is frustrating to say the least. I want to show that you can be a South Asian softboi, and that you can be the kind of person who falls in love with someone and expresses that emotion. The guys in my book seem like softbois, right?It’s the countdown to the New Year, and Nur is steeling himself to tell his parents that he’s seeing someone. A young British Pakistani man, Nur has spent years omitting details about his personal life to maintain his image as the golden child. And it’s come at a cost. Good Intentions is a magnificent and messy love story that broke my heart. Bittersweet and tender, Ali writes about modern day relationships with such compassion. This is a novel for anyone who has ever known what it is to be conflicted in falling in love, feeling the expectations of our families but also ourselves."