From A Single Image To An Entire Trilogy

Who would have thought that 2020, the year of the global pandemic, would be the first year in which I published an entire series? I did it, though, and it’s still sinking in. I want to take this opportunity to thank you all for reading, commenting, sharing, and retweeting my blogs and tweets this year (some of you have been doing so since 2012!). I really appreciate it. I don't always get to thank you all personally (I just RT you back, don't I?), but that doesn't mean that I’m not thankful. Thank you and good luck with your writing and publishing endeavours *hugs* :)

I almost delayed the launch of the Heir to the Throne series finale until next year, but I didn’t want the people that had pre-ordered Book 3 to wait that long. And I wanted it out of the way so I could truly move on. For some reason, a series doesn't feel complete until I've hit the publish button for the finale, so I'm glad I had enough incentive to release the final book in this high fantasy trilogy (came out Friday, July 3, 2020), and not sit with it for another year.

I still find myself surprised that it was a stock image that got me writing epic fantasy for the first time in my adult life. Of course, there were a number of other factors that helped shape the premise and plot of the Heir to the Throne Trilogy, but what put things into motion for me was the image of the girl on the original cover of Book 1, Heir to the Throne. I saw it on the Pixabay site in March 2018 and downloaded it immediately.

Obviously, the girl wasn’t appropriate for the covers of my contemporary romance novels or my urban fantasy books. “I’ll just have to write a book about her, then,” I’d joked to myself. Almost instantly, my brain came up with various ideas for how to go about it. I couldn’t stop thinking about a story that my mum used to tell me when I was a kid, and I wondered if I could do a retelling of that bedtime tale. Fairy tale retellings are in at the moment, aren't they?

“Once there was a very vain King,” my mum used to say. “And he would always ask his daughters how much they loved him and why. One day, when he asked his daughters this question and they started likening their love for him to sweet things—sugar, honey, syrup, molasses, and so on—one of the Princesses said that she loved him like she loved salt. The King threw a tantrum at that and banished her from the kingdom.

“She was taken in by a family in a faraway land and didn’t see her father until years later, when he visited the people that she lived with. The King didn’t know that the daughter he'd disowned years ago was a part of the household that had invited him for dinner, and the ex-Princess took the opportunity to teach her father a lesson. She cooked an inedible banquet using sugar, honey, syrup, etc. in the place of salt, and the only dish that the King was able to eat and enjoy was the last one brought to the table. It was the only one that used salt for seasoning and nothing sweet.

“He remembered the daughter that had loved him the way she loved salt and understood her point of view. The King told his hosts about the daughter that had obviously loved him just as much as his other children and openly regretted banishing her.” Which was the cue for the chef/Princess to reveal herself. Overjoyed, the King took her back with open arms.

As a child, I thought my mum had made up the story, or her mum had, or her mum’s mum. In my teens and young adult days, I came to the conclusion that it must be a classic bedtime story that Bangladeshi women have been telling their daughters for generations, to drill in the importance of seasoning our food: The amount of salt in a curry can make or break the dish.

Seen as I was contemplating doing a retelling of this bedtime story, I thought I should Google it. If I'm going to tell people that my book is inspired by a classic Bangladeshi folk tale, I thought, I should do a fact check, shouldn’t I? What I found was that this story is typically referred to as “The King and his Daughters”, and various cultures around the world have their own renditions of it. I’m glad I did the research, but it’s not because I can now say that Heir to the Throne is a retelling of The King and his Daughters. Technically, it’s not a retelling, but I have taken inspiration from certain elements from the story I grew up with—a King with quite a few daughters, the favourite Princess wrongly getting punished—and the stock image helped me make a few other decisions.

Within the space of a couple of days, I had a mental outline for the book and started fleshing it out on the MS Word app on my iPhone when I wasn’t running around after The Baby (Toddler now). I can’t remember when I actually stopped outlining and started writing the book (maybe September 2018, or end of August?), but the bulk of the drafting took place in October and November 2018 (my first NaNoWriMo!).

If Heir to the Throne had started off as a retelling of The King and his Daughters, the series would still have ended up as something else entirely. Most of the books I write change and evolve into something much more epic than I expect, and this trilogy was no exception.

I really hope that readers take to Aaryana like they have to Ellie, Mukti, and Shell from my other three series and that they enjoy a trilogy that was inspired by just a single image.

Get the series from your favourite ebook store (Book 1 free at selected retailers for a few more days):
Apple Books, B&N, Kobo, Smashwords, and Amazon.

Release Day Ramblings (again)

Happy Friday! Today, the final book in my latest series came out. The Heir to the Throne trilogy is complete. That’s a trilogy of complete trilogies for me, yay!

This is the first time, though, that I’ve published an entire series in the same year (my life keeps getting in the way, doesn't it? This year, Covid 19 tried to interfere). Nothing went to plan in 2020 but at least this series is out there. I want to take this opportunity to thank you all for reading, commenting, sharing, and retweeting my blogs and tweets this year (some of you have been doing so since 2012!). I really appreciate it. I don't always get to thank you all personally (I just RT you back, don't I?), but that doesn't mean I’m not thankful. Thank you and good luck with your writing and publishing endeavors *hugs*

I almost delayed the release of the series finale, Keys to the Realm, until next year due to the global pandemic, but in the end, I didn’t want the people that pre-ordered Book 3, to wait that long. And I wanted it out of the way so I could move on with my other projects. A series doesn't feel done unless it’s out in the world!

So, how’s release day going? Good, thanks. Would have been better if it wasn’t the year of the COVID 19 pandemic, but I’ve consoled myself all year with these words: It wasn’t meant to be.

Thanks to the pre-orders at the Apple Books Store Australia (all but one of those pre-orders being placed before the lockdown period, though; pre-order and post-release price: 4.99), Keys to the Realm charted at no. 1 in the Sci Fi & Fantasy category in Australia. 

And no. 66 in the overall Apple Books Australia chart ⬇️. Not bad for someone that writes on her phone while lying in bed (degenerative lumbar spine disease, chronic back pain). And only when the Toddler is napping or has gone down for the night. Plus, it was only on pre-order for a couple of months before release :)

Unlike Amazon, which has over 3,500 categories, Apple Books only has 14 category bestseller charts (+ the overall chart, of course) in each territory, with seven of them being fiction categories. A book can only chart in one category: the primary category selected during publishing (so my book couldn’t chart in the YA category chart as well as the SFF chart, even though YA is one of the non-primary categories tagged to it). And as far as I know, chart positions are based on the number of sales/downloads; Apple doesn’t use any other method to calculate chart positions. No fancy algorithms and whatnot.

The pre-orders for the finale mean that the Australians that read the first two books liked them; at the very least, Heir to the Throne and Tied to the Crown were 3-star reads for them. Reasonable assumption, right? But look⬇️ no ratings or reviews for Book 1 at the retailer at this time. See, I told you—my readers seem to fall into the group that just don’t rate or review books—the 99% of readers that don’t rate/review books they read. I accepted this a long time ago *shrug* 

The thing is though, if I’d known back in 2019—or even in January 2020—that 2020 was going to turn out like this, I wouldn’t have released these three books in February, March, and July respectively. Or even in 2020. This trilogy deserved to be launched under better circumstances. I genuinely believe it has the potential to become more successful than my Poison Blood Series. And if I’m completely honest, I would have given into my husband’s nagging and queried literary agents for these novels.

With every reader DM I get about my books, my hubby nags me to pursue traditional publishing. No matter how many times I explain the whole right of first refusal thing to him. While I was writing this trilogy, though, he was pushier than ever about me trying to get an agent—seen as these books weren’t published yet. Confession: I did give in and do some research on agents and I even thought I had one very suitable agent I could query. Out of all my books, I thought I was writing one that might fit the trad pub model. “Just let me polish up Book 1,” I kept telling my husband—and myself.

But then, this dream agent suffered bit of a tragic twist in her life and I took that as a sign that perhaps I wasn’t meant to pursue that avenue at all. And I put the first two books in the series up for pre-order when I was done writing them.

~Print copies arrived last night :)

One of the best things about self-publishing is getting to market fast. Capitalising on reader appetite and market trends, but with the people of the world slowing down due to the pandemic and lockdown, getting to market fast in 2020 became irrelevant. That’s why, if I hadn’t released Books 1 and 2 in the first week of February and the first week of March respectively, I think I would have started querying agents with this series during the quarantine period.

Anyway. I didn’t know last year what I know now, so again, I tell myself this: It wasn’t meant to be.

What I’m doing now—rambling on release day, July 3, 2020, this is what was meant to happen all along. And it’s okay. I’m so thankful for what I’ve achieved, and for all the things I have in my life at this time, the what ifs are forgotten almost as soon as I think of them.

~The Dungeon Keeper’s Rhyme

I may not even have written this series in the first place if it wasn't for a stock image! A stock image got me writing epic fantasy for the first time in my adult life. Of course, there were a number of other factors that helped shape the premise and plot of the Heir to the Throne Trilogy, but what put things into motion for me was the image of the girl on the original cover of Book 1, Heir to the Throne. I saw it on Pixabay in March 2018⬇️ and downloaded it immediately:

Obviously, the girl wasn’t appropriate for the covers of my contemporary romance novels or my urban fantasy books. “I’ll just have to write a book about her, then,” I’d joked to myself. Almost instantly, my brain came up with various ideas for how to go about it. I couldn’t stop thinking about a story that my mum used to tell me when I was a kid, and I wondered if I could do a retelling of that bedtime tale. Fairy tale retellings are in at the moment, aren't they?

“Once there was a very vain King,” my mum used to say. “And he would always ask his daughters how much they loved him and why. One day, when he asked his daughters this question and they started likening their love for him to sweet things—sugar, honey, syrup, molasses—one of the Princesses said she loved him like she loved salt. The King threw a tantrum at that and banished her from the kingdom.

“She was taken in by a family in a faraway land and didn’t see her father until years later, when he visited the people that she lived with. The King didn’t know that the daughter he disowned years ago was a part of the household that had invited him for dinner, and the ex-Princess took the opportunity to teach her father a lesson. She cooked an inedible banquet using sugar, honey, syrup, etc. in the place of salt, and the only dish that the King was able to eat and enjoy was the last one brought to the table: The only one that used salt for seasoning and nothing sweet.

“He remembered the daughter that had loved him the way she loved salt and understood her point of view. The King told his hosts about the daughter that had obviously loved him just as much as his other children and openly regretted banishing her.” Which was the cue for the chef/Princess to reveal herself. Overjoyed, the King took her back with open arms.

~My warrior Princess <3

As a child, I thought my mum had made up the story, or her mum did, or her mum’s mum. In my teens and young adult days, I convinced myself that it must be a classic bedtime story that Bangladeshi women have been telling their daughters for generations, to drill in the importance of seasoning our food: The amount of salt in a curry can make or break the dish.

Now that I was contemplating doing a retelling of this bedtime story, I thought I should Google it. If I'm going to tell people that my book is inspired by a classic Bangladeshi folk tale, I thought, I should do a fact check, shouldn’t I? What I found was that this story is typically referred to as “The King and his Daughters”, and various cultures around the world have their own renditions of it.

I’m glad I did the research, not because I can now say that Heir to the Throne is a retelling of The King and his Daughters. Technically, it’s not a retelling or a re-imagining of that story, but I did take inspiration from certain elements from the tale my mum told me—a King with quite a few daughters, the favourite Princess wrongly getting punished—and the stock image helped me make a few other decisions about genre, setting, etc.

Within the space of a couple of days, I had a mental outline for the book and started fleshing it out the plot on the MS Word app on my iPhone—when I wasn’t running around after The Baby (Toddler now). I can’t remember when I actually started writing the book (maybe September 2018, or end of August?), but the bulk of the drafting took place in October and November 2018 (my first NaNoWriMo!).

~Our brooding love interest <3

A message to my fellow Throne of Glass fans: Heir to the Throne can be put into the same bucket as Throne of Glass because both of these series are set in alternate historical fantasy lands and revolve around Kings and Queens and Princes and Princesses—hence the cover of Heir to the Throne was designed to say, “Yes, you’re right, this cover is reminiscent of the Throne of Glass covers, and that’s because this book might provide a similar experience to the Throne of Glass series. So, if you liked those books, you might enjoy this book, too.” My series has a completely different story line, though, different characters, and is not a re-hash of Sarah J Maas’s work. You'll see that very quickly when you start reading it.

~Alternative cover editions (ebook)

If Heir to the Throne had started off as a retelling of The King and his Daughters, the series would still have ended up as something else entirely. Most of the books I write evolve into something much bigger than I expect, and this trilogy was no exception. Believe me when I say that the series finale, Keys to the Realm, is EPIC, so give this trilogy a try if you’re interested in this genre. 

Here are five things you can expect from these books:

One) This series revolves around mythical sea creatures. Think Game of Thrones/Throne of Glass with “mermaids” (but with my own spin on the mythology).

Two) I love a good origin story—I like to explain how the magical beings in my stories came to exist—so this trilogy has one, too.

Three) No corsets. These books are set in a completely made up fictional world—they’re not inspired by a particular time or place in history—so why would I include something that I don’t believe in? There’s no mention of corsets in this trilogy because they don’t exist in this world. (Nor do guns or bullets!)

Four) There’s forbidden romance, enemies-to-lovers (hate-to-love), and friends-to-lovers, too. But I won’t tell you which couple gets which trope :)

Five) The lead character’s body shape is not typical for YA. Usually, the girls are “tiny” compared to the big, bear-like love interests, or they’re “of medium height, have a small waist and great boobs”. Aaryana—like all her sisters—is very tall, flat-chested, hardly has any curves, and her training has helped her gain a strong, powerful, muscular, athletic body.

I really hope readers take to Aaryana like they have to Ellie, Mukti, and Shell from my other three series and that they enjoy a trilogy that was inspired by just a single image.

Get the series from your favourite ebook store:

>>Click Here<<

So, what’s next for me? Well, I have another release scheduled for this year—I’m thinking September time, but I’ll actually have to sort out my dashboard with a concrete date! The project needs just a little more polishing, but it should be ready for the first week of September if I stick to that date. A few more surprises in store for 2020 too, so keep your eyes peeled.

Also, I am finally, finally, trying to finish the highly anticipated—highly anticipated by the readers that have DM’d me about it over the years, that is, LOL—conclusion to my Love & Alternatives Duology. And to ensure that I don’t stray from this project as I have since If I Say Yes came out in 2017, I will put it up for pre-order, with a tentative release date of... drum roll please... last week of January 2021! Hopefully, that will give me the urgency to finish this story at last. Now, I actually have to put it up for pre-order... Maybe this weekend...

There are a few more projects I have planned for next year, but I won’t divulge too much about them just yet. Things never go to plan in my life—or my writing/publishing journey—and it’s best that I just take it one day at a time.

With regards blogging, I hope to continue posting new content every week, as I have been so far this year, but once I run out of ideas for articles... it will probably be on an ad hoc basis :)

Until next time, cheerio xx and here are those links again to my trilogy :) and some cool artwork reflecting the series finale ⬇️.

Get the series from your favourite ebook store:

>>Click Here<<

~Aaryana Vijkanti

~Seth Fresdan

~Aaryana

~Aaryana

~ Aaryana

Release Day Ramblings: writer’s voice and brand, memorable characters, and more...

Heir to the Throne, the first book in my brand new royalty fantasy series, is available to download from your favourite retailers now. Books 2 and 3 are releasing soon.

I am always excited and nervous on release day—well, release week—but with this book, this series, I am more so than usual. That’s probably the reason behind my ramblings today! This is my first high fantasy/epic fantasy series—a genre I haven’t written in since my childhood days—so, I’m eager to see what readers think of it. And scared of what they’ll think of it.

There have been more pre-orders for this book than all my previous pre-orders combined, so I know that people are eager to get their hands on it. Just a little pressure, but it’s very welcome. Needless to say, I’m very proud of this trilogy and I believe it will satisfy its target audience. Think Throne of Glass without fae; Game of Thrones without dragons—but with a different mythical creature instead.

The style of writing in this trilogy is different to that of my six urban fantasy books, and of course, the story is worlds apart from my four contemporary romance novels. I switch up my style—and therefore my ‘voice’—depending on the genre I’m writing in and the story that I’m telling. Perhaps that means I don’t have a ‘voice’? And perhaps that’s not a good thing? Rest assured, my ‘voice’ within each individual series is consistent.

One thing that is always the same in all my works, regardless of genre, is the character-driven aspect of them. I try to ensure that my characters are well thought-out and well-developed, and whether or not you agree with the decisions they sometimes make, I ensure that you understand those decisions. That the characters’ actions make sense to you.

Funnily enough, the romance in my fantasy books is subtle; the love story is a proper sub-plot to the action, suspense, and drama—maybe because my contemporary romance novels revolve around the love story, while the action, suspense, and drama form the sub-plots? Still, the characters are the stars of the show; they’re the ones that stay with the reader.

That’s my brand—characters that feel so real, you’ll forget you’re reading fiction. (Catchy little tag line for my author brand, don’t you think? I must get around to making a banner with it. I came up with it ages ago!) My writing ‘voice’ might change a little—or a lot—with the genre, and you might not recognise it when you read my fantasy novels after reading my contemporary romance books—or vice versa—but you’ll know it’s a Neha Yazmin book because of the depths to the characters.

For me, it’s very important that the audience understands the people in my stories as well as I do—without spending half as much time with them as I do. I give my characters a lot of time, think about them for hours and over days, care about them as though they’re real, and I show that on the page. If they’re not real to me, how will the reader believe them? Why would they care? Why should they spend time with my characters if I didn’t bother to spend enough time on them to make them worthy?

Apart from well-rounded characters, here are a few more things that readers can expect from this trilogy—without giving too much away:

1) This series revolves around mythical creatures that I haven’t written about before, with my own take on them. [Hint: I’ve written about vampires (Poison Blood Series), witches, wizards, and shifters (Witch’s Blood Series). I don’t think that I’ve mentioned these creatures in any of my projects, actually. As I said earlier, you can think of this trilogy as ‘Throne of Glass with ______ instead of fae’ or ‘Game of Thrones with _______ instead of dragons, and none of the sexual content, either.’ I’ll fill in the gaps in a future post—I want you to discover this while reading).]

Two) I love a good origin story—I like to explain how the magical beings in my stories came to exist—so this trilogy gets one, too. [We learned how the vampires in my Poison Blood Series came about, and we’ll discover how the witches in the Witch’s Blood Series came to exist when I complete that series.]

Three) No corsets. These books are set in a completely made up fictional world—they’re not inspired by a particular time or place in history—so why would I include something that I don’t believe in? There’s no mention of corsets in this trilogy because they don’t exist in this world. [The best way to describe the setting of these books is “alternative historical fantasy world”.]

Four) The lead character’s body shape is not typical for the genre. Usually, the girls are tiny compared to the big, bear-like love interests, or they’re of medium height, have a small waist and “great boobs”. Aaryana—like all her sisters—is very tall, flat-chested, hardly has any curves, and her training has helped her gain a strong, powerful, muscular, athletic body.

I really hope that readers take to Aaryana like they have to Ellie, Mukti, and Shell, and that they enjoy a series that was inspired by just a single image (below) that I found on the web (see my ‘story behind the story’ blog post here).

Thanks for reading this post. All the links to this new release are below if you want to read it.

Buy now from:

Kindle

Apple Books

B&N Nook

Kobo

Only the worthy can take the Throne...

In the Kingdom of Adgar, the King or Queen's firstborn is not automatically named Heir to the throne; any of their children can become the next ruler of the land. If they are deemed worthy.

17-year-old Aaryana has competed against her siblings from a young age and is a firm favourite to take the Throne. However, just days before her father is expected to name her his Heir, a scheme is devised to not only take Aaryana out of the running, but also to ruin her reputation completely.

Will her enemies succeed in cheating her out of the throne that she was destined for or will Aaryana and her friends manage to save her from disgrace?

Heir to the Throne is a new epic high fantasy that’s perfect if you’re getting Game of Thrones withdrawal symptoms or missing the Throne of Glass series.

Subscribe to my mailing list to receive an extended preview

(approx. 30% of the 115,000-word novel)

>>Sign up to read now<<

How #Twilight Changed My Life and Why I'm Proud To Be A #Twihard (Part IV)

Last week's post ended with me telling you that reading Twilight pulled me out of the depressive state I'd found myself in at the end of 2009. How I wanted to drag out the process of reading the Twilight Saga to hang on to the amazing feeling I got from it. 

By the time summer 2010 came around, I was done with the last book in the series, Breaking Dawn. I ordered a copy of The Host, because I had a feeling that if anyone could convert me to sci-fi and aliens, it would be the author that wrote the Twilight Saga. And I was right. I loved it. It even made me cry a little. Below is the Stephenie Meyer portion of my bookshelf. Waiting for The Chemist to come out in paperback to add to the collection!

Inspiration and Visions

I still felt more positive about life and myself and that thing inside me that I thought had changed? I realised it was the need to write again—not just want, but actual need to write. I felt like I could.

All I needed was an idea.

And that idea came in the form of Jamie (the male protagonist of my contemporary romance novel, Soulmates Saga #1. I woke up on the morning of August 1, 2010, a few days after my 26th birthday, with Jamie in my head. He'd just finished performing a gig in a dimly lit, smoky bar and he looked very moody, reluctant. I could see him so clearly—his hair, his eyes, his demeanour. As though he was a very good friend, I just knew him—his pain, his apathy, his past, his present. What I didn’t know was his future. But I wanted to find out.  

I spent the rest of the day thinking about Jamie’s life, his family, and music, formulated a vague plan in my head for the plot and started writing. Though I hadn’t written anything for years, the narrative flowed so naturally and instinctively from the very beginning. I had no idea whether it was going to be a short story or a novel, all I knew was that I was writing it because I felt like I just had to. Jamie was simply too intriguing to ignore.

The female character Mukti, a young research analyst in London, was supposed to be the opposite of Jamie, but she presented herself differently as I started to see the world from her perspective. She ended up being a bigger mystery than Jamie, revealing her secrets slowly and often changing the direction of the story from where I thought it was heading. That process was very exciting, though. 

Having spent every free evening and weekend writing as much as I could, I completed the first rough draft by the end of the year, and started the laborious process of editing in 2011.  I hadn’t planned for it to be the novel it became, nor had I any plans to try and publish it. I'd only written it because I needed to, because I couldn’t get Jamie and Mukti out of my head, couldn’t stop their story from playing in my mind. I edited it because I'm a perfectionist and knew that it would only improve if I went over it again. When I mentioned it to a friend, of course I was persuaded to let her read it. She said she loved it and encouraged me to try and publish it.


I'm convinced that the vision of Jamie wouldn't have come to me, that acute need to write again wouldn't have manifested, if I hadn't read Twilight. At any rate, I would have remained in that depressed state if Twilight hadn't cheered me up.

I self-published that book as an e-book in summer 2012, which started my indie author journey. I owe a lot to Twilight, if not for inspiring me to write again, to read books regularly again, then definitely for pulling me out of that depressive slump I'd found myself in.

And that's how Twilight changed my life and why I'm proud to be a Twihard.

Thank you for reading. Thank you for reading this post. My books are available at:

Apple Books, B&N, Kobo, Smashwords, and Amazon. You can find the >>Soulmates Saga here<<

My new book, Heir to the Throne (the first book in a new epic royalty fantasy trilogy), is out now, as is the sequel. More details here.

How #Twilight Changed My Life & Why I'm Proud To Be A #Twihard (Part III)

In the previous instalment of this series, I was talking about settling for writing and publishing non-fiction in my job in the financial services sector and loosening my grip on the dream of becoming an author of fiction because of the writer's block I was suffering from for almost 10 years.

But the thing about settling for second best, and knowing you're settling, is that it never feels like enough. Doesn't bring you true happiness. Especially when the dream clings on to you even when you think you're letting go.


That Cover!

I excelled at my job and was progressing well, fast, but it wasn't what I had passion for. So it wasn't making me happy. Not as happy as when I used to spend hours writing my "novel". But I just couldn't write a single creative sentence, now. Plus, the cold and flu became my constant companion, thanks to the air-con in the office, blasting freezing air from the vents directily above my head all day, every day, all year—summer and winter—and it was getting me really depressed.

I was actually recovering from a cold when I went shopping with my best friend in the winter of 2009. I needed new winter work clothes (or maybe it was just an excuse to indulge in one of my favourite past-times, shopping?) and I also had a book token left over from years ago when I'd won a poetry competition and I wanted to spend it, buy some books to read over the coming Christmas break, get back into reading. I knew I was going to buy Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code but the rest... I'd see what caught my fancy in WHSmiths.

What caught my eye at the book shop was... yes, you've guessed it, the Twilight book cover. Gorgeous. So striking and eye-catching.

 

Now, confession time: I didn't know much about the Twilight Saga back then, had no idea how big the Twihard fandom was. Sure, I'd seen the Twilight film trailer on TV, and I even saw the film poster for New Moon (Twilight Saga, Book 2) that had/was coming out that winter at the book store, but that was it.

I couldn't resist not picking up Twilight, but the blurb didn't scream out "read me!" to me, so I put it back on the shelf. My friend approved of this action—she said she'd heard about the book and it wasn't all good. But the cover was so pretty... I can't remember the number of times I picked it up and how many times my friend urged me to put it back on the shelf.

Stephenie Meyer's The Host was on the same shelf and my friend said she'd heard good things about that book, and that I should get that one if I was determined to buy a Meyer book. Not Twilight. The blurb for The Host however, didn't appeal to me at all. Witches, vampires and fairies I was down with, but sci-fi and aliens? No. It wasn't my thing.

My friend couldn't convince me to buy The Host and I couldn't help picking up Twilight and putting it back on the shelf. After I decided on my other buys, I put Twilight in my basket, much to my friend's dismay. The cover was stunning and it would look great on my new book shelf!

Come Christmas, I was of course, in bed with flu. I'd so been looking forward to reading Dan Brown but I wanted to be 100% better before starting it, give it my full attention, so I opened up Twilight. I probably wouldn't like it, as my friend had warned, but I just needed to kill time until I shrugged off this annoying cold.

But.

But I loved it, from the very first sentence, the first page. I was addicted and it made me feel better, physically and mentally. It will sound strange, but something inside me changed as I read this book and got caught up in the romance and drama. I fell in love with Edward of course, and by the time I finished it, I had a huge grin on my face. I went back to the beginning and re-read it. Then, again. And again. It was a great feeling, and I had to go back for more.

I felt better about myself, my life, my job (even if it meant suffering under the air con vents in the office), and my depressive slump was over. I wanted to re-read the book again but I refrained, else I'd get fed up of it, bored. I didn't want to get fed up. I vowed to read it again next Christmas and a tradition began.

At this point, most readers in my position would order the rest of the series from Amazon, right? Not me. I just ordered book 2, New Moon. I knew that if I had the whole series at my fingertips, I'd finish it within days, and I didn't want to fly through them. I wanted the feeling I got from reading this series to last as long as possible.

This post series concludes in Part IV. 

Thank you for reading this post. My books are available at:

Apple Books, B&N, Kobo, Smashwords, and Amazon. You can find the >>Soulmates Saga here<<

My new book, Heir to the Throne (the first book in a new epic royalty fantasy trilogy), is out now, as is the sequel. More details here.