AUTHOR'S CIRCLE interview SULEIKHA SNYDER

Happy Thanksgiving, Dear Readers!

May this year be filled with gratitude, family and feasting for all.

On Author’s Circle today, meet author and editor
Suleikha Snyder to talk about writing, life and his/her book, 

TIKKA CHANCE ON ME.

Hi Suleikha, thanks for dropping in and letting us have a peek into your life.

1.     So, what’s TIKKA CHANCE ON ME about? 

     On the surface, it’s a really straightforward romance about a girl who works at her family’s Indian restaurant in small-town Indiana and the hunky bad-boy biker who always comes in for food. But, of course, nothing is ever as simple as it seems! It’s really, at least in my mind, about the things that bring you together even when it looks like you have nothing in common—and about taking risks in order to be happy.   

    2. What’s your favorite line from your latest novel? Why? 

     I wrote so many jokes. So. Many. Jokes. But let’s go with this: He looked like heroism and hedonism’s beautiful bastard. And, at least for tonight, he was all mine.  

     3. What’s your favorite book by another author, and why?

    

   A Ring of Endless Light by Madeleine L’Engle. It’s such a beautiful look at a teenager’s first real experience with death and grief, but also an exploration of her creative journey and her finding her voice as a poet.  

4.    If your book becomes a movie whom would you want to play the hero and the heroine? 

     Well, the hero, Trucker Carrigan, is inspired by Chris Evans. So, he’s the one I’d want playing that role—even though he’s probably a little old for it now! As to the heroine, Pinky, I really like Shazi Raja, who plays Jaya on CBS’s God Friended Me.   

5.       How did you become a writer? In other words, tell us YOUR STORY. 

In my family’s region of India, Hindus do a special ceremony when a baby turns six months old. As part of it, they put a bunch of items on a plate—money, a book, etc. Whatever the baby grabs will define their future. I grabbed a pen. The rest is history. I’ve never wanted to do or be anything else.

6.   What is your best marketing tip? 

Do only what feels comfortable and natural to you. Don’t force yourself to be on social media if you hate Twitter or Facebook. Don’t force yourself to do signings if you’re an introvert. At the end of the day, writing the book is your most important job. All of the other stuff is secondary to that—and secondary to your own mental health!

7.     Why write what you write? 

Romance has always been my favorite genre, and I write it because I believe South Asian women deserve kissing and sexytimes and happily-ever-afters, too. 

8.     Is your writing character-driven or plot-driven? 

Totally character-driven. I seldom have any idea where the plot is going beyond a few high points. I let who the characters are inform the story.

9.    Naturally, in part you are all your characters (they come from your head) but which of your characters is the most like you? Or resonates in you the most? Why? 

Probably Ashraf in Bollywood and the Beast, because he’s survived something traumatic and is just trying to keep going and power through his career—but at the cost of his own happiness. He has no idea who he wants to be and what his dreams are. That’s the closest I’ve probably come to exposing my own vulnerabilities on the page.

(Peeps, I ADORE Ashraf too!!!)

10. What can we expect from you next? 

Right now, I’m revising a romantic suspense manuscript and giving it a paranormal bent. I’m also working on a really bananas but promising project with erotic romance author Charlotte Stein. She is an absolutely amazeballs writer, so I’m very excited! I don’t know when either of these things will be in front of readers’ eyes, so just stay tuned!   

11. To end let’s try a Rapid Fire round:

LIFE: lesson

PASSION: pain

HERO: villain

LOVE: nothing

HATE: everything

Thank you once again, Suleikha, for being here and talking to me. It was fun!

About the author:

Editor, writer, American desi and lifelong geek Suleikha Snyder is an author of contemporary and erotic romance. A passionate advocate for diversity and inclusivity in publishing, Suleikha is frequently ranting when she should really be adding to her body of work — which includes multiple Bollywood-set romances and several shorts and novellas. 

Suleikha lives in Chicago, finding inspiration in genre fiction, daytime and primetime soaps, and anything that involves chocolate or bacon. Visit her online at www.suleikhasnyder.com 

Connect with Suleikha Snyder: 

Twitter 

Facebook

ROYALLY YOURS - a collaboration of stories

ROYAL WEDDING still on your mind? The full ROYALLY YOURS series is out today via Serial Box and Kobo here --> bit.ly/RoyallyYours

Note: all new Kobo customers in Canada and the United Kingdom can use the promo code: ROYALS to get the eBook omnibus for $1.99 (both CAD and GBP.) Woohoo!

One day. Five couples. Five stories. The most anticipated wedding in the world. But this story’s not about the bride and groom, the dukes and duchesses, this story is about the palace maid with a heart of gold, the milliner who dreams of seeing her designs adorn the pews, the American bodyguard who learns some British charm, the paparazzo after that one great shot, and the ordinary girl who dreams of being a princess. Rumors of a missing bride threaten to ruin the day, but nothing can stop the romance running rampant on the streets of London the day before the royal wedding.

MY LAST LOVE STORY - INDIA COVER + EXCERPT

Dear Readers,
I'm so excited that My Last Love Story releases in India today with a lovely new cover.
#HAPPYREADING 

Chapter 2:

On the drive home, Nirvaan jabbered inside the car while the rain played a harmonica on the Jeep’s roof—fast, then slow, loud and then soft.

Since I commanded the steering wheel, I was exempt from input on the baby-making plans beyond a well-placed hum or an indistinct nod. Normally, it took about twenty minutes to get home from the clinic in Monterey, but the downpour hampered our speed today.

By home, I meant, the beach house we’d rented for the year in Carmel-by-the-Sea. We’d moved in barely two weeks ago, and we were still feeling our way around the resort-town community. We weren’t complete strangers to the area. Being so close to San Jose, where we’d lived for the first two years of our marriage, both Carmel and Monterey had been our favorite spur-of-the-moment getaways. We’d often discussed buying beachfront property as an investment or retiring to a seaside town in our winter years—all this, of course, before the cancer had forced us to move to LA and in with Nirvaan’s parents. We were living our dream now, in a fashion, as part of Nirvaan’s Titanic Wish List—the list so dubbed because of the magnitude of its scope and theme.

The beach house was ideally located for our needs—twenty minutes from the fertility clinic and a scant five-minute drive from one of the best cancer hospices in the country. The Bay Area boasted a temperate climate throughout the year, getting neither super hot or insanely cold. With Carmel Beach as a backdrop, Nirvaan truly had chosen the perfect place to die.

“Why didn’t you make the appointment, Simi?”

I’d expected the question, yet I flinched when Nirvaan asked it.

“Your treatment starts next week. Let’s concentrate on one thing at a time, honey,” I replied, collecting my wits.

“You’re trying to wiggle out of our bargain.”

“No, I’m prioritizing the important stuff.” I kept my eyes peeled on the rain-slick California highway. If I looked at him, I’d melt or say something I’d regret.

“The IVF is important. You promised we’d try, Simi.” His words were matter-of-fact, but I heard the accusation hidden in their folds well enough.

“We will. We are.” My voice wobbled, and I struggled to moderate it. “Once the radia—”

“No.” He cut me off, reaching over to rub my thigh.

I hadn’t realized my body was clenched so tight.

“Both procedures together. Whatever we do, we do together, like always or not at all,” he said in a tone that would not countenance an argument.

I wanted to scream at him for being such a bully, but I couldn’t because I had promised, and I’d never broken a promise to him in my life. I might lie to him—had lied to him many times about many things. I wouldn’t deny manipulating him, but I’d never broken a promise.

When the parish church loomed up like a stone beacon on the right, I eased my foot off the accelerator and took the exit onto the local roads, driving around the church building. A backlit signpost stood, water smudged, on the front lawn. Every single day, the pastor—an austere-faced though jolly man—would put up a new adage for the world to pontificate on.

Today, it simply read, “Trust in God. He knows what He’s doing.”

My face tightened at the patently false advertisement. Khodai didn’t know what He was doing any more than Nirvaan and I did.

Trust in God? The God who’d inflicted cancer on a fun-loving young man? The God who’d orphaned children and would leave a wife as a widow? The impotent God who’d done nothing while my eighteenth birthday turned into my worst nightmare?

Thank you, but no. I could never trust God as His executive decisions had failed to impress me so far.

And Nirvaan wanted to produce another soul for Him to torture.

The rain began to pelt down in fat musical drops as I zigzagged through the streets, filling the obstinate silence inside the Jeep. I was glad for the sound. It allowed me a reprieve from all words, emblazoned or spoken or thought.

At the tip of a quiet long road with nowhere left to go, I eased the car over a pebbled driveway and parked as close to our slate-blue craftsman-style home as I could. Ahead of us, a strange black truck with monster tires blocked the front of the detached carriage house, the rear covered in blue tarpaulin.

Before I could utter a word, Nirvaan chortled, “He’s back,” in a bizarre falsetto.

“So I gathered. But what’s he brought back?”

Instead of answering the question, Nirvaan unbuckled his seat belt in one fluid motion, grabbed my face between his hands and smooched my lips, as if our recent tense moments had never happened.

It was typical of him. Nirvaan stubbornly refused to let bad moods win. I approved of the quirk with great gulps of gratitude, as one moody bitch per household was quite enough.

“Happy birthday to us, baby.” He grinned from ear to ear as our noses Eskimo kissed.

I squinted at my husband. Our birthdays weren’t for another three weeks. Mine fell on May 31, and Nirvaan’s was on June 1. I wondered what kind of present had gotten him even more excited than the visit to the fertility doctor.

Nirvaan spilled out of the Jeep before leaping up the three steps onto the thick wraparound deck where our longtime friend, the third Musketeer of our pack, Zayaan Mohammed Ali Khan, stood under the aegis of the front porch. He, too, grinned like the Cheshire cat high on cream.

I’d steeled my nerves before looking at him, but even then a gasping ache speared my heart. Zayaan was the living reminder of all that was wrong in my life, all Khodai had taken from me as part of His grand plan to keep me in line.

Astoundingly, Zayaan and Nirvaan shared their birthdays. The fact was the deciding factor in their friendship that had been founded one summer on the streets of Surat, the year they—we—turned fifteen. Same birthday, same street address, same damn-the-world temperaments, where could they—we—go wrong, really?

But we’d gone wrong. Like a roller coaster plunging off its tracks, our world had splintered apart one awful night, and I’d been left bleeding and alone, as always.

Stop wallowing in self-pity. Control yourself, and get out of the car.

Nirvaan gestured at the truck and said something. Zayaan nodded in reply, still grinning. He held a nonalcoholic beer in one hand, a hand towel in the other. His thick mop of poker-straight hair stood up in glossy spikes, like he’d vigorously rubbed it with the towel, while the rest of him was drenched from shoulders to sandaled feet. His cotton shirt was soaked through and plastered against his torso, delineating every muscle beneath it.

My throat went dry. I was a sucker for broad shoulders and washboard abs, and Zayaan’s were quite deliciously on display right now.

Cursing the paradox of emotions he always spawned inside me, I pulled the red hood of my raincoat over my head, as much to serve as blinkers for my wayward vision as to protect my hair from the rain. With a tight grip on my nerves and my purse and the tote bulging with a dozen medical files, I got out of the car and dashed up the wet whitewashed steps.

© Falguni Kothari

Visit my website for more information on my books, appearances and buy links: 

www.falgunikothari.com

Thoughts on Padmavat

The Story:

Set in 1303 AD medieval India, Padmaavat is the story of honor, valor and obsession. Queen Padmavati is known for her exceptional beauty along with a strong sense of justice and is the wife of Maharawal Ratan Singh and pride of the Kingdom of Chittor, a prosperous kingdom in the north west of India. The legend of her beauty reaches the reigning sultan of Hindustan – Allaudin Khilji. The sultan who is a tyrant, is fixated with wanting anything that is of exceptional beauty for himself. He lays siege on the impregnable fortress of Chittorgarh. After a grueling 6 months, he returns empty handed. He becomes obsessed and now wants to capture Chittor and its Queen at any cost. He returns with a bigger army and ranging fury. He attacks Chittor with brutal force and a bloody and fearsome battle takes places between the righteous Maharawal Ratan Singh defending his kingdom and the honor of his queen and Sultan Allaudin Khilji. Khilji manages to breach the fortress but in vain as the Queen chooses to make the ultimate sacrifice to protect her dignity.

What I liked:

- the sets were awesome. From the forts, to the travelling army, to the cave temples, everything was epic, immense and detailed. A visual treat

- the star cast was flawless, and all of them did a wonderful job together and separately and brought the story to life

- the premise of the story made sense. It was about narcissism and obsession, and I can believe that a ruler would be thus

- the ghoomer dance made me want to dance...like I used to :)

- the one-on-one sword fight between Rana and Khilji à la Troy (Achilles and Hector)

- the shades of Alexander (movie and historical figure)

What I'm perplexed about:

- Deepika Padukone's caterpillar unibrow. Made no sense and I kept missing her dialogue because I was so diverted by it

- why the women couldn't first discuss escape instead of straight jumping into the Jauhar conversation. At least try and escape first, which considering the bold and strategic thinker they've shown Padmavati as, should've occurred to her through Mr. Bhansali

- Khilji could've been a little less mad and we'd still have believed his obsession and narcissism

- where were the little baby boys and toddlers when their mothers were committing Jauhar and their fathers were dying on the battlefield? Did they leave those poor boys to be captured and tortured? 

Conclusion:

An afternoon well spent, foibles and all.

MY LST LOVE STORY - Release Day

It's Release Day for MY LAST LOVE STORY! 

World, meet Simi, Nirvaan and Zai. 

And I hope you love them! 

Amazon: bit.ly/MyLastLoveStory 

Barnes and Noble: http://bit.ly/BNMLLS

iBooks: http://bit.ly/MLLSiBooks 

Indiebound: http://bit.ly/MLLSInBo

Kobo: http://bit.ly/MLLSKobo

BAM: http://bit.ly/MLLSBAM

Three friends. Two Promises. One unforgettable love story ❤️

Exclusive trailer reveal: MY LAST LOVE STORY

HEA unveils the trailer for contemporary romance My Last Love Story, arriving Jan. 23. (Note: This book was originally very briefly self-published, and you can see an HEA interview with Falguni about that version.)

To see the full post click HERE