The Secret Of Nagas Summary

[Rita Seliba]

Theworld of the books is very urban. What drew you to this gritty urban setting? And to paranormal characters?

I've always been a huge Dracula fan and a big Stephen King reader. So horror and mystery and suspense is kind of in my hard wiring. As for the urban stuff, I love pop culture and fashion and cities so again that's all something I'm drawn to. But the stories and where they're set picked me, they really did!

This series achieved a landslide of early acclaim from readers. What do you think it is about the Brotherhood books specifically that caused the instant buzz and fierce reader loyalty? Were you surprised by the level of reader engagement?

I have been totally and completely blown away by the reader support (and very grateful.) The thing was, when I started out, I kind of made an agreement in my head that I would write these stories exactly as I saw them and that I would do it for me, as kind of a private thing. I had to set that stone so that I wouldn't try and force rules or conventions on the pictures in my head. As a result, I think the BDB books read raw and a little fierce in places and clearly people like that- although again, I'm just baffled and very very appreciative of everyone's support.

Do you have a favorite couple from literature, movies or life?

I like all the real-life couples I meet who have been married 30-some years and still like each other. I envy them so very much!

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

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!

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