The best love stories are the ones in which the characters' perceptions of themselves and each other change in surprising ways. Bellies is a grand, affecting story of shifting identities and shifting intimacy. Electric Literature, A Most Anticipated Book of 2023 Dinan grew up in Hong Kong and Kuala Lumpur and now lives in London. She studied at Cambridge and trained as a lawyer before turning to writing. Bellies tells the story of Tom and Ming in alternating chapters and skips over periods of time, much like Sally Rooney did with Connell and Marianne in Normal People. (Element Pictures , who adapted Normal People , have also secured the rights to Bellies.) After a few difficult and anxious months, Ming tells Tom that she wants to transition and the book’s core dilemmas emerge – what is love that alters when it alteration finds? Does our partner’s gender change how we feel about them? Is sexuality fluid or rigid? This is as complex a love story as it gets and it is delicately and movingly handled by Dinan as she explores the essential questions of love and identity. EC: Given that focus on potential legacy, what would you most like readers to take away from reading Bellies ? I really fell in love with the characters of Ming and Tom. It has heartbreaking parts but ones that make you smile with joy too. I hope we hear more from Nicola Dinan in the future. A youthful and urgent look at relationships, family, gender expression, intimacy and trust. Mendez, author of Rainbow Milk

Until it isn’t. After a while, Ming starts being distant from Tom and reveals that he is considering transitioning. Suddenly, the novel turns from boy-meets-boy romance to something much more interesting. Traversing the pitfalls of the gender transition novel, Dinan, who herself is trans, deftly weaves a compelling and compassionate narrative that feels totally unique in this year’s literary calendar. Bellies, this glorious debut about the beautiful discomfort of being seen and known, hooked me from the very start. Nicola Dinan's prose is swift and immersive and the empathy with which she writes her characters' foibles, flaws, and faulty perceptions is boundless. Both tender and biting, Bellies has captured my whole heart. Ilana Masad, author of All My Mother’s Lovers

The inspiration came from a friend telling me about two people he knew in an open relationship, one of whom was delighted with their way of life, while the other was fed up and longing to be exclusive. A year or so later, I was sketching out some ideas for a romantic comedy, and I felt like the story of one side of an open relationship had lots of potential for humour and a dose of drama. Firstly, Ming’s transition is bankrolled. She saves money because she and Tom move into Tom’s parents’ house in London after graduation. She also has an inheritance, as well as a well-off dad. She flies over the hurdles many trans people face: she has enough money for surgical intervention, and doesn’t have to bother with inhumanely long waiting times for HRT on the NHS. As a writer, it was refreshing to write queer experiences not mired by structural hurdles, choosing instead to focus on relationship dynamics existing outside of those challenges. I wanted to show that even when you’re holding a royal flush, big changes are hard to make, and new lives are hard to adjust to. In doing so, I think Bellies makes an experience as specific as transitioning feel a little bit more universal. On the other hand, those systemic barriers are the cruel reality for most trans people today. The most fantastic consequence of that, however, is all the messages I’ve had from people telling me how seen they felt in the novel, and not just readers from the east and south east Asian community it depicts, but anyone who has struggled to move to a new culture and felt displaced and in limbo. Knowing I’ve written something specific and yet universal is genuinely the highest praise I could have hoped for, especially as growing up I never really saw myself represented in the mainstream fiction space and this was always something I longed for. A beautiful work of literature with fully realized, highly empathic characters; [Dinan's] treatment of Ming's transition is superbly and insightfully handled. An important contribution to the slender body of transgender literature . Booklist, Starred review

What I really tried to do with Bellies is create a cast of characters, that touch on themes beyond transness and more, essentially, as to what it means to be in your early 20s and finding your way in the world at a time where life is very confusing, and you don't have a full handle on who you are as a person despite the world expecting that you do. Regardless of the angles through which people might relate to that, Bellies is trying to touch on that core feeling of not quite knowing where you belong. Bobby Mostyn-Owen, commissioning editor, acquired UK and Commonwealth rights, excluding Canada, to Bellies from Monica MacSwan at Aitken Alexander. A publication date has not yet been set. EC: You’re currently adapting Bellies for the screen; the atmosphere of the book feels so distinct that I found myself wondering, was there any music you’d want to use in a TV adaptation, or that you think would be good to listen to while reading it?

I enjoyed the first third of this but once the most major plot shift takes place, I struggled to get past the writing style: every single movement a character makes is described, the position of each character in relation to each other character is described, myriad inanimate and insignificant objects are described, th