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Lavanya Lakshmi

@lavanya.lakshmi.writes

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• LAH-vun-yah, kinda like “lovin’ ya” •
Author, LEAVE & COME BACK
🇺🇸&🇨🇦&🇬🇧&🇮🇳out now
Board member @the_fold
Sorry for the typos

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a month ago

This book is out of my hands and into yours 💥NOW💥

❤️‍🔥❤️‍🔥❤️‍🔥❤️‍🔥❤️‍🔥❤️‍🔥❤️‍🔥❤️‍🔥❤️‍🔥❤️‍🔥❤️‍🔥❤️‍🔥❤️‍🔥❤️‍🔥❤️‍🔥❤️‍🔥🧿🧿🧿🧿🧿🧿🧿🧿🧿🧿🧿🧿🧿🧿🧿🧿✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨

#bookstagram #fiction #romcom taken in Toronto, Canada by @lavanya.lakshmi.writes

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a month ago

@lavanya.lakshmi.writes LEAVE AND COME BACK has been selected as @spotifyuk 's Editors' Picks for July!

So for all you audio girlies out there, get listening to *the* most chaotic wedding of the season!

🧡💐🎊🧡

Two weeks. One Wedding. The chaos is just beginning…

Simran finally has her Bollywood romance. Leo, the man she has been hopelessly in love with since college, loves her back.

But when Leo accidentally crashes her cousin's two-week long wedding, there's a problem … no one can know they're together.

Simran hasn’t been home for seven years and Indian family functions are a no-boyfriend zone.

Using her favourite Bollywood film DDLJ as inspiration, Simran hatches a plan. They must pretend to be strangers, charm the aunties, and hide their relationship at all costs.

As wedding festivities spin out of control, can Simran have the love she’s always wanted and the family reconciliation she didn’t know she needed?

Available on Spotify and in Hardback! by @lavanya.lakshmi.writes

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8 days ago

Over the weekend, we reached half of our ticket registrations before posting publicly, so I believe we are already filling the room with the writers, readers, and creatives we need.

On Thursday, August 20th, we’ll be hosting our third Writing Social: Becoming: A Writing Social on Liminality, Self-Return & the Future Self at Typist Studios & Coffee in Toronto.

This accessible / PWYC, grant-supported gathering is for anyone navigating a season of transition, self-discovery, or becoming.

The evening will include poetry, featured writer readings, Q&A, book signing, Korean-inspired future-self letter writing, art vendors, and, newly added, a live sound bath by Jungle Flower Wellness.

This gathering feels especially meaningful as it may be one of my last Toronto-based Writing Socials for a while before moving further south in Ontario for law school this fall. It will also be a way of celebrating my birthday before I go, so let’s party with Hanji paper and pens, of course. Ha!

Again, we’re already halfway reserved before wider marketing, so please register only if you are certain you can attend. Feel free to share with anyone who may resonate with the theme.

Register through the link in my bio 📝✨

#torontoevent #torontowriters #writingcommunity #torontocreatives #literaryevent taken in Typist Studios & Coffee by @lavanya.lakshmi.writes

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5 days ago

Uzma, Lavanya, Farah, Alaa, and I are getting together for an unforgettable panel on August 6th at 6 PM @sittisoap !

🪴 Writing From The Roots 🪴

We’re talking joy, tragedy, rom-com-fam-dram, generational trauma & everything that makes our stories ours 🙌🏽 And we’re celebrating Alaa’s debut novel, In The Country I Love 🎉

Followed by an author signing ~ books will be available for sale @sabiqounbooks 📚

Seats are limited so tag your friends & register now (link in bio)!

Drop your burning questions below 👇🏽 we might just answer them live 👀 by @lavanya.lakshmi.writes

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5 days ago

“The connection isn’t about the similarity in your story; the connection is that you’re reading someone’s story.” Y’all I love this quote from @lavanya.lakshmi.writes on the most recent episode of the podcast!
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#romancebooks #connection #selfinsert #weneeddiversebooks #weneeddiverseromance by @lavanya.lakshmi.writes

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5 days ago

✨ BOOK REVIEW ✨

JONI — ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
I can’t really put into words how much this book meant to me, adding this book to my TBR last winter and finding out earlier this year that I shared the same ethnicity and culture as the author, and the FMC?.

From the very first page of the story, I was captivated, I knew this would become a story I’d hold very close to my heart. South Asian, specifically Tamil representation is so hard to come by, and finding a few authors who shared the same heritage as me, makes me feel a huge sense of belonging and community.

Simran and Leo’s story isn’t just a romance, it is so much more. The one word I would use to describe the feeling of this entire book is love. The love between her family - connections that may have broken apart over the years but come back together beautifully.
I think one of the most important relationships in this story was Simran and her aunt, I cried so much at the end, Simran and her aunt understanding her aunt and then fixing their relationship.

If you’re looking for a book to read this summer, I hope my review has convinced you. I would also love to recommend the audiobook if that’s something you like!!! The narrators did a wonderful job!

CRIS — ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️💫
Leave and Come Back felt like being welcomed into an Indian family’s home and trusted with a deeply personal story. ❤️

I’ll admit I didn’t understand every cultural reference 😅, but that became part of the experience. Instead of expecting the story to meet me where I was, it invited me into a world I knew very little about, and I’m so grateful it did.

Thank you for inviting readers like me into the everyday rhythms, complexities, and beauty of an Indian family’s life. I didn’t need to understand every reference to feel the love, grief, humor, and deep sense of belonging woven through these pages

The family dynamics, love, grief, and search for belonging felt so real and deeply human. It challenged me, moved me, and gave me the privilege of experiencing life through a different lens.
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#indianwedding #bollywood #familydrama #debutauthor by @lavanya.lakshmi.writes

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12 days ago

Cali, you’re a dream, part 2:

I am soooo late to posting this (literally 16 days🫠) but the second half of my Cali trip was filled with more things I love: a super fun event hosted by the amazing @thefleuria (the book truck is what dreams are made of) with treats and a doggy! What more could a girl ask for? Nothing, but yet I got it, with such thoughtful questions from ms moderator @allisonambili, and the usual goofing with @joss.richard, including some capital-O Opinions.

AND author friend IRL meetings and gabbing with @laurenokieauthor, as well as a full four days with @jessicajoycewrites, which my soul needed. I wrapped it up with a day doing my favorite thing; playing tourist and I have to say: LA, you won me over. Take me back to the beach 🧡

Also in that last pic, never realized I look so intense when I’m talking to people? I apologize if you’ve been a victim of my excessive hand-gestures. taken in Hermosa Beach, California by @lavanya.lakshmi.writes

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5 days ago

Leave and Come Back has been out in the world for one whole month! Here’s just a few of the lovely things people have been saying about it.

I am so, so grateful to anyone who has picked this book up and it’s been the best feeling to meet readers. Stay golden, folks 💕💕💕 taken in Toronto, Ontario by @lavanya.lakshmi.writes

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9 days ago

What’s the number one thing stopping people from finding true love? FAMILY, of course! Just kidding (or am I?). Families are for comfort and also trauma in romance, and @lavanya.lakshmi.writes joins me on this week’s episode to talk about them, her debut LEAVE AND COME BACK (one of my all-nighters for the year so far), Bollywood, and more!
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#bollywood #bollywoodromance #romcomreads #romancebookrecs #familyromance by @lavanya.lakshmi.writes

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10 days ago

It’s the perfect time to read (or reread) Leave and Come Back because Chapter 1 actually takes place today!

So if you have a moment, pick up a copy of LACB, and imagine that this very evening, Simran, our heartsick heroine, will cry on a balcony because it’s her birthday. And Leo, the man who’s liked her since the moment he saw her—and kissed her for the first time last night—will sit next to her and instead of trying to cheer her up, he will sing “Sad Birthday to you” because he knows her in ways she doesn’t yet know herself.

Tomorrow, Simran will get a call from her beloved cousin, Kavitha, demanding she return to her estranged family home for her youngest cousin’s wedding that kicks off on July 15 for two weeks of celebrations, family, chaos, and the first flushes of falling in love. Two weeks of hijinks, heartache, and healing.

(Do I know these are fictional characters? I sure do. But do I also think Simran, our Cancer-sun, Taurus-moon, Capricorn-rising girl (full of emotions, never gets over anything, and also somehow able to deny all that) deserves a shout out? I sure do.)

(If you’ve been to my events, you might have heard me say that this song is Simran’s through and through, with different lyrics related to the different relationships in her life. I often picture my books playing out like movies and I always heard this gentle piano riff playing in the background of the balcony scene, sad and hopeful all at the same time, much like this book.)

My heart is in awe of @whatsemileereading, who created this stunning graphic 🫶🏽🫶🏽🫶🏽 by @lavanya.lakshmi.writes

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12 days ago

Social media has been huge for books and especially romance but it’s also kind of ruined the way we read?
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#romancebooks #selfinsert #relatablebooks #romancebookaddict #socialcommentary by @lavanya.lakshmi.writes

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8 days ago