Smart Podcast, Trashy Books, December 15, 2017

[music]

Sarah Wendell: Hello, and welcome to episode number 277 of Smart Podcast, Trashy Books. I am Sarah Wendell from Smart Bitches, Trashy Books. With me this week is author Sonali Dev. Sonali is here to talk about her new book, and I have some extremely tempting words in a very tempting order. Are you ready? Her book is a retelling of Rapunzel set in Mumbai. Yes, you’re curious, right? Okay. These are all good words. Her latest book is A Distant Heart. It comes out on December 26th, and we talk about the story, the angst level, and how these two characters came to be. We also talk about common elements between this book and her last book, A Change of Heart, and what she’s working on right now. There’s a great odd moment where I misread the cover art immensely, but apparently I’m not alone in that misreading, so I’m sort of relieved, and it is a gorgeous cover, too. Plus, as always, we talk about what she’s reading, and she has lots of recommendations.

If you have ideas or questions or suggestions or you want me to ask somebody some questions on your behalf, this is an awesome plan. You should email me. Sound good? Okay: sbjpodcast@gmail.com or Sarah with an H at smartbitchestrashybooks.com [Sarah@smartbitchestrashybooks.com]. They both get to me at the same place, so, yeah, totally email me. You could also record a voice memo, ‘cause you’re going to sound great, ‘cause you sound awesome. You can email me that if you want to just record a message; that also works. You should totally do that, by the way; you’re going to sound terrific. But my point is you sound great, and I want to hear from you, so please email me if you’ve got questions, ideas, or suggestions.

Now, I have more exciting words that I’m really delighted to say in this intro. This week’s sponsor copy, I get to say some really awesome things, plus I’m going to tell you about the books in this anthology and, hello, catnip alert. This is just a whole intro of catnip, I think. All right, I will now attempt to be somewhat professional – which is not what you want, I know. Oh, great! And the cat is here. Chance of cat: 80%. Okay. So I’m going to move my equipment around so Orville can flop over just in time for the sponsor. Nice one! Nice, leisurely flop. Okay. Now are you ready? Okay.

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Now typically you’ll see the copy, the cover copy for the book with the rest of the information about the sponsor book in the podcast entry at smartbitchestrashybooks.com/podcast, but I want to share with you some of the details about these short story/novellas because, yeah, you want to know about this.

So the first one is “The Snow Man” by Diana Palmer, and this is the description: Meadow Dawson needs Santa to deliver a solution to her management of the Colorado ranch she has inherited. Cattleman Dal Blake just wants his pretty neighbor’s dog to quit digging under his fence. – Ah, I, okay! I com-, I am entirely understanding of this cattleman’s problem. I also want the dog to stop digging under a fence, although it’s my dog and my fence.

The second one, “Kassie’s Cowboy” by Lindsay McKenna finds a solitary former Marine rancher discovering his childhood sweetheart injured in her car just beyond the ranch during a snow storm! Woohoo! They’re stuck in the snow! There’s a snowy silent night. I love it! I love this; this is my favorite trope, stuck in the snow, because it’s not perilous. As long as you’ve got, like, you know, blankets and water and the toilet works, you’re okay!

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Okay, so that is Christmas with My Cowboy, and I want to thank Kensington Books for not only sponsoring this episode but letting me say the words jingle boots, because that has just made my day.

I do not have a transcript sponsor for this episode. Will there be a transcript? Of course there will, because y’all are awesome.

And I have news about Patreon. Now – ahem – I’m going to roll up my sleeves – you may have heard that they were changing their fee structure. They made a big announcement. They were going to start charging the fee for transactions, which usually is what I would pay as the creator, and passing that fee back to the people who make individual pledges, and this was a terrible idea, because this meant that people who pledged a dollar or three dollars – and there were very many of you – had an extra thirty percent added to your pledge, and that’s not what you wanted, and that’s not what I wanted either. Sounds terrible! As a result of that change, a number of you have cancelled your pledges, and I just want you to know that I understand. I understand completely. I am so sorry about this change that Patreon had announced. But! Right before I sat down to record – which never happens; usually big things happen after I’ve done the production – Patreon has heard you and me and everyone else, and they are not going to change the fee structure. I have a link to their post about it; basically it says, we messed up, and we’re sorry. Yes, you did, and I’m glad you are! So Patreon is not going to be changing the fee structure to pass the transaction fees on to people who make pledges, and it seems that they are listening to the fact that the burden of the fee was much, much higher on pledges of a dollar or three dollars, and there were many of you. So thank you, thank you, thank you, Patreon for not doing the change that I thought was terrible, and if you reduced or eliminated your pledge, please know that I understand. A number of you have asked me for alternate methods, and I’m going to be working on that soon if you would like to support the show.

The music you’re listening to is provided by Sassy Outwater. I’ll have information, plus links and books and everything.

But now, I think I’ve talked enough. Let’s do this podcast.

[music]

Sonali Dev: Hi, everyone. I’m Sonali Dev, and as, as you can tell, I interrupt a lot, and I have no basic conversation skills, but I do write –

[Laughter]

Sonali: – I, I do write Bollywood-style love stories. So basically, socially conscious romance that borders on women’s fiction, I think, would be the way to describe it. Does that sound right, Sarah?

Sarah: That does sound right! I never heard you describe your books as socially conscious. That’s really cool! How long have you been using that sort of descriptor? Or did somebody tell you that, that your books were too socially conscious, and you were like, damn right they are!

Sonali: [Laughs] Like, three seconds. I was just, I, I –

[Laughter]

Sonali: Well, that makes it sound – now this is going to be even harder to sell books, because that makes me sound like I’m preaching, and, and I’m really not. What I usually describe them as is me exploring women’s issues from around the world while still indulging my faith in a Happily Ever After, so –

Sarah: I love this plan. This is a great plan! Don’t let anyone –

Sonali: [Laughs]

Sarah: – stop you with stupid labels.

[Laughter]

Sonali: Exactly! So it indulges my, you know, because I believe in a Happily Ever After completely, but, but I’m also completely, you know, punched in the gut by a lot of stuff that people face around the world, and especially women, I think, and so that’s what my books are about.

Sarah: Brilliant! Now you have a new book out.

Sonali: I have –

Sarah: This is the worst question to ask any author: so tell, tell us everything about your book. You can just start reading in chapter one and keep going till you finish – I’m kidding. [Laughs]

Sonali: And I would actually do this, because I have writer friends who hate doing readings, and it’s, I mean, I tell you, it’s my favorite thing to do! I could actually –

Sarah: Really!

Sonali: Yeah, I could bore you to death. I would read my entire book to you if you let me! I love doing readings. It’s just, I, I used to not always be like that, but I think once I kind of, because I read them aloud to myself –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Sonali: – for the cadence and, you know, I think you just make more sense if you’re pretending to read to someone else, because you always make sense when you’re talking to yourself. I don’t know if that happens to everyone.

Sarah: No!

Sonali: That’s me! You know, I never argue with myself. I’m like, oh, you’re brilliant!

[Laughter]

Sonali: But, but –

Sarah: You know, that’s, that’s really funny!

Sonali: But when I’m reading it as though I’m reading it to someone, and I’m being my own audience who is not me, a lot of things become clearer, so it’s not just the cadence and the prose but, but what I’m saying and what the characters are saying actually makes sense or doesn’t make sense in a different way, so I do always read all my books aloud once they’re complete, so that’s my last thing I do in revision is read them aloud, and, and I read them, actually, like, dramatically. I read them with accents and voices and, you know, and so that just – and I love doing it, so I kind of, when I used to be nervous about reading to people, that’s what I kind of told myself is that this is exactly what I’m doing now there’re real people listening, and I, I totally ham it up. I love it, so, so I would actually read my book to you without – [laughs] –

Sarah: I would –

Sonali: You don’t have to ask me twice, so beware. [Laughs]

Sarah: I am seriously hoping that maybe you would read some of it, like, right now? Like, tell about it and then read a couple pages from the beginning, because this sounds so amazing and I cannot, I would love to hear this. Like, you should sell tickets.

Sonali: [Laughs] I do, actually, sometimes, I think. Or someone does.

Sarah: You, good! You totally should. So tell us about the book and then please read some. Please? Pretty please with sugar on top? I, I will ask you more than twice.

[Laughter]

Sonali: You don’t have to. All right, so it’s not out yet. It comes out December 26th, so I think it’s considered a 2018 book, and it’s called A Distant Heart, and amazingly enough, it is a Bollywood-style retelling of Rapunzel, I guess, would be the best way for me to describe it, and I think that the, that the theme really is this whole overprotection of women in society. I think that’s the theme of Rapunzel, and that’s what I mean by that retelling, but, but there’s, there’s more concrete form given to it, because this is the story of Kimi who is, at the age of twelve, diagnosed with a rare form of aplastic anemia, so she’s basically – and she lives in Mumbai, and for anyone who’s not been to Mumbai, it isn’t the best place in the world to have any kind of immune deficiency. [Laughs] I mean, if you need something in Mumbai, you need your immunity. So she lives in Mumbai, and she’s locked up in a sterile room for twelve years –

Sarah: Wow.

Sonali: – and Rahul, the hero, is a servant in the home, and it’s a little more complicated than that, but he basically, you know, comes into the house to do his job, and so for twelve years he’s the only friend she has. He’s her eyes to the outside world, and they develop friendship across that plastic curtain. And then twelve years later a, a cure comes, and they have to find their way, she has to find her way in the real world, because living in her little bubble, she’s still kind of been very much in the world because of technology, but she has to, you know, but it’s still been, you know, a view through a window, and then it’s her finding her way through the real world, but it’s really them finding their way across everything that separates them, I think, in society that was not there in that closed room. So that’s basically what it is, and of course there’s also a crime plot because he’s a cop now, and he’s protecting her – [laughs] – from this crazy gang lord, so there, there’s that angle to it also, but –

Sarah: This is a book that deals with organ, black, black market organ transplant. I have a bunch of questions about that. But this book is connected to A Change of Heart, but you don’t have to read A Change of Heart to read this book, is that right?

Sonali: You don’t have to. Naturally, you know, I mean, it, it would only add to the experience. So they are both standalone stories, but they’re very much connected. They are almost two sides of the same story in a way, because they center around that same organ black market ring, and, and the gang lord is, you know, is, is basically the same, the same person who was run-, who runs the, who steals, basically kills people to steal their organs.

Sarah: Oy!

Sonali: That’s what, you know, yeah, that’s what the black market, organ black market means, so.

Sarah: Now –

Sonali: So, yes, it is, it’s centered around that. Amazingly enough, with that dark core, it is not as dark of a book as A Change of Heart, and, and the reason, I think, for that is that Kimi as a protagonist is a much more optimistic, choosing to be happy, let me at the world kind of heroine, so the tone of the book is different.

Sarah: Now I am very curious: what led you to write about black market organ, or the, the black market around organs? Like, what led, what led you to read, write, write about that twice?

Sonali: So the twice thing is actually an easier question to answer: it’s just that the story had these two love stories –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Sonali: – you know, that, that kind of were seeded in this, in this story of the black market ring, so that was natural enough. It wasn’t like I said, oh, this is so exciting that I want to write two books about it, but it was that these two, these four people were all connected to it, and so there were these two stories that I wanted to tell.

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Sonali: So that’s why the two. Now how the black market actually came along is, so, so I started, after I had written Bollywood Bride, I started to write, so, so A Change of Heart was actually supposed to be a prequel almost to Bollywood Bride, so it was going to be, so Nikhil and Jen are two Doctors Without Borders doctors who are, who get married in Bollywood Bride, and I was, I sat down to write their story, because they met, you know, they have this whole story where they met on mission in Afghanistan, and how they met and all of that, and that’s, that’s what I started to write, but once I started to write them, they were characters who basically put themselves in danger all the time for their cause, and just as a matter of course, with them putting themselves in that kind of danger over and over again, this just happened, and I have no other way to explain it, except to say that it just, it, it just happened. Jen was working at a clinic in this slum in Mumbai. It’s called Dharavi; it’s one of the biggest, you know, one of the biggest undocumented slums in the world, and – well, the slum is undocumented, but the people who live there are, and, and she’s working in a clinic there, and she chances upon this, this weird stuff going on around her patients where, you know, people are going missing, and, and she’s been working on an organ donor registry, and it, it, it kind of, she chances upon this black market, and then she’s warned off, and she doesn’t listen, and then she’s murdered before Nikhil’s eyes, and this literally just happened as I was writing. And then I was completely stumped, and for six months I kind of didn’t write because I had no idea what to do now.

Sarah: What do I do now that my heroine has died?

Sonali: Has died. And, and I think a little bit of that came from the fact that, you know, we write Happily Ever After, right, and, and, and we know, I mean, a part of us knows that there is that, and a part of us knows that there is not always that. It’s not that simple, and I think that, as a writer, as a person, you know, as a mom and a wife, I think that that whole wanting to see what really happens if we believe all our lives in something and in a moment it’s gone, what happens, and I think Change of Heart for me was that, that we talk about hope, and we, you know, in romance especially, we talk about hope and love and then what happens after that book closes and if that goes away, what happens? And that was kind of, I think that mixed with, with happened to Jen was where Change of Heart came from. So it wasn’t, amazingly enough, it wasn’t that the black market spawned these stories, but it was almost like these stories led into, you know, into that particular social evil, because she’s working in a place so rife with social evil –

Sarah: Right.

Sonali: – if that makes sense.

Sarah: And she’s doing a very small amount of good each day to try to counteract an enormous amount of evil.

Sonali: Exactly, and both of them are, and that’s Nikhil’s angle, that’s the hero’s angle, that he believes so wholly in it, and then when it’s gone so violently, it goes away. Like, he stops believing in it overnight –

Sarah: Right.

Sonali: – right, so when the book starts, it’s like he’s lost something he totally believes. He’s lost everything he totally believes in, and it’s that journey back from there.

Sarah: Right, because at that point in that book, his, his, his grief is very much mired in the idea of, well, what’s the point? I have no point now.

Sonali: Yeah. This is all bullshit, you know.

Sarah: Yeah.

Sonali: What they tell us is all wrong and all of that. What he’s, you know, all his life is wrong, but, you know, I just remembered, remembered – [laughs] – it’s, you asked me why these two stories. So, weirdly enough, what was going to happen, and, you know, with Nikhil’s story was that Kimi was the heroine of, for him that I had, because he’s lost everything and Kimi’s the one who actually, you know – oh, gosh, spoiler alert. Can I do a spoiler? So, so Kimi has, is a heart transplant recipient, and she was going to be the one who got Jen’s heart, and so that was going to be the story, that, that, you know, it was going to be a love story between the girl who got his wife’s heart and, you know, his, losing –

Sarah: Right.

Sonali: – his wife. So that’s kind of where this started, but he is from a very loving, very privileged family, so, so he’s basically, in my mind, he’s, his, his cracks are surface cracks, so all of this is, so he’s pretty solid on the inside. He’s basically just having a meltdown and unable to deal with this, this darkness that happened to him, right? So, so he’s, he’s not really broken on the inside, if you know what I mean, because he’s, he’s had, he’s had this great upbringing. He has the foundation, and Kimi is like that too. Despite all of this awful stuff that happens to her, she, on the inside, is not broken. She’s been, you know, I mean, her, everybody around her and her entire world revolves around keeping her safe and alive. In fact, she calls it, she calls it Project KAKA in – [laughs] – in the book, and it’s Keep Ailing Kimi Alive; it’s an acronym for that.

[Laughter]

Sonali: So her whole world is basically focused on Project KAKA. [Laughs]

Sarah: Do you know that caca in Spanish is, like, a colloquial term for poop? [Laughs]

Sonali: Yes. It is, it is in, in, now, I don’t know which exact Indian language. It’s, but we, we say more kaka? But it’s the same thing, yes.

Sarah: [Laughs] Ah, poop is universal.

Sonali: We call it the same the same thing, so it’s project poop, and it’s in Kimi’s life, so – [laughs] – so she is, she’s basically also – and that gives you an idea, that she’s not really broken on the inside. She has some tough challenges, but she’s not – so then I had these two characters who were, you know, basically not broken on the inside, and for, for Nikhil to come out of something that dark, I felt like when, you know, when I had them on the paper, that there was, you know, there, there was nothing to pull him out of his darkness really. And, and that’s where, and, and Je-, Jess was actually, you know, just a side character and, you know, who they use, who the villain is using, and she was the one who was dark enough for him to realize, you know, that he’s being a baby almost, and so he had to have something darker to pull him back toward his own brightness.

Sarah: Yes.

Sonali: Does that make sense? And that’s kind of how those two stories then split out. I had Kimi, and she was this fabulous vibrant character who had a story, but she was not the heroine for him, and then I had to go and tell her story, and kind of Rahul was, was there. [Laughs] And so that’s a very long drawn-out answer to your simple question.

Sarah: No, it’s a really interesting answer. So it ended up with a character who was just not the right fit for him, and so she got her own hero –

Sonali: Yes.

Sarah: – in a different book. So what led you to the black market for transplant organs? Is that something that you read about or that you, that you saw when you were doing research? How – it’s so interesting, because it’s both completely evil, and yet there are people who are desperate for organs.

Sonali: Yes, and, and a few things, actually. I think many, many years ago, I remember, from when I was very young I remember seeing news stories about it, especially things like kidney theft and stuff. I think it was pretty common to see news stories about it, at least in India it was, and I remember almost twenty years ago, even here, there was a, you know, there was, I don’t know if it was just one of those urban legend stories?

Sarah: Oh, right, where you wake up in a bathtub, bathtub full of ice and your, one of your kidneys is gone? Yes.

Sonali: Yes, yes. [Laughs] Yes! Yeah, so there was a lot of that kind of thing, and I think, you know, that, combined with stories about organ black market rings that I had read growing up and all of that, I knew it was a thing, and it feels almost to me like it is as evil a thing as you can do, right? I mean, it’s, the theft itself is, is really evil, because you’re, basically, it’s, it’s as violating as anything; you’re taking away what is not yours and is someone else’s, right? I mean, it, it seems like it’s at the heart of everything: colonization is theft and slavery is theft at different levels, but almost all crime scenes to have this, taking what does not belong to you. It, you know, seems to me the greatest violence, right, and so take that to something like a, a body part just makes it, I can’t think of anything, almost, more evil than that, right, to take without permission. And then when you add pathos to it, because there’re also a lot of stories where people will, you know, you’re poor enough and you sell it; it becomes a currency –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Sonali: – so it’s, you know – this is what going on, on, on the darker side of it, but on the brighter side of it, organ donation, and I have, one of my closest friends actually works for a nonprofit that works with, with donors – I think it’s Gift of Life in Michigan – and they do some amazing work, so there was her telling, you know, her stories of the lovely work they do, and, and I think all of that combined, it just kind of plays on your subconscious, and then that’s, and it comes up when you tell stories. I think that’s where it’s from.

Sarah: And it’s, it’s a, you have people who are, who are stealing organs or, or selling them, but that organ is going into someone else so that they can live. So it’s like a terrible happy ending –

Sonali: Yes.

Sarah: – for one person and a terrible ending for someone else that’s very unhappy. Yes, I can see why this would be really alluring to write about. How is this the heart of the book, no pun intended?

Sonali: [Laughs] I love the pun, if it were intended! But, yeah, so I think, another thing that I do with a lot in my books –

Sarah: Yes.

Sonali: – is families and, and parental love and, and the things that we will do for our children and those we love, and, and basically the entire book is about, you know, what does love mean? Because Kimi’s backstory is that her parents, who are both very successful – her father is the chief minister of one of the states in India, so he’s extremely politically powerful. He was a huge Bollywood superstar; her mother was a big star, so she comes from great amounts of privilege and success, and even back before that, they come from, you know, sugarcane farming, so there’s this big history of, there’s this long familial history of, of, you know, wealth and excess and privilege, and, and despite that, so that these are people who are not used to –

Sarah: Right.

Sonali: – not having their way –

Sarah: And they can’t fix this.

Sonali: – talking about her parents, and, and, well, they’ve had, and they’re very, they both also have backstories for which they really badly want –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Sonali: – want a family, and –

Sarah: Oh, God.

Sonali: – I think her mother has seven miscarriages. She’s unable to carry a child to term, so really they, they are, like, they will do anything. It is, there’s this whole, you know, they’ve, they’ve done pilgrimages to every holy site in every religion. Like, they will do anything, every treatment, and that’s basically how she is conceived and born. So, so there’s, so, her, her very life –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Sonali: – has started like that, where it’s, we will do anything for this child, anything, and, and when we say that about loved ones, what does that mean is why this is, you know, is the heart of the story.

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Sonali: Where, what does that mean when you say that I will do anything for you? Will you, you know, will you let someone else die? And, and basically, that’s the question, and, and that’s the, that’s the ending question between Rahul and her father also, and – also, again, spoiler alert, but, but, but she learns through the course of the book that, you know, what the meaning of love is and, you know, and sometimes it’s not, it, it’s, it’s knowing –

Sarah: Right.

Sonali: – where to draw the line and living in today, right, and being okay with the fact that this person is here today, because life and death is just part of life.

Sarah: And it’s also an incredible amount of – [sighs] – I want to say gender expectation, sort of? Built into the idea that if you have a woman whose child is being threatened, then most of the time that story is portrayed as that woman can do whatever she needs to protect her child. Like, it’s all going to be, in the eyes of the audience, redeemable and forgivable, because that’s, you know, that’s her, that’s her expected role, to sacrifice everything for her child, if you’re a woman. And that sort of gets extended to fathers too, more and more. What will you do for your child? Will you kill another person? And is it okay because you have this altruistic endpoint? It, it, it makes it a very difficult redemption story.

Sonali: Absolutely, and, and her parents both, when she gets – so when they have her, how they react to –

Sarah: Right.

Sonali: – finally getting what they wanted, and how they react to then being, the threat, this constant, looming threat of losing her because she’s so sick and, and, you know, there is so little hope for a cure. The way the mother and the father deal with that –

Sarah: Right.

Sonali: – is completely different, and that’s a large part of the book. And, and you’re very right; there is, it’s, it’s a very gender-specific –

Sarah: Yes!

Sonali: – what they choose to do, and it, it, yeah, and I had never thought of that that way, but it’s, it’s absolutely true. I mean, I think, I had also never thought of, in an Indian family, you know, this is a daughter, and it really does not matter to them, because this is a child, so that, I think, was a little bit conscious, but the fact that the, the two parents basically, you know, their journeys in how they handle that loss and that threat to their child is completely different.

Sarah: Now you mentioned earlier that this was not as dark and angsty as A Change of Heart, partially, it seems, because Kimi is a very positive person. So do she and, and her romance, are they more uplifting? Is it, it, it sounds like it has this incredibly emotional core with really positive and optimistic characters carrying the story. Does that sound about right?

Sonali: I think so. I think absolutely.

Sarah: Okay, good!

Sonali: [Laughs] And thank you! But, but I, I would not say it’s not angsty, because all my stories are angsty, right? I mean, angst is, I think, the heart of romance for me. It’s like it, you know – so, so definitely angsty, and Rahul is definitely a, you know, has some dark issues going on, but it’s not, it’s not, not dark in the way Change of Heart is because, you’re exactly right, Jess is basically, in her own mind, a ruined character. She’s completely broken, and, and she, she’s okay with that. At this point in the book, she has no – I mean at, when Change of Heart happens, she has no choice but to –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Sonali: – to go with it, you know. I’m broken, but I’ve got to be present, and that’s just the way the world is. Kimi is the exact opposite of that, right? Kimi is, like, for one, she’s been waiting all her life to live, so she has this voracious appetite –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Sonali: – for living when she gets out, when she’s in there, because when she’s in there, she’s collecting, gathering all of this stuff up. You know, basically she’s gathering life up to the best of her ability sitting in a room, and then when she comes out, it’s all this pressure that’s built up, and she’s completely promised herself that this is going to be full. You know, she’s going to live literally every second, so she has this amazing zest for life, and, and, and she’s, you know, she’s totally delightful, and she’s a clown, and she sees, you know, these, everything is fabulous, and she’s excited by every little thing. She’s excited by this little auto rickshaw, you know?

Sarah: [Laughs]

Sonali: So she kind of wants to hug the doorman. Like, she’s just thrilled with everything, and, and, and I think that that spirit of hers is what has kept Rahul going through the time, you know, of his childhood that things were really dark. But, but it was something that he could shut up, like a book he could close when he left that, you know, when he left her mansion, but now when they’re both out in the real world, he is, that’s not his view of the world and this is her view of the world, and, and so, so there’s that disconnect, but she’s, you know, she’s absolutely somebody who will not be put down, and that’s absolutely the reason why, why it’s not a dark book in that sense.

Sarah: I wanted to ask you about the cover. You first showed me the cover of this book I think a long time ago. I think we were, we were at an event together –

Sonali: [Laughs]

Sarah: – but I remember we did a signing at a bookstore, and I think you showed me a, a, a preview of the cover that had just, you’d just gotten a picture of it. The cover is really evocative, because she’s sitting in this sort of pink gown that’s all sort of bunched up around her, her knees, and her feet are just about to touch the water, but she has ankle bracelets on that look very suggestive, like her ankles are bound together almost. Is that, was that imagery on purpose, or am I reading too much into this? I’m reading too much in, right?

Sonali: Okay, I have to say – [laughs] – no, you’re not, but this makes me laugh because, because – okay, so anklets are a huge part of Indian culture, and –

Sarah: Of course!

Sonali: – and a part of the Indian dress, and they are considered very feminine and very demure. I have a theory; I don’t know if it’s a proven theory, but I think that women were, were, you know, anklets were put on women so you could follow their, you know, follow –

Sarah: The sound.

Sonali: – their movements around, yeah, around the house. So it might have been, but of course that’s not what it is. It has also then grown, like all jewelry, to have a sensual, feminine, you know –

Sarah: Of course!

Sonali: – some aspect. It’s part of dancing; it jingles when, you know, you dance, so it’s this, it’s this, it’s the, well, the, you know, bondage now, female bondage in, in knowing where your daughter or your daughter-in-law is around the house is one thing –

Sarah: [Laughs]

Sonali: – but it’s really funny how romance authors are pro-, I mean romance readers are probably the only people who look at that cover and go, oh, my gosh! Is it bondage? Those look like cuffs!

[Laughter]

Sarah: This is entirely my brain, and my brain –

Sonali: No, it, and it –

Sarah: – could just be being an offensive jerk –

Sonali: But no –

Sarah: – but it’s also the position of her legs. Her legs are –

Sonali: Yeah.

Sarah: – are like she’s almost afraid to touch the water.

Sonali: No, it’s not you!

Sarah: It’s not just me? Oh, thank God.

Sonali: But what’s weird is, it’s not just you; so many people have looked at that cover and said, are those, are those cuffs?

Sarah: [Laughs]

Sonali: And it always makes me laugh, because it’s, like, such a thing that no Indian person would think, eh, and, and it’s so almost opposite to what anklet kind of stand far, but – and I know I sound like I’m contradicting myself with the, with the other bondage thing, but, but it’s, but, you know, bondage isn’t, is, is a different thing in terms of romance. [Laughs] It’s, it always makes me laugh, but all the other parts of what you are saying, I think, are absolutely on target, because –

Sarah: [Laughs] I am like, I feel like I should apologize for being an idiot.

[Laughter]

Sonali: No, you’re not being an idiot! And you’re, you know, I mean, everybody looked at that and went, are those cuffs? And I was like, are those what? It did not even enter my mind, like, not for a second, that someone would think anklets are cuffs, but then when you look at it a certain way, it’s like, yeah, you might be right. But I think what they were going for, so, so when they did say to me that we’re going, you know, we want it not to be the henna –

Sarah: Right.

Sonali: – and bangles and, you know, bindis kind of cover, I was actually excited, because, because this book is my first book that is set entirely in India.

Sarah: Oh!

Sonali: So the entire book, in fact, is set in Mumbai, in one suburb of Mumbai that I grew up in. There is a short trip they take, you know, to Hong Kong, but other than that, the book is entirely set in this, in this one suburb, and there’s a very strong reason for, for it, but, so, even though it is set in India, this is my least cultural book, if you will, and I don’t know if that makes sense, but that, so there’s no weddings, there’s, you know, you’re there. It’s like when you’re in India, it’s almost like this migrant thing. You almost have to not do Indian things because you’re in India, you know what I mean?

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Sonali: Everything is, is kind of Indian, and almost all of my friends and cousins in India don’t really wear those many saris or salwar kameezes. This is just my little, you know, circle, and they’re amused that we still wear, because here you’re trying hard to hold on to culture –

Sarah: Right.

Sonali: – in some ways, and the first books, being Indian-American, you know, there’s a lot of, there’s some of that, so this is the least cultural. It’s just a story in, in that sense. So, so it would have been really weird to have henna and saris and, you know, bangles in this book, because she never puts a sari on. She’s, you know, never really thinking in those terms.

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Sonali: There’s no wedding going on, none of that, so it would have been really weird, so I was very, very excited because it’s just a story, and it’s, it’s a very accessible story in my mind, not that the others are not –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Sonali: – but it would have been weird to have one of those covers for this one, so that made me very, very excited. And, and I think also, in terms of colors, they wanted this more women’s fiction/contemporary kind of feel to it, which is what those colors definitely do, and I think that the, the whole, you know, feet over water thing is about anticipation, right, when, you know, you’re so close to the water, but your feet are not in it, that kind of thing, so you’re absolutely right. It’s this –

Sarah: Oh, totally! It’s breaking through a boundary. Like the, the surface tension of the water is similar to the plastic bowl that she lives in.

Sonali: Exactly. Exactly, so there is that, you know, if there’s that, it, it was meant to suggest yearning. It was meant to suggest needing to break free, so that’s kind of –

Sarah: Yes.

Sonali: – you know, and, and the cover artists always, I think, atmospherically in all books, do capture what this story means to –

Sarah: It’s a beautiful cover. It’s a really beautiful cover.

Sonali: Thank you.

Sarah: You know, it’s interesting listening to you talking about the book being set entirely in, in Mumbai with – I actually learned this in a really interesting marketing podcast, that we as humans feel favorable towards things that are familiar, and so if we see someone’s face, just even in passing in a crowd, and then we see that person again, we will feel favorable, positive associations with that person just because they look familiar, and that works very much so in marketing, and it’s one of the strongest arguments, for example, for advertising the cover of your book. Like, you can do a lot of imagery, but what you really want to do with, with advertising a book is to reinforce the cover image so that when a reader sees that cover in a sea of book covers on a computer screen or in a bookshelf, it looks familiar, and that positive association drives them to pick up that book because they don’t realize that it’s familiar because they saw it on the sidebar of a really cool website called Smart Bitches – [laughs] – but, but that familiarity breeds positive association. But at the same time –

Sonali: You’re, you’re absolutely right, yeah.

Sarah: But at the same time, you have to, when you’re packaging this book, you have to make that bridge between this is something unique and still, unfortunately, unique in that it takes place outside of the United States in a contemporary setting in Mumbai – I don’t, I’m trying to think if I have read a romance set entirely – I mean, I’ve read some of your books, and I’ve read other books that were set in parts of India, but I don’t think I’ve ever read one set in Mumbai – so you have to bridge that, oh, this is something new and interesting and different, and at the same time, there is a familiar center. The heart, as we were talking about, the heart is the same. It’s –

Sonali: Yeah, so –

Sarah: – that’s really hard!

Sonali: It is!

Sarah: I empathize is what I’m trying to say here. [Laughs]

Sonali: Yeah, I’m sorry, I don’t mean to keep on interrupting you, but I know I’m going to forget to say this. So –

Sarah: Please do.

Sonali: So first, before I forget, Suleikha Snyder has, has, I think, almost an entire Bollywood series set in Mumbai. So she has – I’m trying to remember the name of her book.

Sarah: Is it Bollywood and the Beast? Is that one set in Mumbai?

Sonali: Bollywood and the, Bollywood and the Beast is one of them, and there is – oh, my gosh, I’m going to have to pull out my Kindle – there is, there’s, Bollywood and the Beast is not the only Mum-, only one. Oh, gosh. Darn it. [Laughs]

Sarah: Don’t worry –

Sonali: Spice and Secrets, I think; Spice and Secrets is also set there, so she has a few books that are set, set in Mumbai, so I don’t want, want to act like I’m the only one, and that, that truly, of the ones published here, those are the, you know, that’s, those are the only ones that I have read. Of course there is a whole homegrown romance industry where the books are all set in India –

Sarah: Of course.

Sonali: – but, but this one is, and you’re absolutely right. I think that is, that’s the whole trick, right, in marketing or selling anything –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Sonali: – and it’s not just my kind of romance, but to be, but to be unique and accessible at the exact same time –

Sarah: Yep.

Sonali: – right, which is, which is a tightrope walk, because you don’t want anyone walking away from it saying, this isn’t for me, and, you know, you don’t want anyone saying, oh, my gosh, the same thing again, right?

Sarah: Yep.

Sonali: So I most certainly don’t have one of those problems –

Sarah: [Laughs]

Sonali: – but I do have the other problem, and that’s always, you know, that’s always a, a, a marketing challenge, and I, you know, I’ll take, the uniqueness has certainly served me well, so I won’t complain that much –

Sarah: No.

Sonali: – about the other one, because it’s, you know, it’s one step at a time, but I will say that, you know, that while it’s sad that we have to make these considerations while selling, I haven’t, I’ve been lucky enough to not have to make those considerations while writing yet, and I hope –

Sarah: Oh, that is a good thing; you are right.

Sonali: Yes, and I hope that I don’t have to, and I have to tell you this little story about my editor, and it’s, he’s so amazing, Martin Biro at Kensington, and we were in New York having lunch, so we were walking from, I think from the Kensington offices to lunch, and the day before that I had just suddenly realized, oh, my gosh, he doesn’t know that this book is entirely – because this was, you know, on contract, it is part of a two-book deal, and he didn’t really know what the book was about, and I had spoken with my agent and said, oh, my gosh, I don’t think that I’ve mentioned to Martin that this book is entirely set in Mumbai; do you think it’s something I should mention? And she kind of paused and said, yeah, I definitely think that’s something you should run by him, and so we’re walking and we’re having a conversation, and he’s saying something to me, so imagine us kind of, you know, doing the brisk New York walk across the streets of Manhattan –

Sarah: Yes.

[Laughter]

Sonali: – and, and I say to him, oh, Martin, before I forget, I wanted to tell you that, I don’t know if you know, but A Distant Heart is set entirely in Mumbai, and he kind of, you know, doesn’t even pause. He goes, oh, yeah, that’s great! And then goes back to talking about what he was talking about, which was such a fabulous moment in my life as a writer. It’s just really hard to explain. Like, he didn’t even pause; he didn’t ask another question about it. It was such a nonissue to him, he said, oh, that’s fabulous, and then he went on, and he’s been like that with, you know, across these four stories. I, whatever I wanted to write about, he always had one hundred percent faith in it, so Kensington never tried to, you know, do, hit the marketing end, you know, hit me with a marketing stick at the writing end, and I think that’s really, really been such a gift. So –

Sarah: [Laughs] Hit me with the, hit me with a marketing stick in the writing end –

Sonali: Yeah –

Sarah: – is so evo-, you know, do, you know, you should be a writer, ‘cause that’s really evocative. [Laughs]

Sonali: I’ve thought about it! [Laughs] But, so that was, you know, I totally consider myself blessed for being able to write whatever the heck I want to write, and it doesn’t –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Sonali: You know, it’s not, I don’t know, I mean, I’m, I, that, the setting and the culture, it’s who I am. It’s not something that I can really plan, so it’s –

Sarah: Right, of course. Is there, is there food in this book? How much food are we talking about? Like, on a scale of one to food porn, where are we here?

Sonali: [Laughs] I think this one isn’t that much about food, and that’s the other thing, right? I mean, they’re just, you know, nobody is cooking to hold onto their culture like we were doing in previous books.

Sarah: Right, so that’s –

Sonali: So it’s there they have –

Sarah: Yep.

Sonali: – there, so there’s a whole lot of spice grinding going on, so there’s that. [Laughs]

Sarah: That sounds –

Sonali: Doesn’t it? [Laughs]

Sarah: – quite suggestive and sexy. I am on board for that.

Sonali: That’s a little bit of false advertising. I don’t know that it’s that sexy, but I think it’s a little bit sexy, maybe. [Laughs] But, but I will say, my next book, which doesn’t come out for another year, he is a chef, and the entire book is food porn.

Sarah: Oh, shit! [Laughs]

Sonali: Yes.

Sarah: Oh, no!

Sonali: So that one is just –

Sarah: That –

Sonali: – all food. I, I swear I gained ten pounds just writing that book, or maybe twenty.

[Laughter]

Sonali: Just, like, oh, my gosh, now I have to make a soufflé. [Laughs]

Sarah: Oh, no, poor you! For research, too!

Sonali: [Laughs] Yes.

Sarah: That was actually one of my questions: what are you working on? What, what is next? Please tell me about this? What’s this? What’s this book, hmm? Yes, food, yes, mm-hmm.

Sonali: So, yes, completely, I think completely different again from these, these first four, and this one is set in the bay, the San, San Francisco Bay Area, and it’s about a politically ambitious Indian family that believes that their oldest son is going to be the first Indian-American president of the country, and –

Sarah: Whoa.

Sonali: – this series of books is set in, during the gubernatorial campaign, his, so it starts with him making the announcement, and then it goes through these four books where, you know, through the election. But that’s just the backdrop of it, and they are, they happen to be Indian royals, so this is a part of the Indian, you know, this is basically an Indian royal family that’s migrated to America, so – [laughs] – so there’s this whole –

Sarah: Wow.

Sonali: – whole angle of wealth and privilege and social agenda running through it a little bit, because I think we read a lot of immigrant stories of how everyone is sad that they’re an immigrant, so I wanted to talk about the other side of it, which is that it comes, at least being an, you know, a certain kind of immigrant comes also with some amount of privilege and success, and, and while, while you’re still an outsider and how you reconcile that –

Sarah: Wow.

Sonali: – if you don’t really feel like an outsider. So that’s the, that’s the backdrop of the books, but this first book is almost like a, a filter on Pride and Prejudice. So she is, she’s the Mr. Darcy. So she is a neurosurgeon at Stanford, has never known, you know, wanting something and not getting it, that whole, you know, complete, complete entitlement kind of place that she’s coming from, and that makes her arrogant and makes her see the world, you know, around her a little bit skewed, and he is a Black British chef who was raised in…England, which is almost ninety-eight percent Indian/Punjabi – [laughs] – so he has this really weird, what you see is not what you get kind of person –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Sonali: – so he spins prejudice on its head almost, because when you look at him, everything you assign to him is not really what he is in any way, and he’s here because she is treating his sister, who’s an artist and about to lose her eyesight, and so his, he’s pushing to do more than she wants, to take more risks, that kind of thing, so it’s almost this, this, this pressure on her thinking she’s all that and him thinking, yeah, you’re not all that if you let my sister lose her eyesight kind of thing, so there’s that –

Sarah: She’s the Elizabeth Bennet character.

Sonali: He is the Elizabeth Bennet character.

Sarah: Excuse me, he is. Wow.

Sonali: Yeah, she is the Darcy. So that’s kind of, that’s kind of been so much fun to write, because it’s, it’s, it’s much more family saga in the sense of we do get to really get inside of this family, and, and they’re, it’s an extended family, so the, there are four siblings and then two cousins, and it’s, it’s basically, yeah, their stories.

Sarah: Ohhh, when is, when are those coming out? Are those, do those have release dates, or are those in progress right now?

Sonali: So I think that the first one comes out either late 2018 or early 2019.

Sarah: Wow. This is amazing!

Sonali: Yes, and I’m really excited, and it’s sitting with my editor right now, so she might come back and say, oh, my gosh, this is all crap! And I might have to rewrite it – [laughs] – but, so –

Sarah: Are you, are you with a, are you with a new house now?

Sonali: Yes, and this is –

Sarah: Oh!

Sonali: – these books are with a new house. They’re with William Morrow, so they’re with Harp-, HarperCollins, so new editor, new everything, so I’m excited!

Sarah: That is very exciting. Congratulations!

Sonali: Thank you so much.

Sarah: I always ask this question, and I forgot to prepare you for it, so I’m a horrible person, but what are you, what have you read lately that you want to tell people about? What are some of the things that you’ve read that you want to make sure people know about?

Sonali: Oh, that’s –

Sarah: I’m a horrible person.

Sonali: – an easy one. You’re not at all horrible! That’s my favorite question, and –

Sarah: Yes! Okay, good.

Sonali: – if you have another hour to go – [laughs]

Sarah: Go ahead. It’s the internet! We haven’t run out of room yet. Go ahead.

Sonali: That’s fabulous! So I have to mention first Alisha Rai. Everything she writes I love, but her new series, the Hate to Want You, I always call it The Hate U Give, and then I have to go back and correct myself.

Sarah: [Laughs]

Sonali: So Hate to Want You is fabulous, but Wrong to Need You –

Sarah: It really was.

Sonali: – have you read it yet?

Sarah: I have been saving it, because it comes out this month, and I am afraid that if I read it too far in advance – since we’re recording this in November – I’m afraid that if I read it too far in advance, I will start squeeing, and, well, people won’t be able to buy it, and they’ll be mad!

Sonali: It’s delicious.

Sarah: I want to read it so – so I am, yeah, I think I have to just go ahead and do it.

Sonali: It’s delicious, and, I mean, it, you know, I mean, I love the first one, and the first one was really angsty and everything, but I think in terms of memorability of characters, which is always, which is always, you know, for me, really, really important in, in romance, is –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Sonali: – is how, in how much detail I remember these books, and, and Jackson and Sadia are just, I think, really, really memorable, because they’re so real, and it’s, it’s my crack, basically. It’s, it’s, you know –

Sarah: [Laughs]

Sonali: It, it just, a hero who’s loved the heroine for a very long time, and –

Sarah: Oh, that is totally my, my catnip too.

Sonali: And he’s –

Sarah: That is utterly my catnip.

Sonali: Isn’t it? And, and he is your perfect ni-; nice-guy heroes are my other catnip. You know, say what you will about alpha-holes, they don’t do anything for me. It’s the good guys; it’s the guys who care about their families and the guys who –

Sarah: You and me both.

Sonali: Yeah, right?!

Sarah: Dudes who are relentlessly decent and kind –

Sonali: Yes!

Sarah: – and have just this –

Sonali: And Jackson is.

Sarah: Oh, yeah.

Sonali: Yes. Everything that’s relentlessly decent and kind, and he’s just fabulous, and he’s hot and he’s big and he’s just –

[Laughter]

Sonali: So, so –

Sarah: And when he showed up, when he showed up –

Sonali: Yeah.

Sarah: – in the middle of the night –

Sonali: Instantly –

Sarah: – in Hate to Want You, I was like, who is this guy?! [Laughs]

Sonali: Yes, yes, and, you know, I don’t know how she did it, but I was reading it, and I did actually text her. I said, the next book better be about Jackson!

[Laughter]

Sonali: And Sadia, and I knew, like, there was no this thing, but you knew instantly that the, or I knew instantly –

Sarah: Something’s up there.

Sonali: – that it was going to be those two. So – [laughs]

Sarah: Oh, yeah, something’s up there!

Sonali: Yeah, yeah, and it sure is. So it’s, and it almost kind of, you know, had that same vibe as Kristan Higgins’ Next Best Thing. Remember the one in which he’s –

Sarah: Yes.

Sonali: – because he’s her brother-in-law, so there’s, you know, there’s some of that same, and I had really enjoyed that book too, so, so it kind of reminded me of that. It’s just, they’re both great books, and I really enjoyed Jackson and Sadia’s story, Wrong to Need You. And another one that I recently read: so, so all these years I’ve been thinking, I’ve not read enough Latino romance, right?

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Sonali: And this, this fall, we had Take the Lead by Alexis Daria. Did you read that one? It is –

Sarah: I have not.

Sonali: Oh, my gosh, she is so talented. I would totally watch out for her. She’s so funny and light and, and has this fabulous sincerity in her writing. You know, like, there are just some authors that you can actually, like, see them, like, across the, you know, across the story. Like, it’s their hearts in that story, and I think that she writes like that, where there’s this lovely sincerity where she’s really found her voice and the story she wants to tell. So it’s, Take the Lead is lovely. It’s set on the set of Dancing with the Stars.

Sarah: Oooh!

Sonali: I don’t know if she calls it that in here, but she is a pro, and she’s Puerto Rican, and she’s the pro, and he is, he’s an Alaskan survivalist. [Laughs]

Sarah: As you do!

Sonali: So – do, right! And his family is one of those reality TV, living in Alaska, surviving, you know, by their wits kind of reality shows, and he’s this dark, brooding, of course has tons of secrets, doesn’t really want to be doing that, and then here he is, dancing on this show.

Sarah: [Laughs]

Sonali: And then, then she can’t date, you know, she doesn’t want to be the stereotypical Latina dancer who gets involved with everyone she dances with –

Sarah: Of course.

Sonali: – kind of thing, and so, you know, she does go there a little bit, and, and it’s really very, very well written. Again, a nice-guy hero, just really, really decent and hot.

[Laughter]

Sonali: So it’s, it’s fine. So it’s very well written, and I, I really enjoyed it. I have the ARC for the next one. Haven’t read it yet, but, but again, it was one of those things: this had better be Natasha’s story! kind of thing, so it was –

[Laughter]

Sonali: So loved that, loved her, and really looking for-, you know, forward to what she does. And there was another, also Puerto Rican heroine, and I think it was called His Perfect Partner?

Sarah: Yes!

Sonali: And that’s by Priscilla Oliveras, and that is also really lovely; a little bit more family, family man, you know, and she and her sisters and her parents kind of thing, so a little more women’s fiction-y and sweet, but really well written and very, very nice too.

Sarah: Nice!

Sonali: Yeah, and I could go on, as – [laughs] – as I said, but I have to mention Nalini Singh’s Silver Silence, because I was hoping she’s not done with the Changelings, and I absolutely loved the bears, so I –

Sarah: Can you –

Sonali: And I don’t say that in, in terms of sports, but I say that in terms of Nalini Singh!

[Laughter]

Sarah: So –

Sonali: Not that I have anything against the Bears, but –

Sarah: No, of course. If you are curious about Silver Silence and you haven’t read the rest of the series – I’ve read some of it – so for a reader who’s never read the series, do you think you could enter at Silver Silence and know what’s going on?

Sonali: Oh, I, ah, you know, I’m so deeply entrenched in that series –

Sarah: [Laughs]

Sonali: – but I think you could.

Sarah: Yes.

Sonali: I think you could. In fact, yeah, I mean, I totally think you could, because, yeah, yeah, I’m trying to think of a single reason. It’s not, you know, the whole, the war, this is post-war almost, right. I mean post Silence falling and everything, so she, she does a pretty good job of explaining where we’re at in the story, and there, there are characters who show up who are from, you know, the previous book, but there’re so many characters in those books that you kind of, you know, you, you learn to go with not knowing exactly who someone is, and then she brings you back into it.

Sarah: Yes.

Sonali: So I totally think you could, you, you know, you could read, start there, absolutely. And he, again, is, you know, great nice-guy alpha. So –

Sarah: Oh, my.

Sonali: – you, as you can see, you sense a, a pattern.

Sarah: Yeah, there’s a theme. There’s a theme here, yeah. I see that. Well, is there anything else you want to make sure to mention? I have plenty of audio to craft an excellent podcast. Thank you so much!

Sonali: This is fabulous. Let me see: since we were talking about marketing, I’m going to talk about a couple things that I’ve been doing that I hope, you know, the listeners might be interested in? And one of the things –

Sarah: Please do!

Sonali: Thank you, Sarah! And one of the things is that I do this, this virtual signing series. So they’re basically interviews with other romance authors where you can, you have, you watch them live, and of course I put them up on YouTube after. You watch them live, and as you’re watching, you can send in questions, and you can buy signed books, and we’ve had –

Sarah: Oh, cool!

Sonali: Yeah, we’ve had, I think we just shot our eighth episode, and we’ve had Julia Quinn, Beverly Jenkins, we just had Mollie Cox Bryan. The next person on is Sally Kilpatrick, and then Kristan Higgins is on in January, and if you follow me on social media, you’ll know what’s coming up, and all of the past episodes are on my website. So there’s that we’re doing, and of course we tried to kind of, you know, talk about everything we love about romance, but also all of, you know, all of the agency and, you know, the, the feminist issues that we handle, and there we try to kind of get into the smarter aspects of romance, I think, that, that get overlooked, but we also have a lot of fun and talk a lot about, you know, doing the nasty and all of that.

[Laughter]

Sarah: That’s very cool!

Sonali: So, so it’s a lot of fun. I, yeah, I personally have a lot of fun doing them. I match my clothes to the book covers, and so we do, we have a lot of, you know, fun there. There’s that, and, and then, you know, being somebody who writes, I think, you know, somewhat hot, but also these stories that are, you know, that kind of push, push into the – I hate the term women’s fiction, but, you know, I like to say mainstream fiction – but that push into the women’s fiction side, we have a group of eleven authors like that who have a Facebook group called Fiction from the Heart, and we all kind of, we do, really don’t do any of the marketing pushing of our books, but we really just talk about ourselves and other books and –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Sonali: – kind of loving reading and things like that, so – and that’s a great bunch of ladies. I mean, I think Barbara Samuel, Falguni Kothari, oh, gosh, K. M. Jackson, and I could go through all, I should go through all eleven, but I’m going to bleep out – Virginia Kantra, Hope Ramsay, Priscilla Oliveras – who did I miss? – Liz Talley and, gosh, and if you go on there you’ll see the rest, but since I mentioned Falguni, I have to also go back and say her book comes out in January, and it’s called My Last Love Story, and it is absolutely fabulous.

Sarah: Really!

Sonali: It’s, it’s this, yes, it is, it’s, it’s the strangest almost polyamorous story, which is kind of weird, because it’s, it’s not even really a love triangle. It’s basically a, a story of these three friends who were friends back in India. It’s set here again in California, and it’s these three friends who have this amazing connection, two boys and a girl, and both the guys were in love with her, but she dated one of them, but their, their, their bond is really strong across all three of them –

Sarah: Ooh!

Sonali: – and her husband is dying of cancer –

Sarah: Oh!

Sonali: – and they’re third best friend is in to help them, and it’s how that whole, you know, three-way love dynamic –

Sarah: Whoa!

Sonali: – shakes out. Beautiful, and it comes out, I think, January 26th, and it’s definitely must-read.

[music]

Sarah: And that brings me to the end of this episode. Thank you to Sonali Dev for hanging out with me and talking about your book and your cover and what you’re reading. If you are looking for links to any of the books that we mentioned during this episode or links to the other things that she talked about, they are in the podcast entry at smartbitchestrashybooks.com/podcast.

This episode is brought to you by Christmas with My Cowboy by Diana Palmer, Lindsay McKenna, and Margaret Way, and I get to say the following sentence; my entire day is made. Are you guys ready? Get your jingle boots on with this sexy and heartwarming Christmas anthology from bestselling authors Diana Palmer, Lindsay McKenna, and Margaret Way, featuring three irresistible cowboys in Christmas with My Cowboy. Jingle boots! [Sighs] Seriously, day made. From the snowy, wind-whipped prairie to the remote Australian Outback, a cowboy’s loving kiss makes this Christmas merry and bright. The warmth and joy of Christmas will be combined in these stories with vibrant ranch settings and alpha heroes being tamed by a plucky, adventurous heroine. ‘Tis the season for romance with Christmas with My Cowboy, available everywhere books are sold and at kensingtonbooks.com. I now need jingle boots; there is no question I need jingle boots.

Now, as I mentioned in the beginning, but I’m going to repeat again, yay! Patreon has changed their decision. They had announced they were going to be passing the transaction fees from the creators – that would be me – on to the people making the pledges – which would be you – which was a terrible idea, because if you were a person who pledged a dollar or three dollars, all of a sudden your pledge was going up thirty percent, and even more if you were making international transactions. So I know that a number of you canceled your pledges, and I want you to know I completely understand, and I am sorry about their decision, and I am completely on your side, and I empathize entirely with your position. However, please know Patreon has heard you and heard me and heard everyone else that was like, dude, what are you doing? And they’re not rolling out the fee structure changes. I have a link to their post about it where they say, we’re sorry, and we messed up, which, you know, is kind of rare, it’s, for a company to be like, yeah, yeah, we, we, we made a mistake. Mm. As Courtney Milan pointed out, it would always be good to have a public comment time period when you are providing what she calls a public-facing service. That probably might have, might have avoided this problem. But either way, I am so relieved that Patreon is not going to change the fee structure. I should pay the fees, and that is how it seems to be looking for the foreseeable future, thank goodness. However, many people did contact me to ask me to pursue alternate ways for supporting the show, so I am researching that into the New Year, and when I have information I will share all the details.

In the meantime, thank you very, very much for everything that you do to support the show. That includes pledges on Patreon, telling your friends, subscribing, leaving reviews with whatever podcast app or program or service you use to listen. The fact that you hang out with me every week is an enormous honor, so thank you.

The music you are listening to is provided by Sassy Outwater. Yes, this is Deviations Project. Yes, this is Adeste Fiddles, and I’m sure you identified this song. This is “Favourite Things.” You can find this album at Amazon, and I will have links to it in the podcast entry at – say it with me! – smartbitchestrashybooks.com/podcast.

Now, as always, I end the show with a terrible joke, and I’m very excited about this joke because we are in the middle Hanukkah. So if you are celebrating, Chag Sameach! Happy Hanukkah! I hope that this year and every year is bright and warm and that all of us have miracles. So are you ready for your terrible joke? This is through my husband, who saw this tweeted by Josh Malina:

What do you call a half-eaten piece of gelt?

Give up? What do you call a half-eaten piece of gelt?

Bit coin!

[Laughs] I love it so much! It’s so bad! Thank you, Josh Malina, and thank you, Adam.

And thank you to you for hanging out with me each week. I wish you the very, very best of reading. Have a wonderful weekend. Happy Hanukkah and Happy Holidays. I will see you here next week.

[reminiscing music]