Abundance

by Hafeez Lakhani

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.

Genres: Fiction, Contemporary, Health, India, Adult

304 pages, Hardcover

First published May 5, 2026

Reviews

[sanna mansson · Rating 5 out of 5]

lyrical, tender and so heartbreaking. i haven’t cried at a book in a long time but this one has me weeping at the end. (terrible terrible cover i know)

[Kate · Rating 5 out of 5]

(4.5 stars)

Thanks to Counterpoint Press & PRH Audio for the free book and audiobook. All opinions are my own.

Okay, this is a book that definitely deserves more buzz! ABUNDANCE is author Hafeez Lakhani’s debut novel. It’s a beautiful literary family drama that explores the American Dream, the meaning of home, and the idea of naseeb, which loosely translates to fate or destiny.

Ramzan and his family own a Dunkin’ franchise in suburban Miami. He and his wife Sakeena moved to Florida from Rawalpindi, India as young adults, then raised their three children born in the U.S. When we meet them, Sakeena has been diagnosed with liver failure but resists the idea of pursuing a transplant. Sakeena thinks perhaps she should not work so hard to alter her naseeb - the life that is written for her. Ramzan can’t easily accept this and rallies his adult children to try to persuade Sakeena otherwise.

I loved how this book unfolded, following the main story arc but also shifting POVs and timelines, revisiting the characters’ memories and revealing this family and their layers to the reader throughout the story. Each adult child’s journey presents different questions about the American Dream, especially for first generation Americans. In retrospect it’s quite amazing how well Lakhani wove together all the threads of this story.

Audio thoughts: Shawn K. Jain did a great job narrating, including various accents across multiple countries and an instance where a character temporarily puts on an accent! I also appreciated listening to the audio to make sure I knew correct pronunciations. Even so, I might lean toward reading with my eyes for this one if I could only choose one format.

[Jenn · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a beautifully written story about a family coming together when the mother falls ill. Each of the five family members’ story lines were well developed and captivating. I was completely invested from the first chapter.

The characters were so different from one another, yet I found each of them to be relatable. I wanted to know more about each family member. The relationships between each of the individuals were unique from one another, yet told in a way that made each conncetion clear to the reader.

I think this would make a great book club selection. A common theme was whether or not we can, or should, change our destiny. Each character has to make tough decisions. I believe this would lead to great group discussions.

I really enjoyed this book. It made me feel a closeness and connection to this family, which made me want to keep reading. I was sad, yet also satisfied when it ended.

[Safia Lakhani · Rating 5 out of 5]

heart wrenching and naazuk— delicate. my heart was shattered into a million little pieces and then glued back together by the resilience and hope of a family that, like mine, has constantly been faced with the reality of their own dreams.

[Reed · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a gorgeous debut novel by my incredibly talented friend Hafeez. There is so much to praise about this book, but one thing that has particularly stuck with me is the way Hafeez brings to life each of the geographic locations in the story, from Florida to India, making you feel as if you have visited them yourself.

These rich descriptions of place then help deliver one of the most moving and profound passages in the book (spoiler alert!), where we see that the Rawalpindi that Sakeena so dearly longs for from her youth has dramatically changed in her absence, just as she has been transformed by her many years building a family in the United States.

I loved this book and highly recommend it!

[Meena · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5⭐️

[Nicole.B · Rating 5 out of 5]

Abundance by Hafeez Lakhani is a deeply moving and emotionally intelligent family drama that explores destiny, sacrifice, ambition, and the complicated realities of the immigrant experience. Through the story of a Muslim Indian family navigating illness, fractured relationships, and conflicting beliefs about fate and responsibility, the novel delivers a nuanced portrait of love and survival across generations.

One of the book’s greatest strengths is its emotional realism. Sakeena’s refusal to undergo a life saving transplant creates a powerful emotional and philosophical conflict that ripples through the entire family. Her belief in naseeb, the Muslim understanding of destiny, gives the novel spiritual and cultural depth while raising difficult questions about choice, faith, and acceptance.

The family dynamics are portrayed with remarkable sensitivity. Each character feels shaped by their own ambitions, regrets, and emotional burdens, particularly as the siblings struggle between personal aspirations and familial responsibility. The tension between individual success and collective obligation gives the story much of its emotional resonance.

What makes the novel especially compelling is the way it balances intimate personal storytelling with broader themes surrounding immigration and identity. The contrast between Sakeena’s memories of Rawalpindi and the family’s life in suburban Miami reflects the emotional complexities of building a new life while remaining tied to cultural roots and inherited values.

The prose also deserves recognition for its warmth and precision. Everyday details, from the operation of a Dunkin’ franchise to the emotional rhythms of family gatherings, create a grounded realism that makes the characters’ struggles feel immediate and authentic.

At its core, Abundance is a thoughtful meditation on fate, mortality, and the emotional cost of pursuing the American dream. Readers who appreciate literary family sagas, immigrant narratives, culturally layered fiction, and emotionally rich character driven stories will likely find this novel deeply rewarding.

[Rahim Kassam · Rating 5 out of 5]

Abundance is the kind of novel that catches you off guard. I picked it up expecting a family drama and finished it feeling like I had been held up to a mirror.
Sakeena could have been my own mother. A woman who gave up her home, her beliefs, and her sense of destiny to build a life in America, and her quiet firm insistence that this time she gets to choose. Her decision to reject a life-saving transplant in favor of naseeb or fate isn’t presented as stubbornness or fatalism. Lakhani lets it breathe as something deeply principled even as it tears her family apart. I’ve known other adults like this in my own life, people who meet a diagnosis with skepticism and a kind of spiritual surrender that the people who love them simply cannot accept. Lakhani captures that tension without taking sides and that is not easy to do.
Growing up I actually knew families who owned Dunkin’ Donuts shops and there is something so specific and true about how Lakhani uses that world. The long hours, the pride, the way a business like that becomes the vessel for everything a family hopes to pass on. It lands differently when you’ve seen it up close.
What makes this book special is how it handles the children. Each sibling carries the weight of their parents’ sacrifice differently. The immigrant generational tension never feels like a thesis. It just lives in the details.
For a debut novel this is a remarkable achievement. Kirkus called it thoughtful and carefully constructed and People described it as an indelible portrait of family dynamics. Those blurbs ring true. Lakhani writes with the confidence of someone who has lived close to these questions and the craft of someone who took real time to get them right.
This one will stay with me. Particularly resonant if you have ever felt the pull between ambition and acceptance or between the life your parents imagined and the one you have actually built.

[Drea Warner · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Abundance by Hafeez Lakhani was an incredibly emotional read for me. At its heart, this is a deeply moving story about family. How love, faith, and responsibility can both bind people together and pull them in different directions.

The novel follows Sakeena, a sixty-year-old woman living in suburban Miami with her husband Ramzan, who learns she has only months to live unless she agrees to an organ transplant. Instead of pursuing medical intervention, Sakeena chooses to trust in Naseeb, the Muslim concept of destiny. Her decision forces her family to confront painful questions about faith, control, and how far we should go to hold on to the people we love.

What resonated with me most was the strong familial core of the story. As Ramzan tries to bring their children back together in hopes of convincing Sakeena to reconsider, the novel beautifully captures the complicated dynamics that exist within families—especially immigrant families balancing tradition, ambition, and personal dreams. Each of the children is struggling in their own way, and seeing them grapple with their mother’s illness while reflecting on their own choices was both heartbreaking and deeply human.

I especially appreciated how the book highlights the quiet sacrifices parents make and the emotional weight carried across generations. The relationships felt authentic, messy, and full of love, which made many moments in the story particularly touching for me.

Overall, Abundance is a heartfelt and reflective novel about faith, family, and the tension between striving for more and accepting what life gives us. If you enjoy character-driven stories that explore family bonds and the immigrant experience, this is a powerful and emotional read that stays with you long after the final page.

[Faisal Sukhyani · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hafeez Lakhani’s Abundance is a luminous, emotionally rich novel that deftly weaves intimate character study with larger questions about fate, resilience, and the quiet ways people remake their lives. Lakhani’s prose is precise and tender, balancing moments of sharp humor with a steady undercurrent of melancholy; his protagonists feel vividly alive, flawed, and deeply human. The pacing keeps the reader engaged without sacrificing depth, and recurring motifsmemory, food, and generational obligations resonate long after the final page. Thoughtful and humane, Abundance is a rewarding read for anyone who appreciates character driven fiction that celebrates small mercies amid hardship. Having known Hafeez and discussing his first passes at the novel, I was thrilled to see how fully Abundance blossoms his lyric eye for small domestic moments and the way he renders family tensions made me laugh and ache in equal measure.

[Sarah · Rating 5 out of 5]

I didn’t expect this book to stay with me the way it did.

Abundance is quiet in a way that feels intentional. It feels alive while you are reading it and leaves a lasting impression. Before I realized it, I found myself thinking about my own family, my own choices, and the things we don’t always say out loud.

What stood out most to me was how real the relationships felt. No one is purely right or wrong, just human. Each character is navigating love, responsibility, ambition, and fear in their own way, and that tension comes through naturally.

I also really appreciated how the immigrant experience was woven in. It simply existed in a way that felt honest and familiar. The generational differences, expectations, and quiet sacrifices all come together in a way that feels intentional and deeply human.

This is a reflective and meaningful novel that speaks for itself!

[Sofia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved the strong, fierce matriarch, Sakeena and how loving & devoted her husband, Ramzan was. Such a beautiful, kind relationship. Fareen stepping in as a third parent, that felt so true to so many family dynamics I saw growing up. I was also just so stunned by the kindness that the family had for each other and the respect they had for each other's decisions (!)
I loved loved reading about Kawal, such a middle child- I could have stayed in her scenes for so much longer- especially her dancing in Miami and getting together with Husain. Don't love that Fareen dated him first, but I assume that was the point :)
Loved also reading about Ramzan bringing Fareen as a kiddo to Dunkin, so many tender loving moments.

[Imran Lakhani · Rating 5 out of 5]

Abundance is a story of a family fractured by the very prosperity they sought—a matriarch whose spiritual submission to fate becomes her ultimate act of rebellion, and children who have traded their cultural inheritance for global finance. Hafeez captures the specific, aching tension of being caught between two worlds, weaving a narrative that feels less like a traditional novel and more like a whispered family secret, finally told with the raw, uncompromising honesty that only a master storyteller can provide. It is a devastatingly beautiful reminder that while the American Dream promises plenty, it often demands the one thing no family can afford to lose: their sense of home.

[Sheryar Lakhani · Rating 5 out of 5]

Abundance is a deeply moving and introspective debut that explores the emotional complexity of family, ambition, and identity with remarkable nuance. Through richly drawn relationships that feel both tender and fraught, the novel captures the push and pull between personal desire and familial obligation, as well as the quiet sacrifices that shape generations. Its portrayal of the immigrant experience is especially compelling, weaving together themes of cultural inheritance, reinvention, and the often-unspoken cost of pursuing the American Dream.

[Alia · Rating 5 out of 5]

It was such a pleasure to read this book. Reminiscent of Mohsin Hamid's work, Abundance follows generations of a family: their history in India and current reality in America. This book is the conflicting tug of listening to family values and lore versus the reality of a younger generation forging their own path, making a living, and fitting in. I too can relate, and reading the stories of each of the siblings felt healing.

[Larry Keller · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a wonderful, moving debut. Lakhani takes a swing at writing the Great American Novel — in the tradition of Roth, Mailer and Bellow — this time in the milieu of Indian American culture. He weaves traditional Indian family life with gin at Sunny’s in Red Hook, the trading desk at G.S. and passionate kisses in the park. His characters are dynamic and real, noble and flawed, ambitious and sordid. The novel grapples with our understanding of family, grief and individuation in the modern world.

[Lizzy · Rating 4 out of 5]

*This was a GoodReads Giveaway* *3.5 Stars*

A beautiful story about an immigrant couple who raised their children in the U.S. and must make a difficult decision. Meditations on family and what it means when your parents have sacrificed so much for you. I related to the deep sense of religious community and what it means to have that. The story and message was lovely, but I found some of the writing slow and repetitive.

[Mishal · Rating 5 out of 5]

The story captures a moment many of us face, questioning our identity and trying to reconcile who we are with where we come from. A very thoughtful and personal read that stays with you after finishing.

[Raheem Lakhani · Rating 5 out of 5]

As a second generation Indian-Muslim immigrant myself, the book is a beautiful lens into what it means to make a living in a new place while trying to hold onto tradition, culture, identity and the values that shape your upbringing.

[Fahim Naim · Rating 5 out of 5]

Couldn’t put it down! Was very relatable and ended up reading this over a weekend. I lived the depth of the characters.

[Josie · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very compelling story with real and well developed relationships. It will stay with you long after you finish reading.

[Lauren]

My Bookpage review. https://www.bookpage.com/books/abunda...

[Abbey Hudetz · Rating 5 out of 5]

Well woven, inter-generational tale of the “American Dream”. Gripped from page one

[Ginger Cofield Lakhani · Rating 5 out of 5]

Abundance is a beautiful and at times heart-wrenching novel that tells the story of a single family's bond while they navigate a health crisis. The strength of the book lies in the author's ability to combine memory with current emotional struggles, interweaving characters' internal thoughts of how past choices potentially led them to their current predicaments. Each character is carefully and thoughtfully developed around their own individual pursuits, be it playing music, having children, making money, creating a successful business, or simply trusting in their own fate. While the plot is centered around the need for the matriarch to have a life-saving liver transplant - and whether she will live or die - the book is ultimately a stunning rumination on the choices we make and the consequences and opportunities that result from them. Rich descriptions of food, used often as a language of love, and cultural references of Miami and India also move the novel forward. I highly recommend this deeply moving novel that at its core is about the unbreakable bonds of family.

[Laila Lakhani-Ali · Rating 5 out of 5]

Abundance was such an amazing read! Equal parts goosebumps and thought-provoking.

At its core, it offers a front-row seat to an immigrant family chasing the American dream while trying to stay grounded in their cultural roots. You watch them take a leap across oceans, driven by hope and ambition, only to face the very real challenges of building a new life and business from scratch. The pressure, uncertainty, and competition all feel deeply real.

What stood out most to me was how the book explores different perspectives within the family. Some push to change their fate in big ways, while others lean toward incremental progress and acceptance. That tension, between control and surrender, ambition and contentment, feels universally human.

While this is the story of an Indian family, it becomes something much broader: it can be the story of any family striving for more while navigating what life throws at them, and figuring out what’s truly within their control.

Beautifully told, Abundance made me think, made me feel, and left me rooting for this family until the very end.

[Michael Russell · Rating 4 out of 5]

Children of a Miami family whose parents immigrated from Rawalpindi, India to chase the American Dream struggle with the sudden illness of their aging mother. The father, after years of toil running a Dunkin' , ponders his influence while two of his children continue to chase elusive success -- one as a rising investment banker, the other a counterfeiter unable to return to the US due to looming arrest warrants. The mother, given just months to live unless she gets a transplant, tries to convince her family to respect her wishes to not seek the transplant and live more true to her destiny, which she feels she has abandoned after leaving her homeland decades before. The novel is told in multiple viewpoints, and highlights the struggle of immigrants to maintain elements of their culture while being swallowed whole by the vast American experience.

[Almas Khiyani · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book left me thinking about the balance between ambition, faith, and family. It’s the kind of story that quietly pulls you in and makes you reflect long after you’ve finished.