D. Al-Asmar.
Out now A novel by D. Al-Asmar

What the Bleeding Heart Knows

A love story told across three cities, held within its limits, and stronger for them.

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Nadia & him

However close they get, a distance remains.

Nadia Him

Move your cursor between them. They lean. They do not touch. The restraint is the tension

Book One of the Bleeding Heart series

The story

Nadia Okafor-Tanaka has her life in order. She flies four thousand miles for the wrong man and lands somewhere she never planned. Her days there run on prayer times and open doors, on a faith she thought she'd already made her peace with.

What follows is a slow burn in the truest sense. Nothing is stolen and nothing is rushed. A glance holds. A conversation stops one sentence short of where it wanted to go. A door stays open and no one walks through it. The harder she tries to do things properly, the less properly her heart cooperates.

This is a halal romance and a work of Muslim fiction for readers who have waited a long time to see themselves on the page. Faith is lived here, not explained. The love stays inside its limits and grows stronger for them. Set across London, Atlanta, and Barcelona, it's a story about wanting the right thing the right way, and finding out how slow that can be.

The tension is in the restraint. So is the point.

Series
The Bleeding Heart, Book One
Genre
Halal romance
Settings
London · Atlanta · Barcelona
Available
Ebook · Paperback · Hardcover
Available now

Pick your weight

Same story. Three different things to hold.

Get the paperback

Dog-ear it. Lend it. Get it back eventually.

Where the story lives

Three cities, one long distance

London

--:--

Grey mornings, strong tea, conversations that end too early.

Atlanta

--:--

Heat that stays past maghrib. Family close enough to have opinions.

Barcelona

--:--

Old stone, late light, streets built for walking slowly.

The author

D. Al-Asmar

D. Al-Asmar, author of What the Bleeding Heart Knows — illustrated portrait

D. Al-Asmar is a Black American Muslim writer and revert based in the American Northeast. Raised by his grandmother alongside his sisters, he came to Islam as an adult, and he writes from inside that choice: characters of faith who are also fully human, funny, flawed, healing, and worthy of stories.

He writes halal romance and Muslim fiction for readers who have spent too long waiting to see themselves on the page. When he isn't writing, he's with his daughter, cooking, praying fajr before the world wakes up, or negotiating with a smart home device that doesn't always understand him.

What the Bleeding Heart Knows is his first novel.

On the horizon

The table is still being set

Bleeding Heart · Book Two

What the Bleeding Heart Remembers

The story returns. Details soon, insha'Allah.

Halal Hood-to-Islam Stories · Book One

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Kezia runs a quiet tax practice, raises her daughter, and keeps her past where she left it. Then it comes back to her door.

A new series · Cozy mystery

The Jumu'ah Files: The Elder's Table

A mystery served warm, from the elders' table of a Black Muslim community in Newark. Different table. Same heart.

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    A fair shot for every child in America.

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