Aneya Fernando
About
Hi! I’m Aneya Fernando, a Philadelphia-based writer and editor. I was an editor at Adweek magazine for five years, and prior to that I wrote for publications like Mediabistro, HuffPost and more. Just As You Are is my debut novel.
The Novel
Just As You Are
After her British boyfriend dumps her, Priya Sharma painstakingly builds a life for herself in London — balancing an unpaid internship at a struggling theater magazine and a whirlwind romance with a tattooed bartender — only to risk it all when tragedy brings her ex back into her life.
Rom-com obsessed Priya Sharma was this close to finally having her own happily ever after. She’d found her leading man (the charming, impossibly handsome Andrew Baxton). She’d relocated to an exotic locale (from bleak Scranton, Pennsylvania to shimmering London). Her career was taking off (okay, so it technically hadn’t begun, but she was sure it would, any day now). Everything was going according to plan. Until Andrew does the unthinkable: he dumps her.
Even worse: he wants her out of his London flat ASAP. Broke, alone and newly homeless, Priya heads straight to the pub to drink away her sorrows. That’s where she meets Jay Gupta, a kind (and undeniably sexy) bartender, who talks her off the ledge with tequila shots, Smarties and Bridget Jones quotes. With Jay’s encouragement, Priya resolves to find a way to stay in London, despite her dire circumstances. She lands an unpaid internship at a scrappy theater magazine, a weekend bussing gig and a room in her coworker’s flat.
Priya can’t seem to stay away from Jay. Growing up with a Sri Lankan father and a white mother, Priya has never felt like she belonged. Bangalore-born Jay understands her identity confusion in a way her Hugh Grant look-alike ex never could. Throw in sizzling chemistry and Jay’s encyclopedic knowledge of rom-coms? Priya never stood a chance.
But when tragedy strikes Andrew’s family, Priya rushes to his side — and makes a choice that blows up everything. She finds herself at risk of losing her job, her friends, and the life she’s painstakingly built for herself. Priya must figure out what she truly wants (and how to stop shapeshifting for the men in her life) before it’s too late.