Much of what Nona Uppal offers to the world is exactly what younger generations need at the moment: a reason to pick up a book. Over the past few years, she has cultivated an online following that takes her recommendations very seriously, and a community of readers who keep coming back for more. Her debut novel Fool Me Twice, has cemented her place as one of India’s most exciting young romance authors. Her second novel, Call It Coincidence, is set against the festive glow of Diwali and the cozy onset of winter, and is a story of how love lingers, heals, and sometimes finds its way back—if only we let it. Thoughtful, curious, and deeply observant, she speaks about her creative process, her relationship with readers, and why she believes love remains the most complex subject of all.
Where did the idea for the book come from, and how was it different from your debut?
I’ve always been fascinated by this caricature of a person, usually a man, who seems completely invested at first but disappears the moment things get serious. It kept showing up in my friends’ lives, and I wanted to understand it. Why do people flee when they’re scared? Why do they sabotage something that’s good? When I couldn’t find answers in real life, I began exploring them through writing. I realised that people often sabotage relationships because new love triggers old wounds. At our core, we’re still those children shaped by our parents.
The story was partly inspired by real people I know and how I’ve seen modern dating play out. My debut, Fool Me Twice, was written in a post-pandemic context and explored love, death and loss. This new book grew instead from my observations of relationships now and from my desire to give even the most flawed characters something to hold on to.
What do you hope to contribute to contemporary writing about love and relationships, and how did you approach observing modern dating?
I want to portray people navigating modern dating as layered, complex beings rather than villains. A lot of stories treat dating app users as disposable, but to me, this is just how people meet now. I want to write about flawed yet genuine people trying to find connection within that system. Love itself hasn’t changed: people ghosted each other even before texting existed. What’s changed are the ways we express or hide our feelings, and I want to capture that while showing that the essence of love remains the same.
Even though I’ve been in a relationship for eight years and haven’t experienced modern dating firsthand, my imagination fills that gap. I observe people closely, listen to stories, and imagine what their first dates might be like. I draw inspiration from my friends’ experiences, from people I meet, and from my own curiosity. The book really came together from fragments of friends’ sad DMs, real encounters, and a lot of imagination.
Have you ever struggled with being labelled a romance writer, and how do you respond to that?
Not really. I’ve never cared about being ‘taken seriously’ in that sense. My idea of intelligence is self-defined. Love is all that there is. At the end of the day, interpersonal relationships is all that there are. They’re the ones holding you close and cosy in tough moments. Understanding how we love is one of the most intricate human challenges, one that even the smartest people struggle with. Love, to me, is deeply intellectual, it stimulates and challenges me.
I really admire thinkers like Esther Perel, whose work on infidelity and relationships has shaped my perspective. Love is at the core of human behaviour, and I see myself not just as a romance writer but as someone who writes about relationships in all their forms. In both my novels, the mother-daughter bond sits at the heart of the story. Romance often uncovers other fundamental relationships. So no, the label doesn’t bother me. I actually think people who dismiss the genre probably just need a little more love in their lives.
“Love is all that there is. At the end of the day, interpersonal relationships is all that there are. They’re the ones holding you close and cosy in tough moments.”
How do you think about Delhi as a setting in your work?
To me, Delhi is inherently romantic. I wrote about Chandni Chowk because as a child, I’d never been there, and that absence became emotional. Later, when my partner took me there, the experience of seeing the city through someone I loved felt deeply romantic. Delhi holds so many memories: food from old cafés like the Wenger’s Café in Connaught Place, places I’ve shared with friends and partners. These places hold this one version of my that is inaccessible in any other way in that Delhi’s all I’ve known. I write about the city as someone who has only ever lived here, so that someone who is not from here can get a taste of those experiences. Delhi is home, and I hope readers who aren’t from here can still feel its texture and emotion without feeling alienated.
Why did you name your protagonist Naina, and how do you usually name your characters?
I chose the name Naina because it felt like a name that might have made my own life easier. Growing up, my own name was a sore spot, though I love it now. Naina represents a version of life I never lived, a kind of alter ego. There’s a lot of me in her.
When it comes to naming, I’m instinctive. Vatsal, for instance, sounds like the classic bad boy with a soft heart. Nipun, who’s 28 but acts older, has a name that fits that energy. Some names just appear to me, while others are connected to real people who inspired the story. Funny story, in my first book, two characters accidentally shared names with my boyfriend’s exes, something I only realised much later, and it’s really funny how the names of my characters get me into trouble sometimes.
What were your biggest creative influences, literary, musical, or otherwise, while writing this book?
A lot of 1960s Hindi music shaped this story. I love the idea of juxtaposing modern love with old songs—it’s so poetic when two contemporary people connect over Kishore Kumar. Yaar Deewana Hota Hai is my favourite Hindi song. I grew up believing it captured the sound of love. Another track, Phir Miloge Kabhi, runs through the book as an emotional motif. Old Hindi songs are emotionally unguarded; they aren’t afraid of vulnerability. That’s something I wanted to bring into my writing. While working on the book, I listened to those songs constantly, not for their melody but for their lyrics. I wanted my prose to have that same rhythm and lyricism, with lines that rhyme and linger.
You’ve built a strong online community of readers. What inspired you to begin sharing books online?
It started from a sense of isolation. I’ve always loved reading, but over time, my friends stopped, and I lost that shared connection. During the pandemic, I rediscovered my love for books: I read 50 in one year, then 120 across four. I was so moved by what I read that I couldn’t keep it to myself, so I began sharing my thoughts online. I wanted to reach people who had drifted away from reading and show them that books could still be part of their lives. What began as a way to find friends turned into a community. I take my recommendations seriously and never do paid promotions because my followers trust my taste. What started as a search for connection ended up giving me both community and unexpected opportunities in writing.
What’s next for you?
There’s definitely a third book in the works, likely to be released within a year. This time, I want to move beyond the story of a couple and write about a family. I’m imagining it as a family drama where the family itself becomes the main character.
Words Neeraja Srinivasan
Date 6-11-2025