42. NIKKI PAYNE: Retelling Jane Austen with diverse characters and plot lines

When authors like Ali Hazelwood and Julie Soto both passionately recommend a book, it's probably a good idea to check it out. That's how I was introduced to Nikki Payne and her latest book, "Sex, Lies, & Sensibility". Nikki is revamping classic Jane Austen tales with characters of color dealing with modern day problems. She does a fantastic job, and bonus, she's absolutely hilarious. (Like her math joke in this book almost choked me, and of course, we had to discuss it. You won't be sorry.)

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Transcript

00;00;00;01 - 00;00;23;19
Speaker 1
Hi and welcome to Literary Hype. I am Stephanie, your literary hype woman and today's author conversation is so much fun. Like Nikki Payne and I met at San Diego Comic-Con and within a week, I had read her book Sex, Lies and Sensibility, and we had booked an interview, Sex, Lies and Sensibility, as you could guess from the title, is a Jane Austen retelling that is set in the modern world.

00;00;24;05 - 00;00;34;13
Speaker 1
It's got some racial diversity that you don't often see in Jane Austen's books. And it's it's so good, guys. So good. So without any further ado, here's my conversation with Nikki Payne.

00;00;39;17 - 00;00;40;18
Speaker 1
Welcome to Literary.

00;00;40;18 - 00;00;42;00
Speaker 2
Heights. I'm so happy to be here.

00;00;42;00 - 00;00;43;17
Speaker 1
I'm happy to have you because.

00;00;43;17 - 00;00;46;21
Speaker 2
Happy that you're having happy to have me that I'm happy to be here.

00;00;46;27 - 00;01;06;19
Speaker 1
So before we get to talking about the book, we have to talk about what you told me you were going to do with San Diego Comic-Con, because I did not get to get into your panel they kicked me out. No, they were like, it's too many people and you're just too much, so get out. Well, you said you were going to bring up clowns because certain other authors have issues with clowns.

00;01;06;19 - 00;01;08;00
Speaker 1
Yeah. How did that conversation go?

00;01;08;02 - 00;01;35;23
Speaker 2
I have to speak my truth, OK? We are a silent majority. Those folks who aren't necessarily afraid of clowns and would maybe, I don't know, kiss a clown if push came to shove. We out here, folks, we out here, OK? We had a discussion. We're talking about magicians, v clowns. I came down heavy on clowns, and now I'm a social pariah.

00;01;36;00 - 00;01;55;23
Speaker 2
Now I'm the person who's given ill. But what? I tell you what, I spoke my truth in that panel and said, hmm, maybe clowns there are people who came up in the line and they were like, toe, and I knew it. I knew it silent but deadly. Well, maybe that that's not going to help with.

00;01;56;15 - 00;01;57;06
Speaker 1
All the things.

00;01;57;06 - 00;02;01;10
Speaker 2
I'm helping out, but that's the majority. We're out here.

00;02;01;21 - 00;02;05;21
Speaker 1
Sorry. Julie and Allie you may have lost this one.

00;02;05;21 - 00;02;07;26
Speaker 2
We got into it. We got into a little tussle.

00;02;08;02 - 00;02;11;28
Speaker 1
I'm glad. I'm glad because they need to be heard a little bit every once in a while.

00;02;11;28 - 00;02;12;25
Speaker 2
Every once in a while.

00;02;13;18 - 00;02;21;05
Speaker 1
So your book is Sex, Lies and Sensibility, your most recent one? Yes. So for anyone who has not already seen this on social media, what's it about?

00;02;21;09 - 00;02;48;22
Speaker 2
Great question. Two sisters find out at the worst possible time. Their dad's funeral. They're the outside children, and the real family is not playing nice. So all of their uncomfortable life is over. And the last thing that they are given is a dilapidated inn in rural coastal Maine. And spoiler alert, not black folks in Maine. So our girls were nervous.

00;02;49;13 - 00;03;13;26
Speaker 2
They picked up and moved to Maine. And before they even shook the dust off of last season's probables, here comes a hot indigenous tour guide who walks into their home and says, oh, this place is mine. So Luke starts off with a bang, and hopefully they learn how to love, how to get together. Who knows? It's a romance spoiler alert.

00;03;13;26 - 00;03;15;09
Speaker 2
They do. Oh.

00;03;16;07 - 00;03;18;10
Speaker 1
I can't believe you just spoil this whole thing.

00;03;18;10 - 00;03;18;25
Speaker 2
Oh, my God.

00;03;19;04 - 00;03;29;15
Speaker 1
Oh, my goodness. But I mean, if we're going to talk about that part because that there's a little expo. Yeah. Where they were a little exposed.

00;03;29;16 - 00;03;31;23
Speaker 2
Exposed at the expo.

00;03;31;25 - 00;03;34;12
Speaker 1
That was a delight to read.

00;03;34;12 - 00;04;01;09
Speaker 2
First of all, I love that you say that expose at the Expo because they were circling around each other so long and the thing about both of them is that they are so wrapped up in what ought to be, Oh, this isn't a spoiler, it's on the first page. But the main character, Nora, has had a like really terrible sex circulating around her and about her for years and years.

00;04;01;19 - 00;04;25;03
Speaker 2
And so when people recognize her is never for a good reason. It's always because of what they saw. And so when she finally, like Liz herself, like feel passionately with bear, like it's just so good when they're on the page and they are like feeling each other, pulling on each other I loved writing that because it was such a release of tension.

00;04;25;09 - 00;04;37;02
Speaker 1
It was a very spicy fun saying. And I was I may have been reading that in the Uber book with this with a very old man as my driver and just being like, do not look at me, sorry.

00;04;38;06 - 00;04;39;04
Speaker 2
Don't even look at me.

00;04;39;07 - 00;04;42;20
Speaker 1
This is not the moment. And he kept wanting to talk and I'm like, this is not.

00;04;42;20 - 00;04;44;12
Speaker 2
The moment that time, sorry.

00;04;44;13 - 00;05;02;18
Speaker 1
It's just let me have my moments with these characters. Oh, anyway, so as the title would suggest, this is a Jane Austen retelling. Yes. Yes. So how did you take Jane Austen and mix in a little Schitt's Creek vibe?

00;05;02;19 - 00;05;03;02
Speaker 2
Yes.

00;05;03;19 - 00;05;06;08
Speaker 1
And turn this into a delight.

00;05;06;14 - 00;05;28;01
Speaker 2
I love Jane Austen. I'm like she was like foundational text for me. And I was always thinking about what you could add, what you could change, what you can do to make Jane Austen weird and different. So there are a lot of takes that feel like super foundational, like Shakespeare, right? And you like of know the beats almost like in your head, right?

00;05;28;01 - 00;05;52;00
Speaker 2
Sometimes we know the BS of Pride and Prejudice our Shakespeare, like in our heads, but like, what would it take for a Shakespeare to suddenly feel alien? What would it take for Pride and Prejudice to suddenly feel like a completely new thing? And so, like, you think about all of these additions you could add to make something comforting and fun seem new and exciting.

00;05;52;12 - 00;06;13;22
Speaker 2
I mean, in a way, it's kind of like this analogy of like when you're sampling a song in hip hop, right? So if you listen to Biggie, he sampled it's like Seventies Box of Juicy, maybe his eighties, and it's a great song by itself. Like your grandparents are like and your parents are like jamming the juice and they're like, Yeah, this is a good song.

00;06;13;22 - 00;06;30;11
Speaker 2
It can't get any better. Sorry, you know? And then you hear the same beat, but a little bit of the dishes and you hear Biggie say it was all a dream, right? And it's a new thing all of a sudden. Right? And that's what I love about retelling what I love about Jane Austen is that you can jam that original.

00;06;30;11 - 00;06;42;01
Speaker 2
It's just like I love this is a great song. You can't get any better. But hearing Biggie over are hearing it in a new way. It just feels so fresh and it keeps the thing that you love about the old song, too.

00;06;42;04 - 00;06;52;08
Speaker 1
You know, how do you approach because this is your second Jane Austen retelling? How do you approach keeping it fresh while still working off of something that is so iconic and well-known?

00;06;52;08 - 00;07;21;20
Speaker 2
Yeah. One of the things I really love to do is have a conversation with myself about what I'm non-negotiables, like, what things have to stay. You have to kind of know the beating heart of that show, I mean, of the book, of the anything that you're retelling. And for Pride and Prejudice, for example, like those who can be like nice to her at the beginning, you know, like as much as you know, sometimes in modern romances, sometimes we don't like assholes, you know what I mean?

00;07;22;02 - 00;07;49;02
Speaker 2
And the beginning of the book, Darcy had to be an asshole. And he had to need redeeming, right? And so those are the types of things I feel like we're non-negotiable there. There's certain aspects of Alyssa having an embarrassing family you know, that to me were non-negotiable to the idea of a snob who falls in love with a right, you know, rebellious rock is family and like, what happens there, you know?

00;07;49;02 - 00;07;54;08
Speaker 2
And so I have these negotiations with myself about what has to stay and what can go.

00;07;54;16 - 00;08;05;27
Speaker 1
What is it about Jane Austen and her work that has transcended generations and centuries and is still something that we love and want to see new takes on all these years later?

00;08;06;00 - 00;08;28;18
Speaker 2
This is a good question. What I love about Jane Austen is that we encounter these women, Jane Austen, as hero heroines in these moments of like particularly in the Regency or the Georgian period, these moments of their greatest agency, like a woman is right before she's about to be married, has the most choice to change the trajectory of her life forever.

00;08;29;09 - 00;08;53;26
Speaker 2
So she makes a wrong choice. She makes a wrong decision. It's curtains, right? And so this is the moment in the place where you're living. Your job is so circumscribed and your work is so set out for you that you can actually exercise your greatest choice and change your life. For the better. So I love Jane Austen because we're encountering women who are at the very peak of their ability to change your life.

00;08;54;07 - 00;09;15;25
Speaker 2
And you love a story to start off like that. And they make all of these decisions that would almost seem like they'll never get the thing that they desire or deserve, which is status which is a safe marriage, which is love and safety. But like Elisabeth said, no. She said no to the obvious thing, to the safe thing.

00;09;16;04 - 00;09;32;24
Speaker 2
Because of her own principles. Right. And yeah, just seeing these women sit out here and they're greatly, you know, I mean, in these moments where they're supposed to be making these amazing choices is something I think that will continue to resound forever and ever.

00;09;33;04 - 00;09;47;07
Speaker 1
You do have this really great author's note at the beginning about writing from another perspective. What made you decide to make our hero indigenous? And what was the process like for you to learn about that culture so you could effectively write it?

00;09;47;22 - 00;10;15;22
Speaker 2
That's one of my favorite questions, because I'm a cultural anthropologist. I have a Ph.D., and I wanted to take that so seriously. I felt so deeply that there's some stories that that you can tell, but you can't kind of phone it in on right? You can't like fuck it up, right? And so there was I wanted to tell the story about these two people encountering each other from completely different worlds, but I didn't want to phone it in.

00;10;16;03 - 00;10;45;07
Speaker 2
And one of the things that I feel like is my superpower is sitting down talking with people, understanding cultural context. So I packed up and traveled to Maine and went to hang out on the reservation, chatted with scholars, talked with the community, what is bothering you? Like what's happening in your community? Right. So the idea, even the situation with Bear and and the dam like that was a real situation.

00;10;45;10 - 00;11;12;04
Speaker 2
Right? So I will say when I was starting this work, one of the things that I knew that I was going to put these women in a space of like non safety. So when when we think of Maine, I think for black people, a lot of people, a lot of black folks, like think about places where there are black people and black people just because of like our history in the world, people think of where they are will be safe.

00;11;12;06 - 00;11;45;17
Speaker 2
Right. And so when we think of May, we think, OK, you know, black folks may, you know, and so I wanted to put these women in a place where they would know. Absolutely nothing. No, absolutely no one at train. And so getting these women to Maine and also just like owning land, being inheriting lands in Maine, I felt like it was a tricky situation because I was reading doing a lot of research about like like tribal sovereignty in Maine and some of the issues that were happening there.

00;11;45;17 - 00;12;13;29
Speaker 2
And I started to think about like kind of what it means to own lands and what it means to inherit lands right. And I thought it would be an interesting conversation for an African-American to come into a space and say, I've inherited this land. This land is mine. An African-American and a Native American, to have a real conversation kind of about land ownership, about things like without or without a white person in the room, like these are the two oldest subcultures in America.

00;12;14;05 - 00;12;38;25
Speaker 2
And it has so much to say to each other, you know, around who can own land, about what the history of that like experience was. And I just thought it was like a rich conversation. I just wanted I started out with this like there's this gag of like a woman a black woman coming down and this Native American man accusing her of like Christopher Columbus thing and she's like, oh, me, how can I, you know.

00;12;38;27 - 00;12;40;01
Speaker 1
Which was brilliant, by.

00;12;40;01 - 00;13;09;20
Speaker 2
The way. I just wanted that that experience of like, can I can you do this? Like, when you don't see yourself in that aspect, like being a colonial power, right? Can you still do that? And so this seems like very, like academic, but it really, really just started from a gag you know, I mean, that I just wanted to gag and like like I mentioned, I traveled to Maine and traveled and spoke with leaders spoke with academics.

00;13;10;00 - 00;13;31;02
Speaker 2
I hung out on the reservation and I talked to people about like, well, it's pissing them off. I was bringing them joy, what was fun, what was exciting, what was like frustrating. And I wanted to as much as I could represent that without like without being under the ideal that I am, where, like, I'm telling this story, representing them for them.

00;13;31;06 - 00;14;00;10
Speaker 2
Right. So there was like this tension between, you know, telling a story with a character with a different culture than mine and like trying to be the culture. And that's like the step that I didn't want to take. Right. I think anyone any creatives have as a need to operate with empathy. So I can write I can write a million stories about like a black woman and still not like write about the black female experience because I'm just me.

00;14;00;19 - 00;14;20;14
Speaker 2
And so when I think about writing a character from a different culture, I do think about any type of writing endeavor is about creativity. And if we don't trust ourselves to truly empathize with another culture, another race, another gender, then, you know, what are we doing as writers? What are we doing as creatives? You know, to.

00;14;20;14 - 00;14;21;16
Speaker 1
Preach, just breathe.

00;14;21;20 - 00;14;22;23
Speaker 2
Yes. Sorry, that was alone.

00;14;22;25 - 00;14;25;21
Speaker 1
Oh, no, you did it, Nora. Has been through it.

00;14;25;25 - 00;14;26;11
Speaker 2
Through it.

00;14;27;26 - 00;14;48;23
Speaker 1
So this very passionate moment that we discussed crafting that as what happens in that moment is like the worst thing that could happen for her because of her background. Yeah. At what point did you know that that was something that needed to happen? Yes. For her to move forward in her own personal story.

00;14;49;10 - 00;14;51;25
Speaker 2
That's great. Which which exact moment are we talking.

00;14;51;25 - 00;14;53;05
Speaker 1
About, the exposed or the.

00;14;53;20 - 00;15;37;26
Speaker 2
Exposed to the exposed? Yes, that's a great point because the thing that Nora from the very beginning, first couple of pages that she notices all the time are eyes on her, right? Who is looking at me and why. And it's become this huge anxiety for her, for people to like almost things and to know her by her body, you know, to to know her by what they've seen of her body and it was this great anxiety is that when that moment when she was exposed at the Expo, it was everything that she kind of knew about herself at one time, like clothes have off, like being willing to, like, go all the way, you know,

00;15;37;26 - 00;15;58;14
Speaker 2
to me, wanting to go all the way in public again, you know, and to feel like that she would never not be that person from seven years ago as she was still in the end, just this type of woman who would go all the way with very little, you know, and is shatter to say to realize like this actually is maybe the type of woman I am.

00;15;58;20 - 00;16;20;02
Speaker 2
And she didn't want that, you know, but and it was like this moment of like, yes, she's finally like letting go and realizing what she wants. And then it came to the point where everyone saw it. It was like, oh, now she went right back to who she was before. Like, Oh, I'm not this person. I'm not I'm not that that person before.

00;16;20;02 - 00;16;29;06
Speaker 2
So she's always fighting with herself. So that moment was like, oh, yeah, this is proof that, you know, I am who that woman was seven years ago. She didn't like that woman. I guess.

00;16;29;15 - 00;16;35;07
Speaker 1
If you blend these situations with so much humor, like there's a line about who was harder than advanced trigonometry.

00;16;35;15 - 00;16;35;28
Speaker 2
Girl.

00;16;36;17 - 00;16;37;24
Speaker 1
I nearly choked.

00;16;37;24 - 00;16;38;11
Speaker 2
Yes.

00;16;38;12 - 00;16;41;04
Speaker 1
On my water. Yes. Oh, my goodness.

00;16;41;04 - 00;16;41;28
Speaker 2
Is it hard?

00;16;42;03 - 00;16;43;20
Speaker 1
It's hard. It's so hard.

00;16;43;20 - 00;16;44;11
Speaker 2
It's so hard.

00;16;44;21 - 00;16;49;03
Speaker 1
It's so, so hard. Like even even normal trigonometry is too hard.

00;16;49;03 - 00;16;54;10
Speaker 2
Yes. Harder than advanced trigonometry. You know that what was going on in those pants.

00;16;54;12 - 00;17;02;06
Speaker 1
OK, it's very descriptive. So talk about blending humor with this depth that these characters are going through.

00;17;02;24 - 00;17;25;21
Speaker 2
I think we do that quite naturally, you know, to have like this full, full experience of something like sometimes even like at a funeral you're like telling a story about someone that you loved and it sparks a moment of comedy. You know, I had an uncle died and everyone was talking about how he died owing everyone about $20 in me.

00;17;25;29 - 00;17;50;26
Speaker 2
And we love that uncle. We also, like, laughed at that predicament and I think sometimes to have a full emotional experience, you can be so turned on and then notice one thing in the moment and just like, that's crazy. You know, or you can be so sad and have a moment of joy. And in the midst of this is how we actually experienced things.

00;17;51;04 - 00;18;04;26
Speaker 2
And I wanted these emotions to all like robust, you know, like you're feeling this, but this is also your experience as well. So I think honestly, is how we it's how we actually experience life. This whole 360 emotion, you know.

00;18;05;08 - 00;18;17;29
Speaker 1
And going along with humor. You recently posted on Instagram about their weird crushes and how they influence your writing. Yes. Which of your weird pop culture crushes are represented in Bear?

00;18;18;11 - 00;18;49;26
Speaker 2
Oh, my gosh, there she is. I loved her and Campbell so much. And he had this song called Can We Talk? And it was just about this reticent man who keeps missing his chance to go after the girl. And it's like, can we talk just for a moment? And Bear is there. I wouldn't call him a shy man about what he wants, but he also doesn't think he deserves much.

00;18;50;11 - 00;19;14;13
Speaker 2
He's caught up in this loop of guilt and will take what he's given, but doesn't also believe that he deserves it. So he would never actively reach for something without that secondary guilt that slaps right on him. So I would say Tevin Campbell, he's just such a just a very good boy, you know, and a shy guy. And I love.

00;19;14;13 - 00;19;27;18
Speaker 1
That. Throughout the book, Nora has these moments where she's like one, two and three. Yes. What about her character made you feel like having lists of at least three things was necessity for her?

00;19;27;19 - 00;19;47;25
Speaker 2
I love this because Nora fundamentally thinks she knows how everything is going to end up. You know, and for people like that who think they know, like the end of everything like, I wanted to continuously shocker, you know, to say, like, you start she starts off saying, look, let me tell you what's going to happen if you do these three things.

00;19;48;02 - 00;20;10;23
Speaker 2
And sometimes she's right, but she's wrong a lot, you know? And it's because she wants she wants to justify inaction. She wants to justify not doing a thing because she thinks that she knows how it's going to end. She waited too long to tell Bear about her past because she was starting to like him, even grown to love him as he knew.

00;20;10;24 - 00;20;26;03
Speaker 2
She felt like she knew once he knew it was going to be all over, it was going to be like that. Whatever tiny little gossamer thing that they were building was going to end. And she she held off because she was so desperate for that connection.

00;20;26;08 - 00;20;36;21
Speaker 1
With their situation. If he would just get married, he'd inherit money. Yeah. If you were in that situation and with a marriage for a couple of months could lend you a bunch of money, would you do it?

00;20;37;07 - 00;21;03;03
Speaker 2
I would do it. I mean, that's the thing is, like, unlike there, who has these dreams of, like, building this home for his wife or whatever and was reluctant to do the thing that he just maybe should have done much earlier. I would have done it earlier. But the thing was like he had all these dreams and it will take him if he would have done that, he would have just had to slowly give up on them and just like, don't worry about it.

00;21;03;03 - 00;21;22;10
Speaker 2
Just stay where you are. Just, you know, don't don't try to rise above anything. Just stay on the road and stay where you are. And it's it's hard. It's hard to tell someone that the best thing for you right now financially MR. Pay off all these bills and just stay where you are, you know? And he was kind of hiding from it.

00;21;22;20 - 00;21;38;09
Speaker 2
You know, he was having bills. He was in debt, you know, this is a hero who's not wealthy and could solve all of his problems by just giving all of his money up to this problem. But that's a hard sell you know? I mean, what would you have done?

00;21;39;21 - 00;22;00;28
Speaker 1
I have no idea. Barry and Nora work together on this DIY how much research did it take for you to figure out, like the codes and what they would need to do and how to write the projects, even though it's kind of a background thing, but still keeping that relevant and clear as what's going on?

00;22;00;28 - 00;22;27;26
Speaker 2
Yeah, it was hard for me. My first draft, it was like both Elsinore and Bear and it was November and I was like, Oh, I'm done. I guess I'm done. And then I got my beta used to read in there like, was this about revamping a house? I was like, There, it's Keeping Me Honest so I had to think through the types of things that actually happen when you are like revamping a house and like contractors never show up or when they do show up is much longer than the expectation.

00;22;27;26 - 00;22;47;13
Speaker 2
And like, it's incredibly frustrating and time consuming. And so I wanted to, to focus on that frustration, but also focus on what happens after. Was that point of pride when you have actually like maybe not perfectly, but have pulled it off, you know, and they they made a home that they were proud of.

00;22;48;03 - 00;22;54;20
Speaker 1
This was book two of the Jane Austen books. Is there going to be a book three? And if so, what can you tell us about it?

00;22;55;07 - 00;23;28;20
Speaker 2
I so excited about my next book. It is a murder mystery. If you read plot and protest, you will recognize this character had a penchant for detective work and maybe his dreams came true. Maybe he's a detective now. And this character, Morris, is a detective and he is now forced to work with a ready detective. So she is a person who like knows who actually got together on Love is Blind, you know?

00;23;28;20 - 00;23;51;05
Speaker 2
I mean, she, like, goes through all of these like, you know, TV detective work she does all of them works on cold cases, listen to podcasts. But she's never actually been kind of outside. She's super sheltered. She is living this life almost in this, like, cult like existence. And she has to move out of her shell to work with Morris.

00;23;51;17 - 00;24;17;07
Speaker 2
And it is just it's unhinged. It's giving like the Virgin and the like, you know, and they have to, like, solve a case together. And it is fantastic. It's just so so fun is a caper and yeah, it the girl is the Dana the true Jane Austen girls are going to recognize some taste of a little bit of Northanger Abbey, just some Easter eggs, but it's for the girls.

00;24;17;07 - 00;24;23;04
Speaker 2
But if you've never read nothing grabby, it will be no big deal. But if you have, you got to be like, I see what you did there.

00;24;24;25 - 00;24;36;02
Speaker 1
I love it. I'm so excited. I cannot wait. One thing I love about you, in the short time that we have known each other is how much you love your fellow writer girlies.

00;24;36;02 - 00;24;37;05
Speaker 2
Oh, God, I love them.

00;24;37;12 - 00;24;40;25
Speaker 1
What does the writing community mean to you? Especially in the romance space?

00;24;41;07 - 00;25;09;08
Speaker 2
Let me tell you something. I was just on another panel and I was at a signing, and everyone who came to my signing said, Oh, my gosh, I had to come to your table because Julie Soto and Allie Hazelwood were screaming about your book. I mean, that is like that is the thing. And I had a line swirling around going on forever and ever, and everyone came to say, I heard about you from the panel.

00;25;09;08 - 00;25;35;05
Speaker 2
To me, like, writing community is just shouting about people behind their back, you know, to people who would love their work. And that's the thing that I'm always doing is like, Hey, do you like this and this? You got to love Regina Black. Do you like this and this? And like, to me, that community of like, you're talking about someone when you're in the room, when you're in a closed door and you're and you think of some someone and you think of an opportunity.

00;25;35;25 - 00;25;44;07
Speaker 2
I feel like the writer friends are always the ones saying, think of Nikki Payne ask this person, ask that. And it's it's always them.

00;25;44;23 - 00;25;52;22
Speaker 1
I mean, Allie and Julie were the ones who told me about you. Yes. So and look at us now. That was what, nine months ago? Yeah.

00;25;52;28 - 00;26;02;10
Speaker 2
Yeah. Honestly, like, that's the that's the level of support that I feel like. I don't know if it's just for the romance girls, but we we get it. The romance girls get it.

00;26;02;24 - 00;26;08;28
Speaker 1
And how does that translate with the readers at an event like this? Read See Me like I'm surrounded by thousands of readers.

00;26;08;28 - 00;26;31;01
Speaker 2
This kind these readers are some of the most diverse collection of readers ever. They are ready for diverse romance, for romance, like for queer romance, for romance, this is why choose like they are here for it. I think for a long time we have been told the types of romances. I say all the types of romances that are worthy the types of romances that are good.

00;26;31;10 - 00;26;43;17
Speaker 2
And these readers are here looking for more. And that's why I love Steamy Lit, because they're pushing past the envelope. They're saying, what else? There's more, what else? And these are the readers asking, What else?

00;26;43;24 - 00;26;45;14
Speaker 1
Is there anything else you want to talk about?

00;26;47;10 - 00;26;52;02
Speaker 2
Can I hear what something that you've read that's just like blown your way?

00;26;52;15 - 00;27;01;05
Speaker 1
I've been reading The Night Ends with Fire By Song, which is a moulin retelling but she's driven by greed and ambition instead of, like, family duty.

00;27;01;05 - 00;27;02;01
Speaker 2
Oh, wow.

00;27;02;01 - 00;27;07;15
Speaker 1
So it's way more realistic, which is plus there's a fantasy element to it. So it's a romantic scene.

00;27;07;26 - 00;27;14;11
Speaker 2
Is it a romance? It is called The Night is in Fire. Say Less done, chick.

00;27;14;16 - 00;27;18;10
Speaker 1
Read the first. The first print run has gorgeous edges.

00;27;19;17 - 00;27;21;14
Speaker 2
You all you have here, Miller were telling.

00;27;22;24 - 00;27;25;05
Speaker 1
Why are retellings such a big deal right now?

00;27;26;01 - 00;27;53;14
Speaker 2
Let me tell you something. I know people are just like, oh, you know, another retelling. But I think retellings are significantly more creative work, like not more, but like the creativity involved in retelling a work is extremely, extremely high. Like, the thing is that you have to take the balls of this work and make it fresh. And the work of making it fresh is the creative, it is the creativity.

00;27;53;21 - 00;28;17;15
Speaker 2
Of course, you're going to retail Jane Austen three years later in a you know, they all are wearing empire dresses and it's you know, like you can just redo that or you can make it completely revolutionary. And like, if you tell me this is based on the line, then I know that there's going to be a hot ass general that I can even mean that, oh, he's there.

00;28;17;20 - 00;28;29;22
Speaker 2
She's got a Bunheads with and like, I'm here for that, you know? But like, this is what I mean. Like, the things that I can be excited about are still there. And the things that I don't know about is still a mystery. Yeah.

00;28;30;02 - 00;28;32;21
Speaker 1
Well, since this is literary hype, what books are you hyped about?

00;28;32;24 - 00;29;13;03
Speaker 2
Oh, gosh. OK, I love, love, love this book, The Starling House by Alex Harrow. I tell anybody that is like standing and up and alive to please get it because it's like there's a Boo Radley of it all due to spin. Like, if you can imagine like what would happen, right? Bradley books that that's the book is also gorgeously written it's beautiful it's set in Kentucky but it's just has this like this aspect of like the beauty and the beast but you don't know who the beauty is in the beast is.

00;29;13;03 - 00;29;15;29
Speaker 2
Oh, it's just so good. It's fantastic.

00;29;16;24 - 00;29;19;27
Speaker 1
Well, thank you so much for taking time to talk about your books with literary hype.

00;29;19;27 - 00;29;21;12
Speaker 2
Thank you. Thank you for having me.

00;29;24;10 - 00;29;38;14
Speaker 1
Thanks again to Nikki for taking some time out of her steamy little schedule to talk about her most recent release, Sex, Lies and Sensibility, and to give us some sneak peeks at what's coming next for her. If you'd like to get a hold of any of Nikki's books, the links to do so are in the show notes for you.

00;29;38;24 - 00;29;50;11
Speaker 1
Don't forget to subscribe to the Literary Hype podcast if you've not done so already and give us some stories and then share it with a friend because reading is more fun with friends. Thanks so much for listening to the Literary Hype podcast.