Sajni Patel Books in Order

If you want sharp adult romance: The Trouble with Hating You → First Love, Take Two
If you want YA with ambition and family drama: The Knockout → My Sister's Big Fat Indian Wedding → Sleepless in Dubai
If you want myth and darker stakes: A Drop of Venom → A Touch of Blood
If you want grown-up rom-com chaos: Isha, Unscripted → The Design of Us

Sajni Patel was born in India and moved to the United States when she was very young, growing up in Texas with Indian traditions at home and a very Southern world outside it. She has said she grew up on Indian food, barbecue, Tex-Mex, Mexican food, and soul food, and that mix of cultures shows up all through her fiction.

She's been writing since she was ten.

Patel has said one of her earliest stories was about vampire bunnies, complete with Crayola illustrations. She loved school book fairs, disappeared into novels and graphic novels, and spent a lot of time imagining characters when she was not already reading about them. Teachers and friends encouraged her to keep going, and writing slowly changed from a private habit into something she wanted to build a life around.

She often talks about drawing from personal experience, especially the pull of being an Indian immigrant girl growing up in the heart of Texas. That is one reason her books feel so specific about aunties, food, weddings, gossip, and the pressure to be the right kind of daughter, student, or future wife.

Her own background in sports and combat training matters too. In high school she played volleyball and softball, tried cheerleading, and took mixed martial arts. Later she became fascinated by female Muay Thai fighters, which helps explain why so many of her heroines feel physical, stubborn, and hard to bully.

Her 2020 debut, The Trouble with Hating You, brought many readers to her work. The book pairs Houston engineer Liya Thakkar with lawyer Jay Shah in a sharp enemies-to-lovers setup, but it also makes room for gossip, sexism, trauma, and trust. Patel followed it with First Love, Take Two, a second-chance romance centered on doctor Preeti Patel and her ex, Daniel Thompson. Together, the books show what Patel does well: chemistry, family chaos, and women trying to claim space in communities that have a lot to say about how they should live.

She does not write passive leads.

That same energy runs through her young adult fiction. The Knockout follows teen Muay Thai fighter Kareena Thakkar as she chases a huge opportunity while juggling family money problems, community judgment, and first love. My Sister's Big Fat Indian Wedding and Sleepless in Dubai lean brighter, using music, travel, weddings, and Diwali celebrations to tell stories about teens trying to honor their families without losing themselves.

Patel's adult books also move in other directions. Isha, Unscripted follows an aspiring screenwriter through one chaotic night in Austin, while The Design of Us turns workplace rivalry into fake dating at a Hawaiian wedding. Even when the setups are funny, Patel keeps circling the same emotional ground, ambition, self-worth, boundaries, friendship, and the courage it takes to choose your own life.

Then she made a darker turn with A Drop of Venom and A Touch of Blood, companion fantasies that blend Greek myth with Indian lore. The genre changes, but the through line stays familiar: women under pressure, sisterhood, survival, and hard questions about who gets called a monster. Off the page, Patel has shared her love of Marvel, animals, chocolate, ube, and a good TV binge.