The holy month of Ramadan is coming to a close and that means Eid-Ul-Fitr is coming. This is one of the most festive times of the year for Muslims and it's why in my novel "Under The Full and Crescent Moon" the opening scene is of a moonsighting event that will determine if it even is the end of Ramadan.
So as the holy month of Ramadan has started I wanted to talk about the role the month plays in my novel "Under The Full and Crescent Moon", and the answer is... it doesn't.
It's an strange thing to wonder if a sock puppet is a reliable narrator, but that's just one of the many thoughts raised by The Unraveling of Ou by Hollay Ghadery which is a novel narrated entirely by a sock puppet named Ou. This seemingly silly premise is used to great effect to tackle themes of mental illness, generational trauma, and internalized misogyny. It's an easy four out of five stars for me and easy to recommend to anyone interested in these sadly timeless issues. Or just wants to experience an incredibly beautifully written and insightful introspective tale about the mental prisons that we build for ourselves or are built for us by our circumstances.
So as it's #WorldHijabDay, I figured it was a good opportunity to talk about my novel "Under The Full and Crescent Moon" which, as you can see features hijabis, and actually the characters do discuss the practice.
And you might say
In The Country I love by Alaa Al-Barkawi is a messy family drama which isn't really my genre but perhaps it should be because this is a wonderful novel, the tl;dr is five stars, go preorder and/or buy if you're reading this after May 2026. Or find it in a library.
A lot happened in 2025 and, it's just who I am to be focused on the terrible things that are happening in the world.
So there's a lot of hate for Muslims out there and it's rising here at the end of 2025. One of the main avenues of attack is how terrible Sharia Law is, and I took these attacks very seriously when they flared up 24 years ago near the end of 2001. So much so that, unsatisfied with the social media takes on Sharia, I researched and read about its history and its mechanics.
It's surprising the number of things that need to be done after you're done writing a book to give it a good shot in the market. There's a lot of supplementary writing to do, and, nowadays, a whole lot of marketing effort that authors need to be put in too with things like making a website, newsletter, social media post and things like that. And I've done all of that and continue to do so for my novel "Under THe Full and Crescent Moon"
October is Islamic History Month or so I'm told and what better way to celebrate than picking up my novel that's based on Islamic history!
So it's been a week since my book "Under The Full and Crescent Moon" launched and the question becomes, What's next?