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The October 2011 Romance of the Month tells the story of a love that transcends space and time. Reviewer Christie Ridgway picked The Rose Garden for its “understated sensuality,” aching romance and complex emotional dilemmas.

We chatted with author Susanna Kearsley about great books and what it means to be a writer.

Describe your book in one sentence.
The Rose Garden is the story of a woman who returns to the old house in Cornwall where she spent her childhood summers, and finds herself sharing the rooms—and becoming involved—with a man living there nearly 300 years before her own time.

If you had to be stranded on a desert island with one fictional character, who would you want it to be?
Barney Snaith, from Lucy Maud Montgomery’s The Blue Castle. I’ve always had a thing for Barney, and he has a thing for living on uninhabited islands.

If you could travel back in time to any decade in history, what would you choose and why?
If I could, I’d head directly for the first decade of the 19th century, for a purely self-serving reason: for years now my father and I have been trying to pin down the birthplace and birthdate of one of my ancestors who keeps eluding us, so like a good amateur genealogist I’d go back to London and follow his father and mother around till their son was born!

What are the sexiest scenes to write?
For me, the scene where the heroine first becomes aware of the hero, really aware of him, because there’s such a jumble of sensation and emotion in those moments. And also the first time they kiss, because, well, there’s just something incredibly sexy about the first kiss.

What was your favorite book as a child?
Beautiful Joe, by Marshall Saunders, a late-Victorian “autobiographical” novel of a dog’s life that I loved with a passion, because of my own love of dogs (and all animals, really).

What are you reading now?
Just at the moment I’m finishing an advance copy of a book called The Haunting of Maddy Clare, by debut author Simone St. James. It’s a chilling romantic suspense story set in the 1920s, and Deanna Raybourn and I were actually just talking on Twitter this morning about how unique it is, sort of like Peter Straub meets Shirley Jackson meets Dorothy L. Sayers. It’s very good.

If you weren’t a writer, how would you earn a living?
See now, this is a tricky question, because being a writer and earning a living at being a writer are two different things. I’ve always been a writer, from the time I was a child—it’s just the way my brain was formed and how I process things: I shape them into stories. Before I could earn my living by just writing, I was a museum curator and a waitress, in that order, and I suppose that if my ability to pay the bills with my writing ever disappeared, I’d do both again, in the opposite order: waitressing first, because it got me out in the company of people and gave me flexible hours and was a job I could leave at the workplace when I took that apron off, and museum work second, because I truly loved that hands-on connection to the past and the chance to preserve something special for future generations to enjoy. But published or not, I would still be a writer.

The October 2011 Romance of the Month tells the story of a love that transcends space and time. Reviewer Christie Ridgway picked The Rose Garden for its "understated sensuality," aching romance and complex emotional dilemmas. We chatted with author Susanna Kearsley about great books…
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There’s a special place in romance columnist Christie Ridgway’s heart for the love stories of Navy SEALs, so when one is chosen as Romance of the Month, it’s the crème de la SEAL crème.

Suzanne Brockmann’s Born to Darkness, the first book in a new paranormal romantic suspense series, is the April 2012 Romance of the Month. The tension between an ex-SEAL and a super-human hottie is “sexy and suspenseful” and “will draw readers into a world of frightening evil and heroic action.”

Brockmann chatted with BookPage about movies, writing and attractive Vulcans.

Describe your book in one sentence.
In a story set several decades in a very dark future, a group of people—including a blacklisted former Navy SEAL and an angry young woman with super-human powers—embark on the rescue of a kidnapped little girl.

What are the hottest scenes to write?
For me, it’s all about the dramady. Combining suspenseful scenes with both comedy and dramatic tension—those are the scenes that I really love writing.

Of all the characters you’ve ever written, which is your favorite?
Those honors go to Robin Chadwick, a young actor who won the heart of my other favorite character, a kickass, openly gay FBI agent named Jules Cassidy. I’ve got a new Jules & Robin short story called Beginnings and Ends coming out in all e-formats on June 1st!

What is your favorite movie based on a book?
Well, I really, really enjoyed The Hunger Games, but I’d have to say that The Princess Bride still holds my book-to-movie translation award. Of course, it doesn’t hurt that both book and movie were written by the incredible William Goldman.

How do you conquer writer’s block?
Writer’s block? What’s that?

If you were stranded on a desert island with one fictional character, who would you want it to be?
Mr. Spock. (And I’ll take him as played by either Leonard Nimoy or Zachary Quinto. Both versions rock.)

What are you working on next?
Right now, I’m finishing up a collection of short stories featuring characters from my Troubleshooters universe, called Headed for Trouble. It’ll be out in paperback and all e-formats from Ballantine books in early 2013.

There's a special place in romance columnist Christie Ridgway's heart for the love stories of Navy SEALs, so when one is chosen as Romance of the Month, it's the crème de la SEAL crème. Suzanne Brockmann's Born to Darkness, the first book…
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It’s been said that the mind is the sexiest part of the human body, and that’s never truer than in Jayne Ann Krentz’s Dark Legacy series. The second in the series, Dream Eyes finds psychic counselor Gwen Frazier and psychic investigator Judson Coppersmith drawn into a tricky web of deception and murder—and drawn helplessly to each other.

An “imaginative and exciting” psychic romance, Dream Eyes is our Top Pick in Romance for January 2013, so we chatted a bit with author Jayne Ann Krentz about writing and sexy scenes.

Describe your book in one sentence.
I can’t do this! I’m no good at the one-line pitch thing. Okay, okay, Dream Eyes is contemporary romantic suspense with a psychic twist. And there’s a cat in it. How’s that?

What do you love most about writing?
That great feeling I get when I can see the whole vision of the book and finally know where I’m going. Unfortunately, I don’t usually get that feeling until I’m on the last chapter—sometimes not until I’m on the last page. It’s a very inefficient approach to my craft.

What’s the most romantic scene you’ve ever written?
I’m rather fond of the scene in Dream Eyes when the heroine, Gwen, walks into Judson Coppersmith’s deeply troubled dreamscape.

If you could read only one book for the rest of your life, what would it be?
The one I would immediately start writing in my head. That way I could keep changing the story around to make it new and different. I would be in control so I wouldn’t ever finish the book.

What’s the proudest moment of your career?
What makes me proud is knowing that my family is seriously proud of me. Their support and enthusiasm for my career means more than they will ever know.

If you had psychic powers, what would you do with them?
Figure out how to describe my books in a single sentence.

What’s next?
The Mystery Woman, a Ladies of Lantern Street novel written under my Amanda Quick pen name. More romantic suspense with a psychic twist, but this one is set in the Victorian era. There is no cat, but there is an Egyptian mummy.

It's been said that the mind is the sexiest part of the human body, and that's never truer than in Jayne Ann Krentz's Dark Legacy series. The second in the series, Dream Eyes finds psychic counselor Gwen Frazier and psychic investigator Judson Coppersmith drawn into…
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Paige Tyler's action-packed paranormal love story To Love a Wolf, part of the SWAT series, is our June Top Pick in Romance. Tyler, who lives in Florida with her husband and dog, is a New York Times bestselling author of more than 50 novels. In this 7 Questions interview, Tyler talks about zombies, her surprising cure for writer's block and more. 


Describe your latest novel in one sentence.
Snarky alpha werewolf from the Dallas SWAT team meets the beautiful artist of his dreams only to discover that her entire family is composed of men who hate werewolves and would die before they let the hero and heroine be together—think Romeo and Juliet with fur.

What initially inspired you to write about werewolves?
I’d like to say that my inspiration for this book—and the whole SWAT Series—represents a bright, shiny example of catching magic in a bottle. But in reality, I sort of stumbled on the idea. My hubby (who is my writing partner) and I had been working on an idea for an erotic series based on good, old-fashioned, alpha-male cops. The notion was a believable cop drama with a lot of hot sex. Should be easy enough, right?

But as we started writing the outlines for the various stories, we kept running into the same problems. Either the story ended up too procedural (i.e., boring) or too erotic (i.e., completely unbelievable in any realistic police setting). If you’re in the middle of a serious crime storyline, it can get really sticky trying to find appropriate places for the hero and heroine to have sex. They can’t exactly have a quickie in the middle of a blood-splattered crime scene or stop by the lab to drop off trace evidence on their way to the local BDSM shop.

Hubby and I kept working on story ideas anyway, trying to find the right mix of serious cop drama and steamy sex, but nothing was working, and we were both getting frustrated. Over breakfast one morning, we were still trying to figure out where to go with the concept and were close to dropping the whole idea—nothing was popping into our heads, and we were starting to get snarky with each other. After he went to work, I emailed him to make sure he wasn’t still spinning from our latest unproductive attempt at brainstorming. He replied back to me, and I to him, etc. That’s when something amazing happened. When you’re emailing back and forth, you’re forced to clearly put the thoughts in your head on the page, and the other person can’t cut you off halfway through what you’re saying. We still hadn’t come up with a good idea, but at least we were actually making more sense via email than face to face.

Then hubby made a joke about adding a zombie to the story (in his mind, every book can be improved with the addition of a few zombies!). I vetoed that idea immediately (I retain final executive authority on story content. If not, there’d be zombies, ninjas and exploding chickens all over the place.) and said that if we were going to put anything paranormal in the story, it should be a werewolf. Hubby said, “You know, that might just work,” and the SWAT series was born. We moved away from the erotic angle, focusing on the Dallas Police Department SWAT team, which is made up completely of werewolves. The series follows each of their efforts to find The One woman who can accept them for what they are.

The rest, as they say, is history. But it all started with a lame comment about a zombie.

Say you’re in the midst of writing your latest book, and you hit a wall. What’s your cure for writer’s block?
P.F. Chang’s spicy chicken. Seriously. Hubby and I do all of our best thinking and brainstorming while overdosing on spicy chicken. We’ll sit in a booth at our local P.F. Chang’s for hours bouncing ideas back and forth over a big plate of the stuff. The people there know us and tend to leave us alone to work. Luckily, they don’t get alarmed if they walk by and hear us plotting the best way to kill someone or comparing the various pros and cons of using claws versus fangs.

By the way, I’ve been angling for an endorsement deal with P.F. Chang’s for years now, but so far no luck.

You write in a variety of genres, from Western romances to paranormal. Which genre do you find the most challenging to write?
Since our basic brand—alpha hero, feisty kick-butt heroines and plot lines focused on steamy romance, pulse-pounding action and suspense—stays the same whether we’re writing about cowboys, cops, shifters or covert agents, romantic suspense is easy. It’s when we stray outside romantic suspense and write pure, basic contemporary romance that it gets a little harder, because that kind of story is romance stripped down to its core, meaning boy meets girl, without the added drama of cops, cowboys or guys with claws. Generating conflict and maintaining interest in a story of how two regular, everyday people end up together can be tricky.

I also have to admit, I’m primarily into blue-collar heroes. If you look on my Pinterest Boards, you’ll see hundreds of pics of cops, soldiers, firefighters, cowboys, etc. But you won’t see a single guy in a suit and tie. It’s just not my thing, which probably explains why I avoid straight contemporary.

When did you first start reading romance? Do you remember what book it was?
I first started reading romance when I was a teenager, thanks to two wonderful aunts who loved it and shared their books with me. The book that really got me hooked on romance was Gambler’s Prize by Valentina Luellen. It’s about a riverboat gambler who falls for a Southern belle. I read that book so many times, I’m surprised the words didn’t fall off the pages!

You’ve written over 50 books and hundreds of characters. Do you ever get stumped on what to name your next character? Where do you get your character’s names?
I get stumped sometimes. In my head, I have a very firm idea of what constitutes a “hero” name versus a “secondary” character name. I’ve been known to rename characters as a story goes along in those cases where a guy who was supposed to be a background character ends up in a more prominent role and will become the hero of his own book later. We maintain series and story bibles to keep track of all the names so that we don’t re-use them too often, but we still end up doing it anyway. I’m not sure how it happened, but we have heroes named “Trevor” in both our X-OPS and SWAT series. Luckily, one is a werewolf and the other is a coyote shifter, so they’re completely different. Don’t tell my editor anyway, though.

As far as where I look for names, that’s easy. I go to the social security website. You can look at popular names going back decades. I can spend hours collecting names that I might use later.

You’ve written about lots of heroes, including werewolves, cowboys and Navy SEALs. Who would make the best date?
Probably werewolves. I like big, cuddly animals, so a werewolf fits right in with that. They’re also good at keeping the bed warm, which would be a big plus, since I’m always freezing.

My hubby is retired Army and I flat-out worried my butt off the whole time he was in, so the Navy SEAL thing is out. My heart recognizes the fantasy of being with a SEAL, but my head knows what it’s like to worry about a man when he’s off doing something dangerous in some war-torn part of the world.

Cowboys are out, too. As much as I love animals, I don’t think I could be with a man who spends more time with his horse than he does with me. 

(Author photo by Pure 7 Studios)

Paige Tyler, author of our June Romance Top Pick To Love a Wolf, answers seven questions.
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In this month's 7 Questions interview, we talk to Christine Feehan, author of Shadow Rider, the first book in her new paranormal romance series about a family with a magical ability to secretly travel through the shadows. Feehan, a number one New York Times bestselling author of more than 40 novels, lives in Northern California with her husband. 

Describe your latest novel in one sentence.
A man from a powerful family who moves within the shadows to exact justice finds a woman with a secret of her own.

What inspired this new series?
My mind plays around with mafia-like stories, and I read a lot of true crime. I wanted to come up with a story that would give me a powerful family and a small community. Over the last three years, the characters evolved into the Shadow Riders series.

Did you do any special research for this book?
Yes, I had to spend a lot of time researching Italy. I tried to get a feel for their shops, language, etc. to build my own community here in the United States that reflects those roots. I spent time researching longtime family feuds in Italy and researching Little Italy in Chicago, and I had to research mafia families both here and in Italy.

What’s your favorite trait of Stefano Ferraro?
The way he loves his family.

What do you think the biggest misconception about romance is?
I think it’s that many believe they’re not heavily researched, well-crafted stories that have everything from mystery and thrills to comedy and drama. The difference is there is always an HEA. [Editor’s Note: HEA means “happily ever after” in romance parlance!]

Do you think you’ll ever publish anything outside of the paranormal romance genre?
I never say never. Shadow Rider is the closest to this point.

What’s next for you?
I am looking forward to my next Sea Haven series after my last Bound book. I will be writing a motorcycle series set in the town of Sea Haven, which readers know from my Drake Sisters series and my Sisters of the Heart series.

(Author photo by Samantha Goodacre)

In this month's 7 Questions interview, we talk to Christine Feehan, author of Shadow Rider, the first book in her new paranormal romance series. Feehan, a #1 New York Times bestselling author of more than 40 novels, lives in Northern California with her husband.
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With Wolf Under Fire, Paige Tyler kicks off a new series in her paranormal universe of werewolf heroes and the people who love them. We talked to Tyler about the concept for the STAT: Special Threat Assessment Team series and why she and her husband plan out all her books at P.F. Chang’s.

Where did the idea for this spinoff come from? Have you known for a few books now that you wanted to set another series in this world, or did the idea come after you finished Wolf Rebel, the last book in your SWAT: Special Wolf Alpha Team series?
The STAT: Special Threat Assessment Team series spinoff actually has roots all the way back to book three in the SWAT: Special Wolf Alpha Team series, In the Company of Wolves. Caleb Lynch, our favorite out-of-control omega werewolf, made his first appearance in that book and his character screamed out for his own story. Unfortunately, with his criminal background, he didn’t fit in with the basic premise of the SWAT Series (i.e. law enforcement) so he was sort of stuck for a while . . . years actually. And no, he wasn’t happy about that!

It wasn’t until the release of book nine in the SWAT: Special Wolf Alpha Team series, Wolf Instinct that we started thinking seriously about the spinoff. This book introduced not only another scene-stealing side character—Jake Huang—but also the broader supernatural world, revealing that there are other things besides werewolves that go bump in the night.

Take those two characters, a wide-open supernatural world, an international perspective and a tag line of “Mission Impossible . . . with werewolves” and you have the basis of STAT: Special Threat Assessment Team in one neat package.

Is there any paranormal creature you haven’t depicted that you’d really like to have in your books someday?
That’s easy. I’ve always wanted to write a story with a gargoyle. There’s something so powerful and tragic about a creature forced to sit on the top of a building, watching life pass them by. Just writing that little part has a dozen ideas spinning though my head that I’d love to jump on . . . if there were enough hours in the day.

“I’ve never written alpha-holes. Can’t do it. Don’t want to.”

I really enjoyed how Jake had some typical alpha traits, but was also very emotionally intelligent and respectful of Jes’ abilities and boundaries. What led you to make him a less traditional alpha male?
I’ve never written alpha-holes. Can’t do it. Don’t want to. The stories I write are as much about strong, capable women as they are about the strong, capable men they fall in love with. There’s no room in my world—or my stories—for anything less.

What do you love about romantic suspense? Would you ever consider writing in another genre?
I’ve always been attracted to the danger and action of the suspense side of the house. Having your characters in tense, life-threatening situations brings out a ton of raw emotions and words that can be fun to explore. It also brings obvious conflict to the story, both internal and external, while providing a plot vehicle to carry the story in between those moments that the hero and heroine are developing their connection. And yeah, blowing up stuff is a lot of fun.

What was the first paranormal romance you remember reading and loving?
How to Marry a Millionaire Vampire by Kerrelyn Sparks! It came out around 2005, and while I had read some paranormal romance before then, none had really struck me quite the same way. In my experience before that book, supernatural protagonists (mostly vampires) were a rather broody lot. Woe is me, I live in a dark home, drinking blood, I’m so unhappy, etc., etc. Not that I mind that particular trope (especially when it comes to Angel from “Buffy the Vampire Slayer”!) but it started getting a bit old. Then I find Kerrelyn’s book about a vamp who loses a fang biting something he shouldn’t have and the human dentist (who hates the sight of blood) he goes to for help. The story was so different than anything I’d read before and showed me that paranormal creatures are people, too, looking for love, laughs and happiness. It changed the whole way I approached the genre and has had a tremendous effect on how we write our paranormal stories.

I imagine this book required a lot of research, from the various international locales the team visits to the equipment they use. What aspect do you most enjoy researching? And is there anything that is particularly annoying to research, but necessary?
Yes, tons of research! All I can say is thank God for Google and the rest of the internet. I depend on hubby a lot for the weapons and equipment, but we both get wrapped up in exploring the locales for the adventures the team gets involved in. I really love looking at that kind of stuff—old cities, hotels, iconic buildings and landscapes—and imagining having a chance to see it for real someday.

Research can take on its own life sometimes, taking the story in a direction you didn’t even consider. That happened when hubby found a GoPro video someone had taken of themselves riding a motorcycle through the Blackwall Tunnel in London. The footage was so mesmerizing we ended up changing the story to have the hero and heroine ride a motorcycle in the same tunnel.

Of course, this can also be the annoying part. Research can be a tremendous time suck! You think you’re going to spend a few minutes finding some details on a restaurant your characters go to eat and the next thing you know, you look up and realize you spent four hours of your day flipping through images of food you’re never going to actually eat! The internet is a very dangerous place . . . you can get trapped in there!

You and your husband, who is also your writing partner, go to P.F. Chang’s to plot out your story arcs. How did that tradition get started, and do you have a favorite dish?
That’s a great question! We’d eaten at P.F. Chang’s a few times over the years and really liked it, but up until about 2011 or so, it was merely a restaurant we ate at occasionally. Then we were at the Lori Foster Get Together in West Chester, Ohio, that year and ended up going to dinner at Chang’s with a few other authors from the conference. After receiving some advice on what kind of stories we should be writing and what New York was looking for, hubby and I ended going back to Chang’s the next day for lunch by ourselves. We ordered Chang’s Spicy Chicken and spent hours brainstorming ideas for our next book, which ultimately became Her Perfect Mate from our X-OPS series, our first traditionally published print book. We discovered we did our best brainstorming over a plate of Spicy Chicken and brown rice, liberally coated with hot mustard. Now we drive about 30 minutes a couple times a month to the nearest PF Chang’s so we can plot out our stories and we always order the same meal. Yes, it’s become a crutch—and maybe a vice—but it works so well, we don’t want to mess with it.

And yes, we tried to contact PF Chang’s about becoming the official author of the restaurant chain in return for free food. Shockingly, they’ve never returned our inquiries!


ALSO IN BOOKPAGE: Read our review of Wolf Under Fire.


A lovely aspect of this book is how organically and naturally the team begins to feel like a family. What are your favorite found families in fiction?
Hubby and I spent 12 years roaming around the globe while he was in the Army. He was in the Bomb Squad, a small team environment that’s completely different than most people envision when they think of the military. Basically, everywhere we went was like a little family. It was that exposure, and how these small teams interact and take care of each other, that comes out in my stories.

As far as found families, there are more than a few. The whole Hogwarts world of Harry Potter is one, of course, then there are the Monster High characters, and most recently the four teens from The Last Kids on Earth. If you haven’t already figured it out, I tend to read a lot of teen and young adult stuff. They all seem to have a lot of family stuff that I love.

What’s next for you?
Well, Seal on a Mission, the next book in the SEALs of Coronado series, releases Aug. 18, then Wolf Untamed, the next book in the SWAT: Special Wolf Alpha Team series, releases Nov. 24. We’re also currently writing the next book in the STAT: Special Threat Assessment Team series, and after that, the next books in the SEALs of Coronado series, SWAT: Special Wolf Alpha Team series and STAT: Special Threat Assessment Team series!

 

Author photo by Pure 7 Studios.

We talked to Paige Tyler about her high-octane new paranormal suspense series, and why she and her husband plan out all her books at P.F. Chang’s.
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Most paranormal romance series take place in our world, or in a place extremely similar to it. But few are as invested in the most pressing issues of our time than Suleikha Snyder’s Third Shift series, which begins with Big Bad Wolf. In Snyder’s alternate version of America, the existence of supernatural beings was revealed to the general public in 2016, leading to mass panic, the creation of a surveillance state and the registration of said supernatural beings. Even worse, the government’s totalitarian bent has amplified homophobia, racism and sexism.

We talked to Snyder about putting her unique stamp on the shifter romance, scene-stealing vampires and more.

You're perhaps best known for your contemporary romances. What led you to switch genres? 
Big Bad Wolf is my first longform paranormal romance. I've dabbled in the subgenre in some of my indie-published short stories, which readers can find in my Prem Numbers collection. Suffice it to say, diving in headfirst to a full-length series and having to build out a whole world was pretty daunting. But I always want to challenge myself!

I don't see it as switching genres so much as hopping around. I will no doubt jump back to contemporaries after this because I want to keep growing and learning as an author. And writing shifter romances has taught me a lot about continuity and just keeping the little details straight. What are the rules of this world? How do wolf shifters heal? Can vampires eat or drink? These are all things you learn to hash out as you pen a paranormal.

"I fully admit that I talked about imprinting mostly so I could make duck jokes."

Your paranormal world is clearly inspired by the political climate of the last few years. How long has this world been in your head? Did it change at all over the years? Why was it important to you to create an alternate reality that so clearly mirrors our own?
I've had some version of this world in my head since 2013 or so! But the shift in the political climate since 2015–2016 definitely kicked it all into high gear and informed how I moved forward with the stories. It became all the more vital for me to use the supernatural community as a metaphor for the challenges all marginalized people face. Not that I left it solely up to my shifters and vampires to carry that. My cast features Americans of all sorts—Asian, Black, Latinx—and characters represent the LGBTQ+ spectrum as well. My goal is to show that an "alternate reality" is often the actual reality that we've lived with our entire lives.

Big Bad Wolf doesn't confine itself to the main couple's POV in the way a traditional romance novel would; you tell parts of this story from other characters’ perspectives as well. What did that choice open up for you as a writer? When did you realize you would need to break from the stereotypical romance structure to tell this story?
I didn't even really think about breaking away from typical romance structure. This is just how I write. I think a lot of that comes from watching serial dramas my whole life. I'm a soap opera fan, both primetime and daytime, and love procedural shows and comic book movies. And most of those forms weave in multiple narratives to show you a full picture of what's happening. "Let's go see what's happening in the villain's camp." "Oh, here's some comic relief." And I love a good ensemble cast, so this was an opportunity for me to create one!

Were there any supernatural creatures you wanted to include and decided not to? Any that you'd still like to incorporate further down the line?
There are no supernatural beings that I deliberately left out. I like to leave myself room to do anything, try anything. But you will see more characters from South Asian mythology as the series continues. It's really important to me to pull from my own background and our rich cultural mine. I grew up with vampires and werewolves because of Western pop culture, but I also had the stories of nagas, yakshas, apsaras and djinn. So readers will get to experience some of that in the next two books.

One of the things I loved about this book is how you play with already established shifter romance tropes, such as imprinting/fated mates. Joe and Neha's attraction to one another both is and isn't the sort of paradigm-changing, life-altering force we would find in similar romances. Can you talk a bit about how you developed your own take on the imprinting trope?
I fully admit that I talked about imprinting mostly so I could make duck jokes. Sometimes I just do things for the quick laugh. But on a larger level, I'm not a huge proponent of the fated mate trope, because I grapple with what that means for free will. So I kind of dug into that with Joe and Neha. Sure, they're pulled toward each other and that might be because he's a shifter . . . but what does that mean about their ability to choose one another?


ALSO IN BOOKPAGE: Read our starred review of Big Bad Wolf.


The Third Shift team feels immediately present and dynamic on the page. How did you build out all those characters and their relationships, and did any aspect of that surprise you?
I am a character person. Plot is so much harder. I could create friends and lovers and family members and have them all banter and spar all day long. So creating all these fun personalities was totally my wheelhouse—especially, again, coming from it as a soap viewer. I love relationships of all kinds. The close friendship between Third Shift founders Elijah Richter and Jackson Tate and their recruits is sort of the spine of the series. And then I just add romance wherever I can! One thing that surprised me was what develops between Nate, Finn and Grace. I had very different intentions for those characters, and their spark snuck up on me. The follow-through in Pretty Little Lion might very much surprise readers as well!

Speaking of Finn, he is the definition of a scene stealer—was he as fun to write as he was to read?
Oh my gosh, yes! I think people who follow me on social media know that I can't resist puns and innuendos, so I just leaned into that with Finn. I laughed aloud so many times while writing his dialogue. And please don't EVER do a drinking game to his eyebrow movements. I don't want to be responsible for what happens. With that said, readers will learn more about Finn in book two, Pretty Little Lion, and see another side to this quip-heavy flirt.

There's a really powerful moment near the end of the book when Neha talks about how, despite the darkness of her reality, she finds hope because she expects better from the world. How and where do you find hope?
Hope is the core of why we read and write romance, isn't it? That's where I find it most often. In that “Happily Ever After” at the end. So having Neha talk about hope and expecting better from the world helped me with my own sense of that. Fighting fiercely for who and what you love is what keeps us going in the end.

What's next for you?
I'm finishing up revisions on Third Shift book two, Pretty Little Lion, and after that it's on to book three! Tentatively titled Coldhearted Snakes, it will tie up the arc begun in Big Bad Wolf. And then I might find another subgenre to play in!

 

Author photo by Elizabeth McQuern Photography

We talked to Suleikha Snyder about putting her unique stamp on the shifter romance, scene-stealing vampires and more.

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