Chetan Bhagat Returns To Romance With ’12 Years: My Messed-Up Love Story’

India-West News Desk

MUMBAI – Chetan Bhagat is back with a love story. After more than a decade since he wrote 2 States and Half Girlfriend, the bestselling author is returning to the genre that made him India’s most popular novelist. His new book, ’12 Years: My Messed-Up Love Story’, will be out on October 1, 2025, published by HarperCollins India. Preorders have already opened, and anticipation is running high.

‘This book is extremely close to my heart and is one of my best works—if not the best I have written so far,’ Bhagat says. ‘It’s funny, emotional, thought-provoking, and a whole lot more. At its core, it tries to answer a timeless question: how do you know if the special someone in your life is the one?’

The story brings together two unlikely lovers: Saket, a 33-year-old struggling stand-up comic and divorcee, and Payal, a 21-year-old private equity star from a conservative Jain family. On paper, they couldn’t be more different. He is Punjabi, she has never even had a boyfriend. Yet they are drawn to each other despite the odds, forcing readers to ask the same question the characters do: is it madness and lust, or is it love?

For HarperCollins, this is Bhagat at his best. ‘In book after book, Chetan has captured the hearts of millions of Indian readers with stories that resonate closely with their lives,’ says Poulomi Chatterjee, Executive Publisher. ‘His new novel is as tender as it is passionate, and as laugh-out-loud funny as it is sharply observed. It’s guaranteed to entertain and keep readers hooked.’

Bhagat’s career has been as unconventional as some of his stories. He left behind an investment banking job in 2009 to write full-time, and went on to sell millions of books, inspire blockbuster films like 3 Idiots and Kai Po Che, and become a columnist, speaker, and influencer for India’s youth. The New York Times once called him the biggest-selling English-language novelist in India’s history, while Time magazine named him among the 100 most influential people in the world.

Now, with ’12 Years’, he is circling back to romance but with more maturity and edge. It’s a story about mismatched people, conflicting worlds, and the universal search for true love. For longtime fans and curious newcomers alike, Chetan Bhagat’s latest promises laughter, tears, and maybe a few answers about what it really means to find the one.