How far will you go to feed your ambitions?
\nFor fans of The Bear and WWE\, Appetite blends the author'\;s love of Bangladeshi cuisine and the pressure-cooker enviornment of the restaurant world with the grandeur\, camp\, and theatrics of professional wrestling.
\n\nZarina\, a prep cook at a fancy New Haven restaurant\, is underpaid\, overworked\, and might as well be invisible. The only upside: they get to take home leftover ingredients. Every night\, Zarina whips up modern spins on the Bangladeshi dishes she grew up eating\, all while enjoying her second greatest passion: professional wrestling. Namely\, Zarina&rsquo\;s hero Sierra Myst&mdash\;the massively successful\, high-flying heel who&rsquo\;s built like a superhero and is every bit as confident and daring as one.
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\nOne night\, Zarina posts online about one of Sierra Myst&rsquo\;s wins\, and the most improbable thing happens: Sierra reaches out to Zarina. She'\;s elated at the chance to become closer with her idol\, and at first\, their friendship is everything Zarina&rsquo\;s ever dreamed of. Zarina&rsquo\;s confidence grows\, their world gets bigger\, and opening their own restaurant doesn&rsquo\;t feel quite so impossible. But as the weeks fly by\, Zarina starts to feel more like Sierra&rsquo\;s unpaid personal assistant and relationship counselor&mdash\;and her desire to make Sierra happy eclipses their own goals and threatens everything they&rsquo\;ve worked for.
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\nDeliciously propulsive and ultimately uplifting\, Appetite is about the unique torture of being a twenty-something who&rsquo\;s torn between the person someone else wants you to be and the person you really are.
P. Paramita is a Bangladesh-born\, New Haven-based writer\, professor\, and pop culture enthusiast. Paramita holds a BA from Wellesley College and an MFA in Creative Writing from Columbia University\, where P was a recipient of the Waletzky Fellowship. Paramita&rsquo\;s debut novel APPETITE&mdash\;out now from the Dial Press at Penguin Random House&mdash\;was named a most anticipated title of 2026 by Debutiful and Electric Literature.
\n\nRachel has been writing something or other her entire life. Born in New York City\, raised on Long Island\, and now a New Havener\, she spends her days as a copy editor and proofreader. Girl Next Door was called "\;a romance with real heft"\; in The New Haven Independent and "\;everything I love in a romance novel"\; by Ashley Herring Blake\, author of Delilah Green Doesn'\;t Care. Author of Woodworking Emily St. James called it her favorite romance novel of 2025.
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