Aashna Avachat, HLS ‘25, is publishing her debut novel Love Craves Cardamom this May. The story follows a student studying abroad in Jaipur, India – where Aashna’s family is from – and follows the main character as she works on a Capstone project about artifacts stolen from Rajasthan during the British Raj and falls in love with a boy at the palace. She wrote the rom-com during her years at HLS, and she has another rom-com and a murder mystery on the way in the next two years. Tony Maquiling, HLS ’26, sat down with Aashna to ask her about her experience in writing a book during law school and to hear about her motivations.
+++++++++++++++
Q: Can you tell me about yourself? What got you into both writing and law school?
A: I was an English major in undergrad, and I had two really amazing creative writing professors, Melanie Abrams and Vikram Chandra. And I always knew I loved writing, but because of them, I think I became so much better at it. I had a very separate interest in law school from writing. I took legal classes in undergrad and really loved them and so I thought I would apply to law school just because the usual English major paths, the dream job in an English major is going into publishing, is really hard.
So I thought, “I guess I’ll apply to law school. It’s a practical thing to do. I was interested in it.” It seemed fun and I had academic interest. So I did the junior deferral program, which meant that after graduation I had two years to do something else before it was school. And during that time, I really focused on my writing and my dream work. Because of my professors, I got in touch with some literary agents and started doing internship work for them, and then became more connected with the online publishing community and learned, because of that, how to send the writing that I was doing to literary agencies and go about a traditional form of book publishing.
Q: Did your writing, either style or content, change in law school? Was it at all influenced by classes such as Criminal Law?
A: Totally. I think it was more influenced by my working experiences in law school. Doing public defense work made me realize that even though I love the genre I was getting frustrated with how so many mystery books end: you find out who did it, then they call the police and the person who did it is taken away in handcuffs and then it’s a happy ending. And because of doing public defense work, to me, that seems unrealistic and unsatisfying. That’s not the ending, that’s the beginning of a very challenging and traumatic process for a defendant, and I think I really wanted to write a mystery where the ending wasn’t so tidy because of the criminal legal system.
My murder mystery, out next year, also from Penguin Random House under the Delacorte imprint, was totally impacted by my experiences as a student. Like, I still wanted it to be satisfying because you figure out what happened, but I wanted there to be some sense that it may not necessarily be justice.
As for Love Craves Cardamom, I did end up writing a research paper on museum repatriation for J-term, but that was after I submitted the book to my publisher, so in that way I guess my book influenced my law school experience!
Q: Did anything in particular inspire Love Craves Cardamom?
A: So, Love Craves Cardamom in particular is actually a really interesting process because I didn’t come up with the idea for the book. So legally that is also kind of interesting, because unlike my two other books, this is what’s called an IP [Intellectual Property] book.
So, sometimes a publisher or a separate company called a book packager will come up with an idea for a book and then find an author to write it. But it’s not ghostwriting, because the name on the cover is the writer’s name. So it’s like the inverse of ghost writing. There’s a book packaging company called Electric Postcard Entertainment. and it’s founded by an author named Dhonielle Clayton. She had this idea for a YA rom-com series about high schoolers who study abroad and fall in love, and she sold the series to Joy Revolution, an imprint of Penguin Random House. My book is actually the second book in the series. It’s a standalone, but they’re interconnected, so my character is introduced in the first book as a best friend of the main character in the first book.
Q: On that note, what can you tell us about how it feels to be releasing a book now? What can you tell us about the plot?
A: It’s nerve-racking to have your first book come out the week before graduation, but I’m really proud of Love Craves Cardamom. It has been such a joy to write about my family’s hometown and create a love story with so much joy, banter, delicious food, and beautiful Jaipur sites. A central theme in the story is the repatriation of artifacts looted during British colonization, and it meant a lot to me to be able to include that in what is at the same time a fun, adventurous rom com. Nicola and David Yoon, two amazing YA authors, founded the imprint at PRH called Joy Revolution, and I love their mission of expanding representation of characters of color in media while centering our joy. That’s what I wanted to do with this book, even against a backdrop of history.
Q: What do you see for yourself long-term? Are you planning on, later in your career, being a full-time author or publisher, or full-time lawyer work? Or do you think you’ll continue with this split?
A: I think for a while. I’ve been doing this split and it’s hard to plan anything long term in the publishing world, especially just because it’s inconsistent work. You never know when your next project is going to land with a publisher. So I anticipate doing both for a while, and I’m excited about that. I think I care about the legal work that I’m doing so much, so I’m glad that I get to do two things that I’m excited about.
+++++++++++++++
With only two weeks left in her law school career, Aashna is already starting on her next book. This time she’ll be taking a stab at writing for an adult audience. She’ll keep writing during her post-grad fellowship working in capital habeas litigation.
You can preorder “Love Craves Cardamom” at this link; and you can learn more about Aashna and her creative endeavors on her linktree.