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Too Soon

About the Book

Too Soon

A “wonderfully brash and sparkling” (Oprah Daily, Best Books of the Year) novel that explores exile, love, and freedom across three generations of women --- “a Palestinian American Sex and the City” (The Atlantic).

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 theater director whose dating and career prospects are drying up, is offered an opportunity to direct a risqué cross-dressing interpretation of a Shakespeare classic --- which 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 theater 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 '60s and '70s, hustling in the New York theater scene post-9/11, and daring to stage a show in Palestine in 2012. Upon learning that 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?

Too Soon
by Betty Shamieh

  • Publication Date: January 13, 2026
  • Genres: Fiction, Women's Fiction
  • Paperback: 352 pages
  • Publisher: Avid Reader Press/Simon & Schuster
  • ISBN-10: 1668046555
  • ISBN-13: 9781668046555