On this episode, we chat with author Amran Gowani about his debut novel Leverage, a financial thriller about a rising star hedge fund analyst who is forced to dive into the seedy underbelly of the financial system when he loses his firm $300 million in a day and has to make everything back in 3 months or face some dire consequences. Amran chats with us about the themes of his novel as well as shares his inspirations for the story as a former Wall Street analyst!

cw: discussion of themes involving suicidal ideation from 37:46 to 41:51

Follow Amran’s writing at www.amrangowani.com and check out his debut novel Leverage available now on the Books & Boba bookshop!

Books & Boba is a podcast dedicated to reading and featuring books by Asian and Asian American authors

On this episode we discuss our August 2025 book club pick The Wangs Vs. The World by Jade Chang, about the (formerly) affluent Wang family who embark on a road trip from from LA to NY after losing everything during the 2008 financial crisis. This is a book that is almost as old as our podcast and has been on our TBR for a long time so we’re excited to dive in!

TW: One of the storylines involve a character who’s fascination with suicidal ideation is discussed at 1:05:10, if this is a sensitive topic for you, you can bypass this section by skipping ahead to 1:11:03

Books & Boba is a podcast dedicated to reading and featuring books by Asian and Asian American authors

On this episode, we chat with Julia and Brad Riew, the sibling writing duo behind the new Asian-inspired fantasy novel The Last Tiger! Julia and Brad share their experiences writing a novel as a team as well as how they were inspired to write their fantasy epic, which takes place in a world inspired by Japanese-occupied Korea in the 1940’s, by the real life star-crossed love story of their grandparents.

Follow Julia and brad on Instagram at @juliariew and @bradriew and check out their debut novel The Last Tiger available now on the Books & Boba bookshop!

Books & Boba is a podcast dedicated to reading and featuring books by Asian and Asian American authors

On this episode, we discuss our July 2025 pick is Bingsu for Two by Sujin Witherspoon, a coffee house romantic comedy set in Seattle about high school senior River, who is reeling from the consequences of a series of disastrous personal decisions and seeks refuge at a small Korean cafe where he finds a found family and maybe even an enemies-to-lovers romance with the goth Korean girl of his dreams/nightmares, too bad that it’s also the coffee house that his chain family business is directly targeting to put out of business.

Books & Boba is a podcast dedicated to reading and featuring books by Asian and Asian American authors

On our mid-month check in for July 2025, we highlight some of the latest Asian American publishing announcements, and catch up on the latest book news!

Upcoming books mentioned in our publishing news:

• Break Room by Miye Lee; translated by Sandy Jooson Lee
• Gods & Comics by Kat Cho 
• Yuki’s Special Delivery by Chloe Ito Ward; illust. by Jiangshan Lyu
• The Pain Chasers by Bora Chung; translated by Anton Hur
• Monkey Dragon Rabbit! A Wild Lunar New Year Stampede by MeiLin Chan; illust. by Kristen Chow
• Friends Furever by Sylvia Liu

Books & Boba is a podcast dedicated to reading and featuring books by Asian and Asian American authors

On this episode, we sit down with author Allison King to chat about her debut novel The Phoenix Pencil Company, a novel that’s part historical fiction, part magical realism, and part sapphic romance about a young woman who discovers her family’s secret magical power to reconstruct anything written by a pencil while taking care of her ailing grandmother and learning about her own family’s history from Shanghai to Taiwan to the States.

Follow Allison on Instagram at @allisonkingwrites and check out her debut novel The Phoenix Pencil Company available now on the Books & Boba bookshop!