Gian Sardar Books in Order

Gian Sardar was born in Los Angeles, California, in a family whose stories reach well beyond the city. Her father was from Kurdistan in Iraq, and her mother is Belgian American with Minnesota roots. Those connections run through much of her fiction, which moves between Los Angeles, the Midwest, Kurdistan, Belgium, and old Hollywood while staying close to people under pressure.

Sardar studied creative writing at Loyola Marymount University. She has said that she loved writing as a child and made little hardcover “novels,” then came to see writing as something she wanted to pursue seriously while she was in college. For her, publication was never the definition of being a writer. Putting words on the page was.

Then she kept doing it.

Before her novels, Sardar coauthored Psychic Junkie with actress Sarah Lassez. Published in 2006, the memoir follows Lassez as she becomes increasingly dependent on psychics for answers about romance, work, and her future. It is funny in places, uncomfortable in others, and rooted in the messy practical details of trying to get through adulthood in Los Angeles.

Sardar’s first novel, You Were Here, arrived in 2017. It follows Abby Walters, whose recurring nightmare and a clue from her grandmother’s past draw her back to Minnesota. The book combines family secrets, a police investigation, romance, and an unsettling question about whether the past can keep reaching into the present. It also reflects Sardar’s long-running interest in dreams, unseen connections, and the stories people inherit.

With Take What You Can Carry, she turned to 1979 and a journey from Los Angeles to northern Iraq. Olivia Murray wants to be a photojournalist and travels with her Kurdish boyfriend, Delan, to attend a family wedding. The trip becomes far more dangerous than either expects. The novel brings together ambition, family loyalty, cultural distance, and the cost of witnessing violence, while making room for everyday warmth and humor.

Her later historical novels keep that focus on personal choices in troubled times. When the World Goes Quiet is set in German-occupied Bruges near the end of World War I, where Evelien is pulled into a dangerous resistance mission while searching for news of her missing husband. In Land of Dreams, Sardar shifts to Depression-era Hollywood, following a studio fixer as scandal and murder threaten the carefully managed image of movie stars.

Place matters in these books.

Sardar’s shorter work has appeared in major newspapers, magazines, and literary outlets. Across her novels, she returns to family history, love, grief, secrets, art, and the hard work of deciding whom to trust. She lives in Los Angeles with her husband and son. Away from the desk, she has named reading, football, gardening, cooking, baking, and procrastination among her favorite pursuits.