An Evening with Hafeez Lakhani, Ivonne Lamazares, and Dan López

Hafeez Lakhani, Ivonne Lamazares, and Dan López discuss how they explore complex relationships to place in their novels (set in South Florida, India, Cuba, and elsewhere) and how they approach crossing borders of language, identity, and nationality in their fiction.

🎟 This event is FREE and open to the public and books will be available for purchase the night of the event! An RSVP grants general entry, but seating is not guaranteed, so please try and show up early. Please RSVP only if you intend to join us. Can't make the event? Buy your copy of , , and here.

Two generations of a Muslim Indian family grapple with what parts of life we control and what we must humbly accept in pursuit of the American dream—for readers of Min Jin Lee, Mohsin Hamid, and Ayad Akhtar
In suburban Miami, sixty-year-old Sakeena—co-owner of a Dunkin’ franchise along with her husband, Ramzan—has nine months to live unless she consents to an organ transplant. Thirty years ago, at Ramzan’s behest, she left her beloved Rawalpindi, India, for the United States. In the years that followed, she compromised her belief in naseeb, the Muslim notion of destiny, and acquiesced to fertility treatments. This time, she is adamant that she should live as intended—without medical intervention. As her health deteriorates, Ramzan desperately seeks to reunite their grown children with the hope of convincing Sakeena to extend her life.
But there are complications. Eldest daughter Fareen is consumed by an important business deal that, if successful, will land her a highly desired (and lucrative) promotion. Meanwhile, youngest son Adnan is living abroad and unable to return to the States due to his own unscrupulous business practices, a pattern stretching back to his adolescence. If they have any hope of saving their mother’s life, the siblings must take extraordinary action to wrestle with their life choices, actions that reveal the always-present tension between ambition and fate.
Brought to life by prose that captures the spirit of contemporary Miami as effortlessly as it conveys the challenges of running a Dunkin’ franchise, Abundance is a beautiful, moving read from an exciting new American voice.

Two estranged sisters with a complicated past and an acrimonious present reunite in 1990s Cuba to confront the riddle of family amid the scars of political upheaval
In the summer of 1993, Yuri, a teenage orphan, is living with her strict, religious aunt Ruth in a Havana suburb when Mariela, a thirty-four-year-old artist, arrives from the United States with a shocking revelation. She claims to be Yuri's sister, insisting that she and Yuri share a mother, and that Ruth essentially kidnapped her when she sent her into exile against her will through Operation Pedro Pan. Forced to grow up in orphanages, Mariela spent the past three decades in the United States and has returned to Cuba to reclaim her roots, make art, and perhaps seek vengeance on Ruth. Yuri is both fascinated and repulsed by the young, glamorous, and aggrieved Mariela. When Ruth is jailed for unknown charges, Yuri falls further into Mariela’s mercurial orbit.
Spanning two countries and three decades, The Tilting House explores identity and family loyalty, the effects of losing one’s mother and motherland, the scars of political and historical upheaval, and an immigrant’s complex quest both to return “home” and to be free from the past. Through her long journey, Yuri comes to understand that the past cannot be fully recovered, or fully escaped, even as she approaches the possibility of compassion for Mariela, for Ruth, for others, and for herself.

In the wake of a Florida hurricane, two families become intertwined with the sinister plans of a serial killer and his multiple identities

Quirky Orlando retirees Thaddeus and Cheryl, and adoptive parents Steven and Peter, come together for a family weekend in Orlando, where Cheryl anxiously hopes to repair the dysfunctional and toxic relationship between her husband and their son. When news of a serial killer that targets gay men at nightclubs rocks their community, over-worked pharmacist Laila grows concerned for her handsome and arrogant younger half-brother, Alex, who has been missing for several months. Meanwhile, the calculating murderer’s own life begins to spiral out of control as he unwittingly falls for a would-be victim. Overwhelmed by meeting his granddaughter Gertie for the first time, Thaddeus kidnaps her in order to take her to Disney World setting off a wild goose chase where these intertwined families finally collide.

HAFEEZ LAKHANI was born in Hyderabad, India, and raised in suburban South Florida. His fiction and essays have appeared in Crazyhorse, Exposition Review, Salt Hill Journal, Tikkun, The Cortland Review, and The Southern Review, among other publications. He has received fellowships from PEN America and the Center for Fiction, has been recognized twice with a Notable Essay in Best American Essays, and has been nominated twice for a Pushcart Prize. His debut novel, Abundance, is a People Magazine Most Anticipated Book of 2026.

IVONNE LAMAZARES was born in Havana and migrated to Miami at the age of 13. She is the author of two novels, The Tilting House (Counterpoint, 2025), and The Sugar Island (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2001) which was translated into seven languages. The Tilting House was awarded a President’s Medal by the 2026 Florida Authors and Publishers’ Association (FAPA) Book Awards for general fiction and was long listed for the 2025 REFORMA National Book Award. Lamazares’ fiction and nonfiction have appeared in Latina magazine, The Southern Review, Michigan Quarterly Review, The Florida Review, and elsewhere. She is the recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship for fiction and three Florida Individual Artist Fellowships. She lives in Miami with her husband, poet Steve Kronen.

DAN LÓPEZ is Associate Editor at Counterpoint Press, and author of The Show House, named a Best Book of 2016 by Chicago Review of Books, and Part the Hawser, Limn the Sea, a Lambda Literary Award Finalist for Debut Fiction.