Exclusive: Iman Hariri-Kia Gets Real About Romance and Growing Up in ‘Female Fantasy’

In her third novel, the author takes us on an epic quest filled with heart, humor, and...merpeople.

By Tamara FuentesPublished: Oct 8, 2025

Mei Gelpi

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Welcome to The Scroll, a new column that checks in with your favorite writers, asking them to exclusively reveal and annotate the best moments from their brand-new books. We also get them to dish on their writing process and divulge a few plot secrets along the way.

This round we chatted with Iman Hariri-Kia, who tackles a new mix of genres with her third novel, Female Fantasy, that is also the first book in our new Cosmo Reads book imprint. Publishing on October 14, 2025, the novel bridges our deepest book fantasies with the often harsh realities of real-life romance. Main character Joonie gets sucked into a fictional world of high-stakes passion and adventure, while simultaneously setting off on an epic IRL journey to meet the man of her dreams. Here, Hariri-Kia shares an exclusive excerpt and talks about her favorite romance novels, why growing up changes how we read, and the challenges of writing fantasy.

What inspired you to write this book?

Within the book-ish space, romance novels have always been extremely popular, but there's also been a ton of condescension and judgment around it. I thought that would change when the cultural impact of romance started to drive conversation and technology like TikTok and Substack started to encourage romance readers to be loud and proud. But, instead, there were so many response pieces from traditional media and all these old institutions that sort of denigrated the work of romance authors.

This was something that really, really saddened me, because as a lifelong romance reader, I feel like I've been waiting for decades to see a change in the hearts and minds of non-romance readers. I wanted to write a book that really celebrated why girls read romance, but also the life skills and the communication tactics and the confidence and the courage and all that comes with it.

In the excerpt below, we see how Joonie's love for her favorite book changed her life. I have to ask, is there a book that changed your own life, and how did it happen?

It was a Meg Cabot book, either the third or fourth Princess Diaries book. I have read those books like six times over, so I can tell you exactly what happened in this story, pretty much verbatim. This was the romance novel for the nerdiest people alive. It's changed my life.

I was going to give a presentation on it, but my teacher was like, This book isn't serious enough for you to talk about. It just kind of struck me as odd that I could be so passionate about reading, only to be told that the book was thoughtless. I went, If I ever get the privilege of writing a book of my own, these are the kinds of stories I want to tell.

How long did it take you to come up with the title A Tale of Salt Water and Secrets, aka the book-within-a-book in Female Fantasy?

I had huge Google doc where I was just riffing on the go-to romantasy formula, which is The Blank of Blank and Blank. And I knew I needed to have an aquatic pun in there. The reason I eventually went with A Tale of Salt Water and Secrets is because I thought ATOSAS was a really cute acronym and easy to say. Then, of course, someone pointed out to me that salt water is not technically one word. And I was like, In my world, it's going to have to be.

What was it like to write fantasy scenes after having only written contemporary novels before?

It was scary in the sense that I didn't want anyone to think that I was condescending or making fun or pointing fun at romantasy readers. I did all my due diligence and worked with sensitivity readers and copy editors, so I really hope that it comes across that this was done in reverence. I truly just love it so much and it also demystified, in some ways, the writing process for me. I've always thought that fantasy authors are the most brilliant in the game because they have to create their own worlds from scratch. It's truly the most fun I've ever had writing. I was giggling to myself, I can't believe I'm getting paid to write about horny mermaids.

Below, you talk about how people grow up, they tend to move away from reading certain genres. Why do you think that is?

I realized this in my 20s. I continued to read just absolutely anything I could get my hands on, while a lot of my peers had stopped reading. I would ask them, Why aren't you reading anymore? Obviously part of it is, I'm exhausted. I'm working so much, I barely have free time. But so many of them also said, Oh, I am reading. I've just been reading the same book for a really long time. It was usually nonfiction. No shade to nonfiction or political books, but sometimes I have tried to read a very, very dense, critically acclaimed piece of work and just found myself losing focus at multiple times.

My follow-up question is always, When is the last time you felt like really excited about returning to a book? A lot of them would say things like Twilight or The Hunger Games. It became so clear to me that—and this just breaks my heart—so many people think that they don't like to read because they're forcing themselves to read books that they don't like. So many people think that reading can't be fun once you exit your childhood, because you have to now stop reading books that warm your heart and make you smile and start reading books that "make you smarter" and "make people take you more seriously." I've made it my personal mission to unlock this for people.

Has it worked?

I mean, how many people do you know who hadn't ever read a fantasy book in their lives and then ended up picking up Fourth Wing in the airport? My wonderful but serious lawyer friend who listens to World War II textbooks while she goes grocery shopping has now read all of Emily Henry's backlist. Sometimes people need a little push and someone to squeeze their hand and tell them that it's okay to follow their joy.

Women especially have been conditioned to step away from getting close to anything that can connect them to their feminine power, explore their sexuality, tell them that they should and can ask for more from the people in their lives, especially their romantic partners. I hate that the patriarchy and society tells us that these are things we're not supposed to question. If anything, I think that I am a better grown up and a more self aware adult daughter, human partner, friend, co-worker, etc. because I spend so much of my time reading romance.