For debut author Noreen Nanja, there was always something missing in the stories she loved growing up.
“I was such a fan of romance, and books that had a strong coming-of-age arc,” she recalls. “However, there seemed to be a dearth of books that featured someone like myself: a second-generation Canadian. And while I could relate to and empathize with the characters I was reading, I didn’t fully see the experiences of myself and my friends realized in the stories.”
That gap is something that Nanja’s first novel The Summers Between Us (Penguin Random House Canada, 2025) sets out to fill. “I wanted to write a book where the coming-of-age arc explored the dynamics of growing up between two cultures,” she explains. And she “chose to wrap it up in the package of my favourite genre: contemporary romance.”
For Nanja, this was in every way a natural act. She writes stories that explore and affirm identity, belonging, and cultural expectations – and which are always anchored in the emotional textures of romantic and familial love. She studied Psychology and English Literature at McGill University, received her MD from the University of Calgary and practises as a pediatric neurologist. Now based in Toronto, she shares a home with her partner and their much adored small dog. And as a lifelong reader and self-professed “chronic couch napper,” she brings to her writing a warmth, humour, and reflective introspection that shape her everyday life.
Set between bustling Toronto and the slow, sun-drenched beach-y serenity of Pike Bay, The Summers Between Us follows Lia Juma, a high-achieving corporate lawyer and the epitome of the “perfect immigrant daughter.” Lia has spent years carefully crafting a polished life, complete with a promising career and a budding romance with a colleague who checks all the boxes that her mother would approve of. But when a family crisis returns her to her family’s summer cottage for the first time in a decade, her carefully constructed façade begins to crack. At the centre of this emotional unraveling is Wesley Forest, the boy next door she once loved and left behind . . . but never forgot.
Their story is told over two timelines – five formative years in the past, and one critical summer in the present – as Lia and Wes confront the unspoken secrets and cultural pressures that once drove them apart. This dual structure builds suspense and deepens the character development. At its heart, The Summers Between Us is a second-chance romance, but it is also a layered exploration of autonomy, intergenerational expectations, and the power of returning to definitive places and people.
“I feel like second-chance romances are so emotionally satisfying,” Nanja reflects, “because for a second chance to work, the characters really need to have a connection and simultaneously, need to change and grow to make their successful relationship believable. …To me, these stories are especially resonant when it feels like the characters have very much earned each other and their ‘happily ever after’.”
This intimacy is earned not just through the arcs of the characters, but through contributions from the setting itself. For Pike Bay, a fictional stand-in for the familiar rhythms of Ontario cottage country, is both a backdrop and a character in its own right. For Nanja, cottage country – which feels a world away, but can be reached in just a couple of hours – provides an escapist setting which is at the same time “accessible and comforting”: “There is something very grounded and familiar about a lakeside setting, but the beauty of it also gives space for our minds to roam and feel like we’re going on our own vacation, as we read.”
While romance fans will delight in the crackling chemistry between Lia and Wes (who happens to be an irresistible stand-up guy), readers from immigrant families will also appreciate and relate to Lia’s internal journey – especially those who know what it means to be caught between cultural obligations, filial piety and personal longing. “This has truly been the most amazing part of releasing The Summers Between Us,” Nanja shares. “I have received similar reactions from fellow readers who identify as immigrants — or children of immigrants – and truthfully, it makes me feel so grateful that this story is finding its audience, and that Lia’s story is helping others like myself feel seen.”
Among the novel’s many heartfelt moments, Nanja holds a particular fondness for the sweet, nerdy scene “when Lia and Wes start delving into his grandmother’s romance books together”. “While I think it’s a beautiful way for the two to connect over these books, part of why I wrote this scene was to capture that thrill of discovering a new favourite book and a new favourite genre,” she explains. “As a longtime reader, I fell into romance books—YA and then later adult romance—during my adolescence. And this discovery truly felt like falling in love for me. I want to bring a little bit of this magic to readers!”
Ultimately, what she wants for her readers is the comfort and emotional resonance she seeks in her own reading life: “My ideal reading day at home is curling up on my couch under a weighted blanket, with my dog sprawled over my feet and a treat or a drink balanced on the table next to me,” she declares. “Alternatively, if the weather is cooperating, I adore reading out on the dock next to the water or on the beach.” Among her recent favourites are Honey and Heat by Aurora Palit, One Golden Summer by Carley Fortune, A Love Like The Sun by Riss M. Neilson, People We Meet On Vacation by Emily Henry, Passion Project by London Sperry, and The Ex Vows by Jessica Joyce.
Summing up her debut novel, Nanja calls The Summers Between Us her “love letter to growing up in Canada”, and expresses the fervent hope that “there are pieces of the story that are universal to us all”. And because she knows it can be useful to leave readers with the sense that something’s missing . . . she lets slip that she’s “excited to share that I’m working on a second book, with more to come soon!”
© Arpita Ghosal, Sesaya Arts Magazine 2025
