This story was originally published in Day One , a weekly literary journal dedicated to short fiction and poetry from emerging writers. Huma Qureshi writes the inarticulable distances between mothers and daughters, the consuming ache of longing for someone not yet kissed, the invisible, irreparable breaches in friendships or between lovers, with such pitch-perfect precision, such lightness of touch. These are stories of fierce clarity and tenderness - I loved them. -- Lucy Caldwell, author of Intimacies Things We Do Not Tell The People We Love is a collection full of secrets and yearnings, the gaps and silences found so often in misunderstandings and miscommunications. These stories work to fill those gaps, creating found families and belonging, and showing the sides of ourselves others rarely see . . . Qureshi's writing conveys the emotions her characters cannot . . . Each story is tightly written and closely edited, ending at the perfect moment . . . Exploring different relationships - mother and daughter, friendships, young love, spouses - Qureshi pulls apart the emotions surrounding each one, making even the darker narratives relatable and evocative. -- Terri-Jane Dow ― Mslexia If 2021 has blessed me with one thing, it’s my new found love for short story collections & goodness this one has shot up to one of my all time favourites. A luscious debut . . Qureshi is a dab hand at yanking the rug out from under the reader. Her immersive, poignant stories - written mostly in understated prose - often have a sting in the tale . . I fell for this lyrical, moving collection and the woozy intensity that infuses many of its stories. Qureshi creates gripping plotlines and vividly drawn characters and - most importantly - she is a writer with something to say. -- Gwendolyn Smith ― i

A luscious debut . . Qureshi is a dab hand at yanking the rug out from under the reader. Her immersive, poignant stories - written mostly in understated prose - often have a sting in the tale . . I fell for this lyrical, moving collection and the woozy intensity that infuses many of its stories. Qureshi creates gripping plotlines and vividly drawn characters and - most importantly - she is a writer with something to say. -- Gwendolyn Smith * i * An exhilarating and expansive new novel about fathers and sons, faith and friendship from Caleb Azumah Nelson, the no.1 bestselling, award-winning author of Open Water Qureshi's stories keenly identify the everyday tragedies of feeling profoundly unknown or unheard, of holding secrets and misunderstandings . . . These tales vividly capture the experience of feeling constrained by family expectations, but also of not quite fitting the norms of British culture either . . . Qureshi takes the reader plausibly inside the inner recesses of characters' hearts and minds. Premonition beautifully recalls the intensity of a first crush, developed via a private symphony of glances, before a bewildering first kiss leads to disaster. And she captures how such incidents can, in adulthood, seem insignificant and still life-defining . . . there are so many striking images to relish. -- Holly Williams * Observer * A breathtaking collection of stories about our most intimate relationships: the misunderstandings between families, the silences between friends and the dissonance between lovers.This sort of thing happened every so often when they had been speaking too frequently or for too long, resentment tinting every word they exchanged like the threat of grey rain in cold spring The two best stories had a magical, fable-like quality and were emotionally complex. A lot of the remaining stories sort of blurred into one. The writing has a real force but sometimes I wished we could truly enter the minds of other characters/types in the book. A daughter asks her mother to shut up, only to shut her up for good; an exhausted wife walks away from the husband who doesn't understand her; on holiday, lovers no longer understand each other away from home. One of the book's silliest tales, Superstitious, features a woman who loses her boyfriend unexpectedly and attributes it to passing by a purportedly cursed tree. Well told stories with well realised characters . . . Qureshi, like [Jhumpa] Lahiri, is a companionable and considered writer, and this is a collection you can read enjoyably, rain or shine. - Guardian

In the second tale, Summer, a mother-daughter argument over cultural influences and differences in viewpoint takes on complexity and has a depressing conclusion. It had the potential to be promising, but it ended so frantically that I had difficulties comprehending it. A breathtaking collection of stories about our most intimate relationships, and the secrets, misunderstandings and silences that haunt them.In 2021, I saw two books published: How We Met: A Memoir of Love and Other Misadventures (January, 2021), with Elliott & Thompson, and my debut short story collection, Things We Do Not Tell The People We Love (November 2021), with Sceptre. Sceptre will also be publishing my debut novel, which I am currently writing. My essay, By Instinct, appears in The Best Most Awful Job: Twenty Writers Talk Honestly About Motherhood (2019).

Huma Qureshi writes like a psychotherapist, considering, analysing, explaining, seeking outconflicts, evasions, and discomforts . . . The form suits her: she succeeds in a short space in describing her settings and defining her characters . . . there are notes of optimism that sound from true love; and, as always, amor vincit omnia. - Spectator Huma Qureshi has the perfect title for her short story collection. Things We Do Not Tell the People We Love strikingly encapsulates a major theme of the book: the inability to communicate honestly with the most important people in your life. Qureshi’s stories keenly identify the everyday tragedies of feeling profoundly unknown or unheard, of holding secrets and misunderstandings. Huma Qureshi writes like a psychotherapist, considering, analysing, explaining, seeking outconflicts, evasions, and discomforts . . . The form suits her: she succeeds in a short space in describing her settings and defining her characters . . . there are notes of optimism that sound from true love; and, as always, amor vincit omnia. -- Brian Martin * Spectator *

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Qureshi writes with courage and in these extraordinary stories capture the shame and loneliness of non-belonging and the challenge of self-acceptance. The most pointed clue, though, is the book that Tasneem delightedly discovers while browsing the market stall: a “nearly new copy of the Penguin Book of Italian Short Stories translated into English”. It’s a hat-tip to their editor, Jhumpa Lahiri – another writer of south Asian heritage quietly reimagining the shape of the short story. When Simon thoughtlessly leaves the volume to be soaked by rain in the garden, Tasneem feels her “heart dip like a moth falling away from a bright light”. Qureshi, like Lahiri, is a companionable and considered writer, and this is a collection you can read enjoyably, rain or shine. To expand, I’m thinking about this more…It’s v hard as an Asian woman to not want stories by an Asian woman writer to do all the work of representation. Even as a woman reading cis women of any colour, I struggle against that need. It’s desperately unfair and not a responsibility of the writer to write about anything other than what interests them, in a way that interests them. A perfect Millennial love story ... with its acidic dialogue and languid sex scenes. A charming and clever romance, a perfect summer read’ – Irish Times I admired Things We Do Not Tell the People We Love. Qureshi writes with courage and in these extraordinary stories capture the shame and loneliness of non-belonging and the challenge of self-acceptance. -- Ingrid Persaud, author of Love After Love