676. Exploring Atonement Sky with Nalini Singh

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Sarah Wendell: Hello there, and welcome to episode number 676 of Smart Podcast, Trashy Books. I’m Sarah Wendell, and my guest today: Nalini Singh! I love talking to Nalini. Whenever I record with her, since she’s in New Zealand and I’m on the East Coast in the US, it’s a really weird hour for both of us to be on a microphone, so a massive thank-you to Nalini for speaking to me bright and early in the morning. We are going to talk about Atonement Sky, about her writing, world-building, and her watch list and reading list for when she’s done writing. I also will mix up my animal pluralities, but do not worry; I fix it. I’m very excited to share this.

I also want to say No, thank you to Wilbur, my cat, who was vocally put out with my choices and ends up with Nalini defending him in court. It’s going to be a whole thing.

I will have links to all of the books and TV shows we discuss, as well as where to sign up for Nalini’s newsletter, which you absolutely want to do, in the show notes attached to the file in your player or at smartbitchestrashybooks.com/podcast under episode 676.

I have a compliment this week, which makes me extremely happy.

To Michelle K.: Currently, the perfect blanket is being invented that is the ideal weight but never too hot, and the science team has reserved the name Michelle, because you too are the perfect balance of good things.

If you would like a compliment of your very own, please have a look at patreon.com/SmartBitches. Our community helps keep the show going, helps me procure more weird issues of Romantic Times, and makes sure that every episode has a handcrafted transcript from garlicknitter. Howdy, garlicknitter! [Howdy, Sarah! – gk] Your support means a lot.

You can also support the show by leaving a review wherever you listen. Seriously, they are tremendously important. You can just tell a friend. Tell random people in the grocery store; go ahead. I’m a hundred percent on your side. But most of all, thank you for listening. I am so happy you’re here.

Ooh! One more quick thing: inspired by other Patreon folks, including Chris DeRosa at Fixing Famous People, I’ve put together a collection of some of our exclusive bonus content free so you can sample what we’ve got. For example, do you want to do a crossword puzzle from the May 1995 issue of RT? The crossword puzzle is available for free on Patreon right now. If you’d like to read an issue of RT Magazine, the entire issue from December 1997 is now available for your perusal, and the covers are amazing. And if you’d like to try one of our bonus episodes, you can join Amanda and me as we look back at our 2024 predictions about romance and publishing. This collection of special previews is available now to all listeners; there’s a link in the show notes to dive in. And if you like our free samples, join us in the Patreon community where there’s bonus content and much, much more.

All right, are you ready to talk about all the things with Nalini? On with the podcast.

[music]

Nalini Singh: My name’s Nalini Singh. I write paranormal romance for the most part, paranormal romance and urban fantasy, but I’ve also written contemporary romances, and I do write standalone thrillers as well. I just started doing that; I think the first one came out maybe three, three years ago? Four years ago? And yeah, and I bonded with Sarah when she took me for Nutella pizza –

Sarah: Yes!

Nalini: – so, like, the friendship cannot be broken now.

Sarah: Gluten-free Nutella pizza!

Nalini: [Laughs]

Sarah: And I remember when we went to dinner, I was like, I have the perfect restaurant; we’ll take Nalini out near me; and it’s like nineteen miles west of New York where I lived, so we all, you know, got in the car, and the publicist is there and you’re there and I’m there, and I think it was Ashwini with us? I don’t remember.

Nalini: I think so. I think so, yeah.

Sarah: So we got this big old honking Nutella pizza for dessert, and I remember your publicist going, How am I going to explain that we went to Nalini’s dinner, but we had to, like, go out to Jersey? And I’m like, Just blame me! Tell them I insisted and it would hurt my feelings. I still have a picture of you that I love, cuddling this gigantic tub of Nutella.

Nalini: It was enormous!

Sarah: Yes.

Nalini: I, I still have not ever seen that size Nutella jar in my life. That was – and they didn’t only have one!

Sarah: Oh no!

Nalini: They had like multiple ones –

Sarah: Yeah.

Nalini: – in the, in the shop!

Sarah: Oh yeah.

Nalini: So I was like –

Sarah: It’s like a gallon –

Nalini: It’s fantastic.

Sarah: – of Nutella.

Nalini: [Laughs]

Sarah: If I ever end up in New Zealand, I will do my very best to pack a big Nutella container. I’m sure that security will have no problems with that. It will be –

Nalini: No problem at all! [Laughs]

Sarah: – very smooth; no one will even blink. It’ll be fine.

Well, congratulations on Atonement Sky.

Nalini: Thank you!

Sarah: Am I right that this is book twenty-four in the series?

Nalini: I think so? I was, I was doing some mental math in my head, and so the first season of the series is fifteen books –

Sarah: Yep.

Nalini: – and that’s like a completed season. And then I started season two. So people who, you know, don’t be terrified by the whole fifteen books. You can start in season two with Silver Silence and yeah, I’m pretty sure now we’re at book eight of season two, so –

Sarah: That is –

Nalini: – that would be twenty-four!

Sarah: – very cool. Do you know how many books per season? Have you plotted that out?

Nalini: I’m not sure. I, I tend to do it by story feel? Like, the original, I had a particular story arc I was going for, and then it took however long it took. Mostly the story was complete by fourteen, but I did fifteen as a kind of a wrap-up book. It’s a fun book; you get to see everybody in. And I’ll do the same with this. If it needs a few books longer, if it needs a few books less, then that’s fine; I’m happy to go with it. I’m, I’m all about making sure we’re getting an interesting story throughout the books, as well as in each specific book, so I want, I want the story to move forward.

And for people who haven’t read the series, you know, the Psy/Changeling series, it’s a, it’s about a world where there’s three races. You know that we have the Psy, who have incredible psychic powers, and you have the Changelings, who are like shapeshifters, and you have the humans caught in between, and they’re all very different, and there’s a lot of political backstory, and then there’s the story of the Psy. Yeah, they chose to be emotionless because they were going insane, and there was so much crime, and so there’s a massive amount of the worldbuilding backstory that I think is really interesting, and I think that’s why readers continue to come back to the series is not only because of each romance in the books, but that –

Sarah: No.

Nalini: Yeah, that, that background story that is progressing the world forward. And I always wanted to be change in each book, like, as a step.

Sarah: Yes.

Nalini: And I feel like Atonement Sky is a massive step, so.

Sarah: It’s a big-ass step.

Nalini: Yeah.

Sarah: Like, I, I got to the one part – I will not spoil; I don’t spoil when I do an interview about a new release, but I got to one part and I was like, Holy shit, they did it? They did the thing they’ve been trying to do for like twenty –

Nalini: [Laughs]

Sarah: Wow! They did the – I was, I was all, I was so proud? [Laughs]

Nalini: I know. I was, it was amazing! I was like – and it, and I was writing this book, and I do plot the background arc; like, I know, I need to know where I’m going.

Sarah: Of course!

Nalini: But I don’t always know in which book it’s going to, something’s going to land off, off that background. It just feels, I just work with it according to the feel of that particular story –

Sarah: Mm-hmm

Nalini: – and, and what naturally comes, and this one just, all the pieces just fitted in place, and I was like, This is fantastic! This is –

Sarah: Oh –

Nalini: – all coming together.

Sarah: – the bigger story goes, the immediate story goes, the community –

Nalini: Yeah.

Sarah: – story, the community of the different Changeling groups continues to go, and, like, awesome. I had such a good time reading this, by the way?

So how do you introduce Atonement Sky? What is your, what is your introduction or elevator pitch for this book?

Nalini: Elevator pitch – so I’m terrible at elevator pitches, but –

Sarah: Which is why I love to ask for them, because people are like –

Nalini: [Laughs]

Sarah: – I don’t know! I wrote it like a year ago!

Nalini: I know! This is a story, it’s, it’s, it’s a story of, of betrayal and redemption, and it’s a story of two people coming together after a very long time. So there’s a history there. They met as two very young people, and something terrible happened. And, and so it’s a story of can you get past something that’s like a fracture, like a massive fracture in both their psyches? And, and then they’re thrown together by something, you know, like, like something terrible is happening in this area – I’m trying not to give stuff away, but they, you know, they’re thrown together, but then, in the core of it, is it a story of can you find atonement for, for something this terrible and that scarred both of you? And where do you go from there, even if you can find atonement? Is it even possible? And so that’s the, that’s the emotional story?

And it’s, it features the J-Psy, who are like Justice Psy? They’re telepaths. They go into the mind of, like, monsters and broadcast their memories, which has a terrible impact on them, as you might imagine. You know, they’re, they’re basically broken, breaking down internally. And so it’s, we saw them in the first season, we saw Sophia, but now it’s like – I don’t want to spoil if someone’s going to read the first season, but something happened. You know, there was a massive change? And so it’s like, what are they doing now?

Sarah: What happened? Yeah.

Nalini: And who they are? Yeah. So we’re following on. But if you haven’t read Sophia’s book, you should still be able to read this, because, again, it’s a, a whole different cast of characters. We’re in a whole new area of the, the world, so it’s a self-contained book in that sense?

Sarah: Yeah.

So I wanted to ask you about your, your two main characters. You have, is it Eleri [EL-uh-ree] or Eleri [El-air-ee]?

Nalini: [EL-uh-ree]

Sarah: Eleri. So Eleri is a Psy; she’s a J-Psy. She has a very small, little microcosm of family, of other J-Psys who are in –

Nalini: Yeah.

Sarah: – bad mental shape because they’ve spent their whole careers going into the brains of very messed-up individuals, and Eleri has a very specific extra skill set, which I won’t get into because it’s a bit of a spoiler. But they, these four J-Psy that she has formed this little family with, they have what I would call mega-whopping burnout. Because as, as you describe it, as you go through life being a J-Psy – if, if you think this is too much of a spoiler I can take this out – so as the characters go through life as a J-Psy and they’re doing all of this horrible investigative work, they can have their brains reconditioned, but what that does is actually –

Nalini: Yes.

Sarah: – files off a layer of protection for their psychic brain, and so if they, if their psychic brain –

Nalini: Yeah.

Sarah: – has no protection then they are just listening to everybody all the time everywhere, all at once. Like, worse than Twitter. So –

Nalini: Yes.

Sarah: – she will lose, she will lose control of her sanity and –

Nalini: Yeah.

Sarah: – will probably die. So she’s basically like a raw nerve, exposed to the whole world, and –

Nalini: That is the perfect analogy, yes.

Sarah: – and I just, first of all, I want to say, can I, I, I can relate. I think that’s one of my favorite things. Like, I am not psychic; I am not connected to a vast neural network; I can’t telepath or do anything; but wow, did I relate to the burnout!

Nalini: [Laughs]

Sarah: She’s so tired? It’s like, she is, she’s like, I have to keep going, but I’m so done with this. And there’s no other option, she thinks.

Nalini: Yeah.

Sarah: Like, she thinks there’s no other choice but to just continue to burn out until she fades.

Nalini: Yeah.

Sarah: Like, she just physically burns out and goes. Were you trying to explore burnout through these characters? Was that something you were thinking of, or is this just me going, Girl, I relate!?

Nalini: [Laughs] Yeah. No, no, I wasn’t consciously trying to do that, because when I’m writing I was so in it.

Sarah: Yeah.

Nalini: So I’m basically, like, exploring what’s happening to her? But now that you, you know, you pointed it out I’m like, Yeah, I can see it! That is definitely, that is what – I mean, in the books there’s something called flameout where they push their psychic abilities too far and they basically burn out for a period, like twenty-four hours or forty-eight hours, whatever. And this is way beyond that. This is way to the next level beyond that, what’s happening to her. And, so yeah, it’s, I think it is a, it’s a good way to, to look at it –

Sarah: Yeah.

Nalini: – in terms of, you know, relating it to real life?

Sarah: So I know for Heart of Obsidian, when I spoke to you about Heart of Obsidian, you had a phrase that was in your mind as you were writing, and it was, I know it was three different words. I know one of them was obsession and possession, I think it was?

Nalini: Obsession, possession, devotion.

Sarah: Devotion. See? Look at my brain; I remembered a thing.

Nalini: [Laughs] Good! Good!

Sarah: Did you have a phrase for this book? Was the phrase Can you seek atonement? Can… can there be atonement?

Nalini: Yeah, it was basically the word atonement, the word –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Nalini: – atonement. It was really, as soon as I thought of that word and I thought, Wow, this is – it just resonated? It is such an emotional word –

Sarah: Yeah.

Nalini: – as well? Like, as soon as you see, say the word atonement, you have, there’s so many layers to it?

Sarah: Yes.

Nalini: And even the whole title of the book, with Atonement Sky, and it just, it encompassed them both –

Sarah: Yeah.

Nalini: – so well. But yeah, atonement was really the pivotal, pivotal word…

Sarah: Pivotal. It, it, it makes sense. Like, I was thinking, Oh, that has to be, that has to be the phrase.

How long have readers been clamoring for avian Changelings? ‘Cause my dude here is a bird.

Nalini: [Laughs] Yes, he is a Falcon. So the Falcon Changelings first appeared, I think, in, I feel like book six of the Psy/Changeling series? I might be off by a book, but – and I always intended to go back to them because I was fascinated? I was fascinated by the Falcon Changelings; they’re so different because the whole first season is mostly the Leopard chap-, chapters, the Changelings, and the Wolves. And so in the second season we’ve had Bears, we had the ocean Changelings, and –

Sarah: You had a lot of mammals!

Nalini: [Laughs] I have!

Sarah: It’s very, your shifters are mostly mammalian. This is not that – so I’ve got to ask questions? Do they lay eggs? Is that how they procreate? Do they procreate as humans? Like, have you, is, is there a biology here that, you know, you, you can talk about, or am I, like, going way out of field?

Nalini: I, I…to you, but for the most part they interact and do all that stuff in their human forms, so –

Sarah: So they’re half mammal.

Nalini: They’re – [laughs] – they’re, they’re a half – yeah. That’s the thing, there’s a whole thing when I started the series: I, I had been reading – I think I’ve talked about this before with you – I had been reading a whole lot of books where shapeshifting was like this thing external imposed –

Sarah: Yes.

Nalini: – on people?

Sarah: Yes.

Nalini: Like the moon was making them change into werewolves, whatever, and nobody liked it, right.

Sarah: Yes, ‘cause you didn’t have any control! Like –

Nalini: Exactly…

Sarah: – when you get your first period and you become a vampire.

Nalini: Yeah!

Sarah: Whatever, yeah.

Nalini: It just happened, you know, and I, I wanted it to be that this is who they are –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Nalini: – as a people, and this is not something external to them? This is something that happens as part of their biology, you know. This is something welcome! They love both parts of their nature –

Sarah: Yeah.

Nalini: – and they’re very much, they’re very much both. Even though, you know, they might be in one form or the other, the other part of them is still always present. You know, it’s, it’s not one taking over the other. And so yeah, yeah, so there’s certain things they do in one form, certain things they do in the other, and, yeah.

Sarah: What were some of the things you learned about falcons that, for this book?

Nalini: Oh, there’s all kinds of cool stuff, like their vision? Like, I was looking up who has the best vision, ‘cause I knew that, you know, they’re raptors; they would have excellent vision…

Sarah: Oh yeah, there’s, like, birds that can see a fish in the ocean.

Nalini: They are incredible. I think there’s a joke in the book about, like, they have, like, this competition, roughly, between the bird Changelings, and they were like, My vision’s better than yours! And the other one is like, Yeah, well, but I can dive at like two hundred kilometers an hour and still keep an eye on my, on my prey. You know, and so I, that kind of stuff was super, super cool. Like, just how far beyond what we imagine; like, literally can see kilometers and kilometers at high speed, you know. There’s just, I mean, I don’t have excellent vision – [laughs] – so I’m like, That would be awesome!

Sarah: Wouldn’t that be cool? I, I too have terrible vision. It reminds me of those photographs that represent how different animals see the world, and some animals –

Nalini: Yeah.

Sarah: – see the world in colors that we can’t process? That are beyond –

Nalini: Yeah.

Sarah: – the abilities of our eyes? I think it was related to that whole thing a cou-, in 2020 or 2021 with the dress, was it white or gold or blue and black?

Nalini: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah!

Sarah: Yeah, the way in which we process color is so different from other species that we could not even con-, conceive of what they can see and what the world –

Nalini: Exactly.

Sarah: – looks like to them. I think that was part of one of my favorite things about this whole group of shifters is that there’s all of the fam-, familiar Changeling dynamics: there’s a, a pack for letter of, lack of a better word; there’s leadership; there’s a militaristic or – like, there’s a government –

Nalini: Yeah.

Sarah: – and an enforcement.

Nalini: A structure, yeah.

Sarah: Yes, they have a, a social and hierarchical structure, but also they live in a canyon and can fly and just do whatever the hell they want and, like, that part I, I kind of found so much fun. Like, I hadn’t realized that I, I’ve never read a bird shifter before? I had not? In, like, all the years of reading romance?

Nalini: [Laughs] Oooh!

Sarah: So I was very pleased. Thank you for that! That was really fun!

Nalini: That was really cool. One of the best things I love about worldbuilding is working with the particular type of Changeling to see how they would function in the world, and of course – so, my other series is Guild Hunters, which is, I write about angels and vampires and all that, right?

Sarah: Yeah.

Nalini: And so it’s, I’m used to winged, writing winged beings –

Sarah: Right.

Nalini: – so it was very natural to think, They are not going to want to stay on the ground.

Sarah: Nope.

Nalini: And that is not their normal habitat.

Sarah: No!

Nalini: These people are going to be up high, and, and I always knew they lived in a canyon. I think that’s even mentioned in one of the earlier books, that they just – just a little mention. But, and then building the canyon, you know? Building the canyon and being like, How would they structure it? And the idea of having tunnels inside the canyon, yes, that makes sense for sort of military purposes, but they are birds. They are not going to want to be trapped inside a canyon, and so, going, moving forward on that, I won’t, I won’t spoiler it for readers, so but you can explore yourself as you open the book, but it was so much fun; it was so much fun. And just getting to explore a whole different region of the United States as well, because –

Sarah: Yeah.

Nalini: – I have been to that area, and it made a strong impression on me, but I’ve never been able to go back and – in books – and to put all that beautiful color and that stark, desert –

Sarah: Yeah.

Nalini: – rocky landscape into a book, and so that part of the research was really fun as well, just looking up specific things that I wanted to be sure I got right, ‘cause I’m relying on my memory –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Nalini: – but I also wanted to be like, Well, I didn’t see everything, so I really do a deep dive into the location as well, because even though this is a created world, it’s alternative – so it’s based on, you know, the geography is based on our geography and things like that.

Sarah: Yes, and that’s what grounds it in reality.

Nalini: Yes.

Sarah: Yeah.

Nalini: Yeah.

Sarah: Do you need to…?

Nalini: I love your cat. [Laughs] I love your cat!

Sarah: He is just, the minute the mic is on, he is just like, Meeeh! You need to be quiet!

Nalini: He looks so fluffy, I just want to go and stroke him and…

Sarah: You want pets? All right, well, you can come and pet him anytime. He’s an old man; he’s like thirteen? Oh God, yes!

Nalini: Awww!

Sarah: And he snores.

Nalini: [Laughs]

Sarah: And he thinks he’s the boss. It’s great.

So one of the aspects of Adam’s character that I love – no spoilers – is that he does all the emotional caretaking. All of it. All of the emotional labor is his, because she can’t. She doesn’t have feelings; she barely has a handle on her own brain. She is in a complete state of psychic and physical crisis, and she, she really does think that her life is like, This is literally the last thing I’m going to do before I die. She really thinks this is it, and he has to both provide and engage emotionally, in a way that he’s very fluent in – that’s the other thing about all these shifters: they’re very fluent in their own emotions. So she’s barely handling anything except her own, like, grip on her life, and he is taking care of all of this emotional and physical safety landscape. Does having the animal part of them or the wild part of them, is that the source of the fluency and the comfort with being both caretaker and enforcer?

Nalini: I don’t tend to think that logically when I’m writing? I tend to –

Sarah: [Laughs]

Nalini: – be very sort of, I am the, I am the emotion. You know –

Sarah: Yeah.

Nalini: – I am just in the story. But the whole series, one thing I did think about is what makes a good leader? Right?

Sarah: Yes!

Nalini: What makes a good leader? And right back from Slave to Sensation, even though it’s a, Lucas is a different kind of hero than, say, Adam in this book, but the one thing that you’ll notice is that Lucas is also, he caretakes.

Sarah: Yes!

Nalini: Like, he, he, he looks after his healer.

Sarah: Yes.

Nalini: He makes sure that kids like him, because they know they can just go to him. You know, these are all things that make a good leader, a good alpha, is someone who his people can trust –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Nalini: – and then he doesn’t rule by fear.

Sarah: No! That’s the other thing: they don’t, they – they can eat you! But they don’t rule by fear.

[Laughter]

Nalini: They, it’s, it’s a thing of discipline! Like you said, that sort of militaristic –

Sarah: Yeah.

Nalini: – hierarchical structure, and, and I did think about what makes a good leader, and there’s discussions in the book about – ‘cause there are bad leaders as well, and sometimes packs break down and they’re destroyed from the inside because of a bad leader. And then, so I think all of this flows from that idea of what makes a good leader.

Sarah: Mm.

Nalini: And what makes a good leader, part of that is everyone has their own equal importance in a pack –

Sarah: Yes!

Nalini: – and that’s something else we talk about quite a lot, and once you accept that as a founding tenet of these packs and these Changeling groups, then the gender sort of inequalities just don’t come into play, because everybody has their own equal importance, and so I think – this is particularly, you see this probably the most in, I would say, in Selenka and Ethan’s book, because she is the, she’s a female alpha, and what you find out about Ethan is he starts out as basically a black ops assassin –

Sarah: Yeah.

Nalini: – and, like, it is, Ethan is the very traditional sort of alpha code kind of guy, and then slowly it starts to, you peel away the layers of who he is, and then there’s, there’s this whole discovery. And, so yeah, I think it really boils down to that idea of what makes a good leader?

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Nalini: What, what makes this person someone you would follow and do anything for, and someone who makes you feel safe?

Sarah: Yeah.

Nalini: Someone who you trust to lead you? Someone who, if he says, you know, We’re going into battle, everyone is like, right –

Sarah: ‘Kay, yeah!

Nalini: – okay. Let me get my weapons!

Sarah: Yeah!

Nalini: [Laughs] Yeah. So.

Sarah: Tell me which way to go; we’re going.

Nalini: Yeah.

Sarah: But you also have to trust in the decision-making of that leader –

Nalini: Yes.

Sarah: – and know that they’re not doing things on their own. There are other people informed in these decisions.

Nalini: Exactly, and it’s like, it’s not like, it’s never been the sort of, like, I am the king and you are my peons kind of thing. It, it has always been, You have entrusted me with this duty –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Nalini: – and I’m going to do my best, and I’m going to use the people who can help me –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Nalini: – to make this decision. I’m going to – the healer in a pack has the right to shut down the alpha if she thinks, or he thinks, that the alpha is going off the rails or is either physically, psychically, emotionally injured to the point they can’t rule –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Nalini: – and so I think there’s a lot of checks and balances built into their structure, which is why they function so well. These groups are not perfect.

Sarah: No.

Nalini: They’re, they’re –

Sarah: They’re societies! Yeah.

Nalini: It’s, it’s societies. They’re not perfect, but the Changelings, because they’re smaller, they tend to be smaller groups, and so I think when you do have a smaller, or like a, a limited group, when goings are tough,  and there’s a lot of communication, it is easier to maintain the, what do you call it? Like a healthy, you know, kind of structure of the group, and everyone feels like their voice is heard, and, and so in that way, in this world, doing it, they do have the – I’m making air quotes – like, the best structure in terms of people feeling their voice is heard, whereas with the Psy in particular, as we begin the series, they’re, nobody’s listening to them, because they’re basically ruled by the council, right, at the beginning, who were just like, We are the boss of you, and you will do what we say, and there is a lot of fear there. They’re, they’re ruling with fear, and everybody’s…

Sarah: And it’s much more punitive, too.

Nalini: Yeah, it is. It’s – so yeah, yeah. I think I’ve just rambled on a bit off, off the main topic, but I think –

Sarah: No, that actually addresses my question perfectly. It’s not so much about gender rules or toxicity; it’s actually about considering what makes a good leader to a community.

Nalini: Yes.

Sarah: I, I think a lot about leadership styles right now, given our government, just a little bit?

One of the other things that I, I love about Adam is that he kind of, he doesn’t mind when someone, like, challenges him or, or asks him – he, he’s not bound up by this authority where if someone questions him or questions what he’s doing or questions his decisions, he doesn’t get mad about it, but he also takes his decisions very seriously. I know in the book – no spoilers – there’s a moment where he has to make a truly awful decision for someone in his pack, and he, he knows what that person wants but doesn’t know he’s going to be able to do it. And that particular, like, emotional moment for him was, really resonated with me, because (a) that’s a, a choice that a lot of people have to make when they give care to somebody. When is it time to not give care? When is it time to cease care or back away? You know, sometimes you can’t fix something. He’s, he’s not challenged by that and, like, it doesn’t affect his sense of himself, like I’m not qualified; I can’t do this. He’s like, Nope, this is my job, and I’m going to do it, and holy crap, this sucks, but I’m going to do it.

Nalini: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: And he sort of wears that mantle of leadership even through his own emotional turmoil.

Nalini: Yeah, and I think that’s another thing, when you talk about good leadership, is that he could have given that decision to other people.

Sarah: Oh yeah, he could have been like, Y’all, y’all make this call.

Nalini: You know, leadership means when there’s tough times, that’s when you step into the breach and you take that on your shoulders and –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Nalini: – you make the tough calls. You make the, you make the choices that are going to – and sometimes that means you’re going to scar yourself.

Sarah: Yeah.

Nalini: But that is a choice; so you know a leader is a shield as well. Like, a good leader is a protector at the core.

Sarah: Yeah.

Nalini: And so this is, again, a case of him saying, Okay, I’m going to stand – and this is not a battle situation; this is an emotional storm –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Nalini: – and he is going to take the hits. He is going to be the one who makes the call so no one else has to live with it.

Sarah: Yep.

Nalini: You know?

Sarah: Yep.

Nalini: Yeah.

Sarah: And that’s incredibly difficult.

Nalini: It is, it is.

Sarah: I also think it’s really interesting to consider the idea of leadership through the Changelings with the idea that the idea of being the alpha in a, in a pack or – what is a group of Falcons called? Is it a flock?

Nalini: [Laughs] I did look this up!

Sarah: Is it a parliament?

Nalini: No, parliament is owls. Owls are a parliament. I think I called, in the books I called them a wing?

Sarah: Yes!

Nalini: A battle wing? He’s the wing leader? Yeah.

Sarah: It’s Falcons, but a plurality. I’m going to have to look this up, and I will let you know.

Nalini: The coolest one is still murder. A murder of crows.

Sarah: Oh, murder of crows?

Nalini: That is just amazing.

Sarah: A murder of crows and, I think it’s a despair of ravens?

Nalini: Is it a despair? I hadn’t even, I didn’t know that! That’s very cool. It’s cool.

Sarah: I went through – [laughs] – a little, a little phase where I was obsessed with knowing all of these.

So you, when you are an alpha, you’re, this is something you’re born with, right? ‘Cause I know I’ve seen this in the other books that, Oh, this young character, he has alpha qualities and may, and is going to be an alpha either of this group or create their own group, but it’s an intrinsic thing that you’re born with, and then it’s a character trait that you cultivate, and I mean –

Nalini: Yeah.

Sarah: – there are alphas that can go sideways, and quite badly, but it is an inherent trait.

Nalini: Yeah.

Sarah: And so on top of being born with this thing that is giving you a, a sense of authority and a sense of leadership, you also have to learn how to be a leader. You can’t just show up and be like, Well, I’m the alpha ‘cause my gym said so and you’ve got to do what I say! Even though it’s intrinsic, they still have to learn.

Nalini: Yeah. Because I think the intrinsic part is important, because it’s, it’s the, it’s the animal half, right? It’s the Changeling half. It is like, it is like this primal drive. There are things in the books – they are not human, and we can’t judge them through the lens of a human, of what we think of as fair or right, because this is, they are Changeling –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Nalini: – and in their world certain people are born more powerful or with more of a drive to, just with a primal sense, they’ll pull people to them, or they will, people will want to follow them because of their power. But, and then the human half comes in and says, No, so they have to learn to deal with this thing. You can’t just be an alpha of a pack because you’re strong. That is where the dangerous ones come in, the ones who destroy people, who are cruel, who rule with fear. The human side says, No, you have to learn to manage it. You have to be a good alpha so that you are this, this leader that is doing wonderful things for your pack, who is growing the pack, who is making sure the, the younger ones get, you know, the kind of training and the freedom they need to spread their wings and fly.

Sarah: Yeah.

Nalini: All of this good stuff. So, again, it’s that balance of the, the primal and the, the, the more sort of human, sort of – what’s the word? – thinking processes coming in and –

Sarah: Yeah.

Nalini: – and sort of making it balanced, yeah.

Sarah: So I was wrong. A falcon, a group of falcons is called a cast, a cast of falcons.

Nalini: Cast.

Sarah: Yes. That is very cool, and I, I was –

Nalini: Okay.

Sarah: – wrong about ravens. It’s not a despair of ravens; it’s an unkindness of ravens –

Nalini: Oh! Yeah.

Sarah: – which is even more badass. I can’t believe I forgot that!

Nalini: [Laughs] Very cool!

Sarah: An unkindness of ravens.

Now, I know a new cover was just put on Slave of Sensation, to –

Nalini: Yes!

Sarah: – to mention your first book, which I’ve read like five times.

Nalini: It’s right here! I will show it to you, even though only me and you will see it. Isn’t it beautiful?

Sarah: Ohhh, it’s cute! So how’s it feel to know you’ve been writing rrromantasy for twenty years, but it only now got a name?

[Laughter]

Nalini: It’s –

Sarah: People are going to disagree with me because shifters, the presence of shifters implies paranormal more than it does fantasy? But I see your world as very much more fantasy, just because of the science fiction/fantasy aspects of the Psy world. So you’ve married a bunch of things. You should get your own word, actually, now that I think about it.

Nalini: [Laughs] Yeah, I think…

Sarah: What’s this? It’s a Nalini. It’s a Nalini of books; that’s what we’re doing here.

Nalini: I think we’ve kind of snuck a little bit of the science fiction stuff in there –

Sarah: Yeah.

Nalini: – and hid it under the paranormal umbrella, and now you all are reading it, so it’s great.

Sarah: Yep.

Nalini: Thank you. [Laughs]

It’s, when I think about the, the time, it doesn’t feel like that. It doesn’t feel like twenty years. Like, I know technically, you know, it came out in 2006 –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Nalini: – Slave to Sensation, and –

Sarah: I have an ARC

Nalini: You have an ARC? Oh…

Sarah: It was one of the first ARCs I ever received, ‘cause we started the site in 2005. And I have an ARC of Slave to Sensation somewhere in my, in my stuff. Like, it was, like, wrapped in, like, almost like construction paper, and it was just the title on the heavier paper. Oh yeah, I think I have an ARC of it. I was like, I can’t throw this away!

Nalini: You have to keep it. You could probably sell it in another ten years for, like, five thousand dollars (no). [Laughs]

Sarah: No, you can’t have it. It’s not open for sale.

Nalini: No. It’s, for me, because, you know, I’ve been writing these books every year, and so it’s like a continuous timeline in my head, and in the books it hasn’t been twenty years; it’s been like, I think like three or four maybe, over, over all the books. And so yeah, it’s, it’s wild when I think about it, and when I do sit down and think about all the changes I’ve seen, so I can see, like, you know, paranormal romance, urban fantasy, and I remember when you guys did the Save the Contemporary campaign?

Sarah: [Snorts] I think it’s fine now. It’s all good; we’re good. We took care of that.

Nalini: [Laughs] …contemporary all over the show.

Sarah: Yes!

Nalini: Historicals were, like, historicals were just huge at one point. They were just dominating, and now historicals are having trouble. You need to Save the Historical!

You know, so I can see, you know, there has been this massive change. There’s a lot of fluctuations in the ups and downs, and – but for me it’s like, I’m writing this world and I just, I love being in it, and every time I step into it I’m like, Oh, I’m back, and, and go! You know? So for me it doesn’t feel like it’s been this long journey; it’s just been a journey that has taken how long it’s taken! Yeah.

Sarah: Yeah, you know, you’re just going to write a story about empathy, and twenty years later it’s going to be deeply needed liter-, literary theme. Yeah! I mean, sure, my psychic friend.

When you sit down to write, do you have anything that leads you into the world, or are you just right back in it because you think about it so much? Do you have any rituals that bring you back into, like, the world? Do you have to, like, do you have to read all the books each time you sit down to write a new one? No. [Laughs]

Nalini: No, I tend to just, I tend to just be in it?

Sarah: Yeah.

Nalini: Because that’s why I, so I write a lot of short stories for my newsletters. I’m a bit behind at the moment, but, you know, I do a lot. A lot of these I just write late at night or –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Nalini: – whenever, because I’m thinking about the world and, and I think of something.

Sarah: You’re fanfic-ing your own world, of course!

Nalini: Basically, basically. So for me, sliding back in is not difficult because they’re con-, it’s continuously running at the back of me head. I think of it like a movie –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Nalini: – that, that’s running? And some of it is just how I write, and, but the other reason is this – and I talk about this a lot in, when I do workshops for writers – is that I think if you make things too ritualistic as a writer, you know, you’re like, Oh, I don’t have this and I don’t have this, so I can’t write today. No, you write. Just go. You know, the story is what matters? Yeah, just, just slide in…

Sarah: That’s very cool. But I mean, also, if it’s, if you’re writing short stories there, it’s going to remain in your mind anyway. We just going to hang out all the time.

This is a really rude question, but I’m going to ask anyway. Do you know what, what is next for the Psy/Changelings?

Nalini: Yeah, sort of. But what I tend to do is I let, let things just kind of simmer in my brain.

Sarah: Oh yeah, I call that the Crockpot in the back of your brain. Just –

Nalini: Yes!

Sarah: – chuck it in there.

Nalini: The Crockpot. And I generally don’t talk about it until I’m quite a ways into the book, because I just, I’m protective of the idea I have –

Sarah: Of course!

Nalini: – and I just, I just want to, I just want to be in it and be certain of everything before I start talking about it. And due to what happens in this book, there’s going to be ramifications and, and ripples and lot of big changes, and so I’m thinking about all of that and thinking about what characters best, work best, and it’s starting to come to the surface, you know, float to the thing, so. But right now I’m writing Archangel’s Eternity, which is the next Guild Hunter book, so that has got my, most of my focus? You know, like ninety-nine percent of my brain –

Sarah: Yeah.

Nalini: – is basically on that. To be honest, it’s a hundred percent most of the time when I’m writing, but when I do sit down like we’re doing this discussion, and so I was thinking about Psy/Changeling, and I’m always, constantly thinking about them. Like, if I go washing dishes or whatever and I’m just kind of zoned out, I’m like, that’s what I’m thinking about, what’s going to happen next. And that tends to be how my stories sort of come together. Yeah.

Sarah: That makes sense. So I’m going to tell everyone that the next one is the Rat shifters?

Nalini: [Laughs]

Sarah: I’m just going to tell everybody. I heard – Nalini told me. It’s…

Nalini: Do you want to crash the entire series? [Laughs]

Sarah: Somebody on a Reddit is going to be like, I heard it’s the Rats! And I’m going to be like, I was kidding!

[Laughter]

Sarah: I was joking!

So I have a couple of questions from my Patreon community, who were very excited that I was going to be talking to you, and one of them is actually about the Guild Hunter series. Ann wanted to know, how does it feel to sort of know that the series is coming towards its end?

Nalini: Yeah. There’s a sense of rightness –

Sarah: Yeah.

Nalini: – that it’s, this is where we’ve been heading, and this is, this is, it feels good?

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Nalini: This is where I want to leave them, and I feel like it is, it is a good place to say good-bye, or in the sense, like, that we’re not returning in book-length form, and – but at, at the same time there’s also real sadness, because I, I love playing with these characters as well. You know, I have such joy in writing their stories. They have become like friends to me, because, again, I write long series, so this will be, the final book will be book eighteen.

Sarah: Yeah.

Nalini: And this is a lot of years to spend with these characters, and they are just so precious to me? And so there’s that sadness of letting go, but at the same time it’s, I, I know, I know this is the right book –

Sarah: Yeah.

Nalini: – because, to do this on, because I feel like if I love these characters, I also need to let them have their moment in the sun, you know, and just leave them in this place that is a, a good place, and, and the series arc that I foresaw has basically closed, and so now, you know, the last book that just came out, Archangel’s Ascension –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Nalini: – and this book, Archangel’s Eternity, it’s like it’s closing the loops on a few other things that are character loops? Basically, your character stories that we have to complete, and with Elena and Rafael, you know, it began with them, and it was always going to end with them, and I feel like this, this book sort of, a lot of things that needed to be confronted and overcome, you know, it’s all happening –

Sarah: Yeah.

Nalini: – in Eternity, so yeah. So there is mixed emotions. Like, I am not sitting here like, what’s that meme that people do, you know? Authors drinking the tears of their readers kind of thing?

Sarah: Yeah.

Nalini: No, people, I’m drinking my own tears?

Sarah: [Laughs]

Nalini: I’m right here with you literally crying like, No, my babies!…But I know it’s right. It is, it is the first big series – like, I’ve written, you know, my contemporaries were like quartets kind of thing –

Sarah: Yeah!

Nalini: – and –

Sarah: Threes and fours.

Nalini: – and that one, they’re, they’re structured differently? It was like, We know these four people; they’re in, they’re a rock band, and then we have all of the stories and it’s done. It was, it was kind of the, the size of the series was contained by the people.

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Nalini: So this is the first long series with a background arc and a lot of re-, recurring characters, both main characters and secondary characters that I’m closing up? So it has been, it’s been a big journey. It’s been a big journey, and I’ve been thinking about it for years, actually, to – I knew, probably about five or six books back, that we’re getting to the point where it’s like, it is going to need to come to this point, but I had to, first of all, the story had to get there, but I myself emotionally had to prepare myself to – but yeah. So I think by the time I finish it will be a sense of, like, you know how you have the good book sigh? It was, I think –

Sarah: Oh yes. Good book noise, oh yeah.

Nalini: Yes! I think I’m going to have that feeling inside me as a writer when I, when I finish, ‘cause I am, I’m now doing the final, final draft, so I’m doing the, the sort of –

Sarah: Oh, you’re in it! Like, you’re in it in it right now!

Nalini: I am in it! And, and I think I feel it. I feel like this is a, this feels right.

Sarah: Yeah.

Nalini: Yeah.

Sarah: Is there anything surprising you about this experience? Because, like you said, this is when you’re, you’re really winding it up.

Nalini: Yeah. Um! [Laughs] What surprises me is that I’m capable of it?

[Laughter]

Sarah: I never had any doubt.

Nalini: No, it’s like, I love series, so I’m one of those readers who, my favorite series, I’m just like, please write them forever. Like, I, you don’t need to finish; you can just write, like, you could write this and you could write – so I’m, I’m like, I always had doubts like, can I do it myself? Because, or will I just keep going? But at the same time, when I began series with Psy/Changeling and that was my first series, I always thought, you know, you need to stop when the background story is complete.

Sarah: Yes.

Nalini: And with Psy/Changeling I thought that would be the first arc of the Psy/Changeling series, and I thought we’d be done! But then what changed at the end of that arc was like, well, you need to explore the – it’s like you made an earthquake happen, and now you can’t just leave it there; oh, this earthquake happens and that’s it, you know?

Sarah: You have to, you have to manage all of the disruption that’s been created.

Nalini: Disruptions and the changes and, so that, that naturally flowed into a second arc. And with this series it was like, there is one major arc, basically, and it is completed, and of course I could, I could restart an arc. You know, there’s, there’s, you can do that. You can bring in a big bad, you know…but I didn’t want to. I wanted to tell a story that I wanted to tell. So yeah! But, you know, I joke about that, but I, I have difficulty letting go, which is why I write the short stories, I write the novellas, so that will be my coping mechanism?

Sarah: For sure.

Nalini: To visit going forward? But yeah, I’m, I’m really pleased that, that I have, you know, I am able to give my characters this ending, this, this moment when they can be like, Oh, you know, go forth and be happy.

Sarah: Series finale!

Nalini: Yeah. [Laughs]

Sarah: Yeah! Well, I, one thing I think that’s a hallmark of your writing is that readers can trust that you know where you’re going?

Nalini: I think that’s really important.

Sarah: Yeah, readers can trust that you know where you’re going, and I think one of the ways that you demonstrate that in your books is that you will set up a situation within the couple, the, the featured couple of a particular book, whichever, whichever series it is, and there is a point where the, the HEA, the happy ending between these two people cannot happen within the rules of the world as it is, and it, part of the tension is, Well, are, you know, is, is Nalini going to, like, break the rules of the world to make some, like, magic exception? Nonononono, there’s going to be a solution that arrives without breaking the rules of the world every time. So there are so many points in your different books where I’m like, How in the hell? This, there’s no way! Like, this one’s brain’s going to explode, and that guy wants to eat things? Like, this is just not – I’m making things up, but, like, yeah, there’s just no way! But you are going to figure out a way to reach the happy ending within the rules of the world when it seems like it is not possible. So with that demonstration that you know what you’re doing, I think readers’ll probably be very – I mean, they’ll be mad that it’s coming to an end and sad, but they’ll be very happy with how it ends, ‘cause you know how to wrap things up.

Nalini: Yeah, and I also think there’s a beauty in having a completed series, too, to read?

Sarah: Oh, for sure.

Nalini: ‘Cause then you can sit down and you can read from whoa to go. You know, you can read the –

Sarah: Yeah.

Nalini: – whole thing; you can see all the pieces come together, and I’m that kind of writer who puts little Easter eggs in just because that’s how my brain works and I think it’s fun, and, and then you’ll get the whole experience. You know, you can read all the pieces, and that’s fun too. So the, the story is still there; the story will always be there. These characters exist. You know, they’re in the world and yeah!

Sarah: They’ll probably show up in your newsletter.

Nalini: Yeah! They will, they will most definitely show up in my newsletter, because I’ll be like, Oh, hey! Hey, I miss you!

Sarah: Ralph, Raphael and Elena went to IKEA, and here’s what happened.

Nalini: [Laughs]

Sarah: So I love to ask you this, because –

Nalini: Mm-hmm!

Sarah: – I know if you’re not super, super working on a book, which I know that you are, what are some TV shows that you’ve been into lately?

Nalini: So because I’m so intensely in that book focus mode, I haven’t had the energy to go into anything new –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Nalini: – so I’ve been watching, comfort, comfort watching: Midsomer Murders? [Laughs]

Sarah: Super.

Nalini: It’s, it’s, it’s, I like, I love, you know, I know all the characters again. I know the character archetypes that show up in these –

Sarah: Yeah.

Nalini: – and what I also love, if you watch some of the really old episodes, you kind of find all these really famous people that –

Sarah: Just –

Nalini: – who are in –

Sarah: – just randomly show up! You’re like, How is this, how is this world-famous person your neighbor in this show? You really expect –

Nalini: [Laughs] It’s a bit like, it’s like the New Zealand film industry, like, you know, it’s a smaller industry, and so it’s –

Sarah: Yeah. You got like nine guys.

Nalini: – it’s like random people will show up in random shows, and you’re like, Oh! Okay. And then they go on and they become this mega, mega star, but you know you saw them in, like, we have a show called Shortland Street –

Sarah: Yep.

Nalini: – which is like –

Sarah: Coronation Street.

Nalini: Yeah.

Sarah: Yeah.

Nalini: Yeah –

Sarah: Neighbours.

Nalini: – that kind of thing. So I loved, I loved watching the old episodes and trying to spot, like, the future sort of stars that are just doing, like, a guest appearance kind of thing. But it’s just, it’s just that, I mean, it’s Midsomer Murders; it’s like, you try and figure out the puzzle of what’s happening.

But I do have something lined up for when I finish the book. I am literally going to join a streaming service so I can watch Murderbot, which you mentioned. I am – please do not spoiler anything for me, anybody – I am going to watch the whole thing like –

Sarah: Speaking of having a completed series, you are doing it right! Because, let me tell you, watching it once a week is not an easy – and I used to do this every show on every channel!

Nalini: I know!

Sarah: It was once a week! That’s all we had! And now I’m back to once a week, and I’m like, My nervous system cannot handle this anymore!

Nalini: [Laughs] It’s – yeah, I’m so excited to watch it. It looks so good; the shorts look so good. Is it, oh, it’s waiting on my queue. And then it’s –

Sarah: It’s amazing. Like, I am. Loving. It. I do not expect adaptations of the things that I love to be good.

Nalini: Yeah.

Sarah: I’m sorry to say. I do not always – I mean, I have seen many a romance movie, and they are often not the way that the book works. Bridgerton was the first experience I had where I was like, Oh, is this what happens when you throw a lot of money at the thing that I love? Well, that’s amazing! So now it’s happening again.

If you start a fight while I’m on the mic? All right, excuse me, it’s, it’s punishment time. Please excuse me one – Bro. First of all, I need you to apologize to Nalini –

Nalini: Awww!

Sarah: – for being a naughty boy.

Nalini: He’s not at fault there! He’s not at fault!

Sarah: …outside my office, ‘cause you’re being a dingus! Christ. I am such a professional! Look at me! I’m just –

Nalini: [Laughs] I’m his lawyer! I’m his lawyer. I’m saying he’s, he’s…

Sarah: He’s innocent! Yeah, he’s not innocent.

Nalini: He’s innocent, you know? [Laughs]

Sarah: Yeah, we have a second, smaller cat, and she just jumped onto the floor to get some food, so he’s like sitting at her, looking at her like, Hey. Can I, can I smell your butt? Can I touch you? Can I do something? And she’s like, I hate you! Go away!

Nalini: [Laughs] That’s the start of a romance novel right there!

Sarah: Oh, it’s, it’s been an ongoing enemies-to-enemies-to-still-enemies story at this, at this time. And what’s funny is, like, she’s a half of his size? She’s full-grown but she’s tiny. She can whoop his ass up and down the street. He’s so dumb; he’s like, I just love you forever, and I want to, like, you know, loom over you with my love. Oh. So I apologize –

Nalini: [Still laughing] Oh, I love it!

Sarah: – for my lack of professional cat here.

Anyway, Murderbot is so thoughtfully adapted. Like, you can tell –

Nalini: Yep.

Sarah: So, first, you can tell – there’s no spoilers – you can tell that the actors are having a great time, and that is one of my favorite things when you can tell, like, they’re really enjoying what they’re doing? But also, everyone involved in it has been very, very thoughtful about what the messages of the books are and what they’re going to put on the screen? This is a show where you can feel like the people who have made this season are doing so with a great deal of care and extreme competence? And, like, I love competence porn, so I –

Nalini: Ohhh!

Sarah: You are in for such a treat, and I am so excited! I hope you tell me what you think when you see it.

Nalini: Oh, I will. I’ll, I’ll be talking all about it. I am so excited just to be like, Okay!

Sarah: Nobody talk to me!

Nalini: Nobody talk! No interruptions! I’m literally going to sit on this couch and just watch Murderbot –

Sarah: Yep.

Nalini: – episode by episode and, and I, because I love the books so much. I really –

Sarah: Oh my gosh, me too!

Nalini: Ohhh, I love the books so much, and so I’m like, I am so excited that you’re saying, you know, everything you’ve said. I’m just, it’s made me even more excited. Yep, yep. That’s what I will be doing, yeah.

Sarah: I take it so personally how good it is. Like –

Nalini: Yeah.

Sarah: – you did this for me! This was for me personally, right? This was me-me! Yeah. Thank you!

Nalini: I think, I think that is a feeling to have when you’re –

Sarah: Yeah!

Nalini: – when you’re such a fan of a book, you know, that it’s, they, they did it! They did a good job! And you know what you said about watching episode by episode, I remember when the Colin Firth version of Pride and Prejudice –

Sarah: Yes.

Nalini: – you know, came out, and that was us! We were watching the episode, and it was like, I think over here it was like every Sunday –

Sarah: Yeah.

Nalini: – an episode would come, right?

Sarah: Yeah.

Nalini: And so, and I had that same feeling! Like, oh my gosh, they – ‘cause I love Pride and Prejudice as well, and it was just, they did, just did such a beautiful job!

Sarah: Yep.

Nalini: And so.

Sarah: Oh, I’m so excited for you. I love both the Colin Firth Pride and Prejudice and the Keira Knightley Pride and Prejudice, because they’re just so visually beautiful in different ways –

Nalini: Yeah.

Sarah: – and they’re such slightly different adaptations in how they handle subtext and sexuality, and just, I love both of those equally; I can’t love one more. I know I’m supposed to, but I can’t; sorry.

Nalini: [Laughs]

Sarah: So are there any books that you would like to tell people about?

Nalini: Yeah, I always have books to tell people about…

Sarah: I figured you would.

Nalini: [Laughs] So right now, because I’m writing, I’m writing Guild Hunter, I’m not reading in the genre? I find –

Sarah: Of course.

Nalini: – I can’t read in my genre while I’m writing; it’s just too much, and –

Sarah: But you, like, your series are like four genres in one. What are you reading? Like, shoe – you, you’re reading like a shoe-shining catalogue. That’s all you’ve got! [Laughs]

Nalini: I am reading the best thing: I’m reading Vivien Chien’s Noodle Shop Mysteries, and they are fantastic! I, so I’ve been reading them for a while, but I, I got a bit behind, so I’ve got like four of them stacked up. So I’m just going one after the other, and right now I’m reading Hot and Sour Suspects? And it’s just, it’s so good. She’s, like, basically you do not want Lana Lee to come to your house because she is like Jessica Fletcher: someone will die –

Sarah: Yep.

Nalini: – and then, you know, she’s like the amateur detective, you know. She, she works in her family’s noodle shop, she, and she somehow always manages to end up being in the middle of a murder, and she’s detecting –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Nalini: – and they are so fun. They’re, they’re fantastically written, and I’m really enjoying having multiple books in a row just to read through, because it’s the same recurring characters, you know. She has a best friend, she has her pug Kikkoman –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Nalini: – the dog…

Sarah: Of course. Hold the phone: that’s a good name for a dog!

Nalini: [Laughs] It is!…

Sarah: That is a fantastic name for a dog!

Nalini: And, you know, she has her, a detective boyfriend and, you know, it’s this whole cast, and her mother is always yelling Lana! across restaurants to her and – it’s just, I just love it. I just think she does such a good job, and so that’s been a really good sort of calm-down for me after I’m intensely writing. You know, I have a break; I have my cup of tea or cocoa or whatever, and then I, I read a bit of this and I’m – so yeah, they’re really fun. If you’re looking for a good sort of cozy mystery series, that’s one I would highly recommend!

What else can I tell you about? One book, a very different book that I read last year which I’m still thinking about is Abraham Verghese’s The Covenant of Water? So that’s not a genre book, and it’s just a book I randomly sort of heard about and picked up, and it’s, it’s set in Kerala, and it’s, it’s like basically a history of a family, and in every generation someone dies by water, and it’s, it’s – I was just like, Wow, that sounds – I don’t know; it just, for some reason, that just spoke to me, so I picked it up and, honestly, I couldn’t stop reading. I just thought it was, it’s so beautifully written. It’s got such depth. I’ve never been to Kerala? But I felt like I could imagine it perfectly?

Sarah: Yeah.

Nalini: And I was talking about the book with my friend Louise, and so she said, Oh, I’ll get the audiobook and check it out. [Laughs] It’s like thirty-five hours long, this audiobook, right? It’s a big book.

Sarah: Ho damn! Okay! So she’s going to drive to the moon.

Nalini: Oh no! She, she messages me and then she’s like, Nalini, I literally cannot stop listening to this book!

Sarah: [Laughs]

Nalini: I was, like, washing the dishes listening to this book with my headphones. She just raced through it. She said it’s, it’s so good. It’s so good, so – yeah, so that’s, that’s something if you want like a really deep, immersive read outside of something you normally would read?

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Nalini: I think that’s, that’s a really good, interesting one to, to dive into? And I actually, I went to a talk; the writer was actually invited to the Auckland Writers Festival, so I got –

Sarah: Oh!

Nalini: – to get him and listened, and he’s hilarious, because he, he decided to narrate the book himself. So he’s actually Dr. Abraham Verghese, so he’s a very ex-, experienced doctor.

Sarah: Oh, cool!

Nalini: Yeah. But, ‘cause he was worried they wouldn’t, any narrator wouldn’t say the words correctly that he, you know, he has in the book? But there’s also a Scottish character in the book, so he’s, like, ringing up his friend – [laughs] – who was Scottish and like, Can you say this? And then he would try to mimic him? But, like…

[Laughter]

Nalini: He is hilarious, ‘cause he’s very, like, you know, when you, when someone talks you can tell they’re a very down-to-earth person, and he was just – but he obviously is a, quite a deep thinker as well, as you can see in this book, and it’s just – anyway, it’s a great experience. It’s a book I really loved, and I still, it’s still something I would gift to certain people in my life that I would, that I know would enjoy –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Nalini: – that kind of book?

Sarah: That’s a very high praise, too. Like, I know –

Nalini: Yeah.

Sarah: – who I would give this book to?

Nalini: Yeah. Exactly.

Sarah: That’s a rare thing!

Nalini: I gave it to my mum, and she’s like, Nalini, I can’t stop reading this book! So this is –

Sarah: [Laughs]

Nalini: – this is… [Laughs]

So – and I also have, actually, a whole stack of other things I’ve been sent by my various publishers who’ve said, We think you’re going to like this one; have a read. So I’m looking forward to having some more, and those are all paranormal and urban fantasy, and I’m really looking forward to diving into those when I finish this book and I have a break and I can go back and read those with a fresh mind? Maybe next time I will have new books to tell you about.

Sarah: Ooh! Most excellent! I would dig that for sure.

Have I told you about Ovidia Yu’s mysteries? She has –

Nalini: No!

Sarah: – two series. One is set in Singapore when it is still a Crown colony, so I want to say that’s the –

Nalini: Oh!

Sarah: – ‘30s? I could be wrong about the time; I’m bad at math and dates. But there’s, she has two series as you might, that you might like. One begins with The Frangipani Tree Mystery?

Nalini: Okay?

Sarah: It’s, I was right; it was set in 1936 in the Crown colony. There is an educated young girl who is hired to, is hired to, like, you know, do some things, and there’s a murder, and she ends up covertly working with the Chief Inspector, who’s British, to help solve the murder.

Nalini: Ooh!

Sarah: It’s –

Nalini: It sounds like my kind of thing. I’ve just written it down so I… [Laughs]

Sarah: And then the other one is Aunty, the Aunty Lee mysteries? I think there’s four of them. It starts with Aunty Lee’s Delights, and it is a widow –

Nalini: Yeah.

Sarah: – and amateur sleuth and the proprietor of Singapore’s most popular, like, home-cooking restaurant.

Nalini: Ver-, I am definitely looking these up; these sound right up my alley.

Sarah: This sounds exactly up your street, for sure, yeah.

Nalini: [Laughs]

Sarah: And her writing is so elegant.

Nalini: Oh wait! Before, before we go off that topic, I was going to say, talking of aunties –

Sarah: Yes!

Nalini: – there’s another book I read: Uzma Jalaluddin’s Detective Aunty. That was really good as well…

Sarah: Really! I have that on my list!

Nalini: It’s so good! It’s really, really good.

Sarah: I love how everyone is sort of doing this slow pivot into mystery/thriller? ‘Cause you know that happened like thirty years ago when all of the –

Nalini: It did!

Sarah: – historical romance authors started writing thrillers.

Nalini: They did!

Sarah: I’m like, Are we doing this again? We’re doing this now? Again? All right.

Nalini: I remember when Julie Garwood did it –

Sarah: Yes!

Nalini: – and I was, but I was so mad?

Sarah: Yes!

Nalini: [Laughs, indistinct]

Sarah: Me too! I took a Catherine Coulter…and I loved, like, the most purple of Catherine Coulters.

Nalini: Yeah.

Sarah: Like, those were some purple nonsense and I loved them. There was one I love – it was the first romance I ever read, holds a special place in my heart. I got a, one of her suspense novels at the library and I’m sitting at the beach, and I’m like, I’m scared and I don’t like this? This is not my genre. Where is the kissing? I was very uninformed what switching to thrillers meant. But everyone’s doing it now! Which is cool.

Nalini: It is! But maybe it cycles again, you know? Things cycle.

Sarah: Everything cycles through.

So where can people find you if you wish to be found?

Nalini: ‘Kay, so the best place is my website. So that’s nalinisingh.com. We do update it very, very regularly. It has got all the up-to-date information about release dates, and even when I sign a contract and I know there’s books coming out and I don’t have a title or anything, it’ll be listed on there so you can get all the cutting-edge news. ‘Cause I find, I am on social media, which I will tell you about, but I find in social media, sometimes you get shown stuff by the algorithm, sometimes you don’t, so –

Sarah: Oh yeah.

Nalini: – you want to make sure you have, just swing by the website to check. And while you’re there, join my newsletter. I am, I’m a very lazy newsletter sender, so you’re not going to get spammed. Like, I try to once a month is about it, and every so often I’ll put a short story in there or a deleted scene, so.

I would say those are the two best ways to make sure you stay up-to-date. If you’re a, more a social media person, I’m on Facebook, Author Nalini Singh, and same handle for Instagram? And right now that’s really where I am. I –

Sarah: It’s, it’s wild out there. Stick with two…

Nalini: It is, yeah!

Sarah: [Laughs]

Nalini: I’m just like, ‘cause way back when, so I, I fell off Twitter years ago, but –

Sarah: Roger that.

Nalini: – when I was on there, I was just like, This is eating up so much of my time. I mean, it’s fun, but I was like, what, where did the time go?

Sarah: I know.

Nalini: So I made a kind of concerted effort to pull back a bit and go back into that space where I was as a young writer, which is, this is before social media, right? Like –

Sarah: Yeah!

Nalini: – there was so much time to focus and read, and it’s really had a good impact on my reading in particular, because instead of spending, you know, three hours a day on social media, I’m now spending that time getting through my reading list, which is really fantastic. So, but yeah, I’m still around on socials, mostly Instagram and Facebook, ‘cause I like pictures and I like Facebook. It just seems calmer to me?

Sarah: Especially if you have your page with your readers?

Nalini: Yes, it’s my page, yeah. Yeah.

Sarah: And the thing about Facebook is that if you are in a community where someone has volunteered to moderate and manage the community, it can be very, very great, but what that means –

Nalini: Yeah.

Sarah: – is that Facebook is offloading the work of monitoring and, and moderating to unpaid volunteers who are doing topical and group – so it’s very frustrating, but when it works it’s good. So if you’ve got…

Nalini: When it works, yes.

Sarah: Yeah, if it works it’s great!

Nalini: Yeah.

Sarah: I have something to send you in the Zoom chat.

Nalini: Okay?

Sarah: This photograph was taken – so today is June 8th, 2025, right? So it’s June 8th –

Nalini: Yeah.

Sarah: For you it’s June 9th, but for me it’s June 8th. This picture was taken on June 6th, 2003.

Nalini: [Laughs] It’s the Nutella picture!

Sarah: Yeah. I’ll put it in the show notes. So that was, what, twelve years ago now!

Nalini: Wooow. Oh my God.

Sarah: Holy cow! Twelve years! And I remember that night. I don’t even live in that part of New Jersey anymore!

Nalini: Ohhh!

Sarah: Look at you hugging that big old tub of Nutella.

Nalini: Oh my God. So young!

Sarah: I know! What is that?

Nalini: I still have those earrings, though!

Sarah: Well, hell yeah! They’re gorgeous!

Nalini: [Laughs] Oh, that is so fun!

Sarah: Thank you so much for doing this interview. I, I, I love chatting with you; I love talking about writing with you; it’s so much fun. And thank you also for your books, which have kept me company when I really needed company. So thank you for that.

Nalini: Ohhh!

[outro]

Sarah: And that brings us to the end of this week’s episode. Thank you so, so much to Nalini for getting up early and talking to me.

And of course I will have the picture that I shared with her in the show notes. You can find it at smartbitchestrashybooks.com/podcast; look for episode 676. It’ll be in there. It’s a wonderful picture; I’m never getting rid of it. I might have dated it incorrectly, however? I might have said it was 2003? I don’t think that’s right! [Laughs] I don’t, really don’t think that’s right. Why do I not think that’s right? ‘Cause that was before the website was invented! There’s no reason for me to be talking to Nalini Singh; I hadn’t even – she hadn’t even released her first book yet, so listen: time, time is a meaningless construct, I’ve decided.

I end every week with a bad joke. This week I have a falcon dad joke, which is a dad joke about falcons? This is not a joke about a falcon who is a dad. Just to be clear. All right.

How much are the baggage fees when a falcon brings a dead animal on a flight?

Give up? How much are the baggage fees when a falcon brings a dead animal on a flight?

None. It’s carrion.

[Laughs] I, I actually ran that by Adam before I told it, and he said, Yeah, that’s fine. So that’s fine. I hope you tell many people.

On behalf of everyone here, we wish you the very best of reading. Have a great weekend, and we’ll see you back here next week for an incredible interview with Jo Piazza. Oh my gosh, I’m so excited! In the words of my favorite retired podcast Friendshipping, thank you for listening; you’re welcome for talking.

[end of music]