Too Soon, A Novel

Too Soon, A Novel  by Betty Shameih. A funny, sexy, and heart-wrenching literary debut that explores exile, ambition, and hope across three generations of Palestinian American women. Arabella gets an unexpected chance at love when she’s thrust into a conflict and history she’s tried to avoid all her life. Zoya is playing matchmaker for her last unmarried granddaughter and stirring up buried memories. Naya is keeping a secret from her children that will change all their lives. Thirty-five-year-old Arabella, a New York theatre director whose dating and career prospects are drying up, is offered an opportunity to direct a risqué cross-dressing interpretation of a Shakespeare classic—that might garner international attention—in the West Bank. Her mother, Naya, and grandmother, Zoya, hatch a plot to match her with Aziz, a Palestinian American doctor volunteering in Gaza. Arabella agrees to meet Aziz, since her growing feelings for Yoav, a celebrated Israeli American theatre designer, seem destined for disaster... With biting hilarity, Too Soon introduces us to a trio of bold and unforgettable voices. This dramatic saga follows one family’s epic journey fleeing war-torn Jaffa in 1948, chasing the American Dream in Detroit and San Francisco in the sixties and seventies, hustling in the New York theatre scene post-9/11, and daring to stage a show in Palestine in 2012. Upon learning one of them is living on borrowed time, the three women fight to live, make art, and love on their own terms. A funny, sexy, and heart-wrenching literary debut, Too Soon illuminates our shared history and asks, how can we set ourselves free?   “Wonderfully brash and sparkling...This book fills in gaps in our understanding.” —Oprah Daily • “Shamieh balances her characters’ painful family history and their boisterously funny voices.” —New Yorker Publisher: Avid Reader Press/Simon & Schuster (2025) Length: 336 pages ISBN: 9781668046548