70. SAJNI PATEL: Mixing Greek and Indian mythology and the reality of Medusa's story

Sajni Patel is the author of the Young Adult Dark Romantasy duology, A Drop of Venom and A Touch of Blood, under Rick Riordan's imprint. She blends Indian mythology with classic Greek myths like Medusa and Persephone in these two books, taking readers on a wild ride. 

She chatted with me at Emerald City Comic Con about her duology, the importance of sharing stories of sexual assault (consider this your trigger warning, if Medusa's story wasn't enough of an implication of the themes in this book and conversation), and our shared love of K-Pop.

Links to Sajni's books to come.

Transcript

00;00;06;10 - 00;00;30;14
Speaker 1
Hi and welcome to Literary Hype. I am Stephanie here literary hype woman. And today's off. Their conversation is a very special one to me because, well, we talk about that a little bit. And so I won't spoil why this conversation is special to me, but I will tell you that the author's name, Misogyny Patel, she is the author of several romance books like The Design of US and now she's Dabbling in the Y, a dark fantasy space.

00;00;30;14 - 00;00;53;00
Speaker 1
So her first book in this world was a Drop of Venom, which was a Medusa retelling with Indian myth. And now she's moved on to Stephanie and A Touch of Blood, also with Indian myth. So these are companion novels. You can read either one first. They kind of touch on each other, but as a whole. Right. There's a lot to unpack in these books.

00;00;53;13 - 00;00;56;11
Speaker 1
So without any further ado, here is my conversation with Sachin Patel.

00;01;00;07 - 00;01;10;05
Speaker 2
Well, welcome to the literary hype. It's so exciting to have you on, not only because you have a brand new book that is absolutely gorgeous but because you have a very special place in my heart.

00;01;10;12 - 00;01;12;27
Speaker 3
Oh, thank you so much. So thank you so much for having me. Hi.

00;01;14;07 - 00;01;22;18
Speaker 2
You were the first author that used another author's connection to me to try to say hi, and I still have not gotten over that.

00;01;22;18 - 00;01;36;07
Speaker 3
I know I've seen you all over the place, and I know that some of my friends know you or have done things with you. And I always asked them, like, introduce us, introduce us. And they're and they always say, well, we're not that close, but I guess this friend was close enough. And she's like, Yeah, of course, sir.

00;01;36;11 - 00;01;47;15
Speaker 2
We love her. We get to do a panel with her. Now, here we are a couple of months later after first meeting, and we're doing a panel together at Emerald City. What's it like for you to get to bring your worlds to a Comic-Con?

00;01;47;21 - 00;01;49;27
Speaker 3
OK, so this is a fangirl.

00;01;49;27 - 00;01;50;07
Speaker 2
Moment.

00;01;50;07 - 00;02;08;22
Speaker 3
For myself. I've always wanted, so attend Comic-Con. When I moved to the States when I was four, like Marvel Comics, was the immediate first thing that I was gravitated toward. And so being in Comic-Con has always been a dream to attend, but to be able to be on a panel and to do an interview like that's that's amazing for me.

00;02;08;24 - 00;02;14;02
Speaker 2
So for anybody who hasn't already seen a touch of blood all over their social media feed, tell us what it's about.

00;02;14;07 - 00;02;28;24
Speaker 3
So A Touch of Blood is the companion novel to a drop of an I'm So Drop of Venom was my Medusa retelling. They know if I miss retelling what the Indian Twist on it and A Touch of Blood is a written timeline with the Indian mythology mixed in.

00;02;28;28 - 00;02;34;27
Speaker 2
So how do you go about deciding what bits of the Indian mythology you want to bring in and introduce to a larger audience?

00;02;35;03 - 00;02;52;13
Speaker 3
So most of it is Indian mythology or Indian lore, the culture, the food, all of that is based off of Indian culture and Indian history. But the Greek mythology part of it is like the basis of like we know we're very familiar with Medusa. We're very familiar with her, Stephanie, and Haiti is and kind of like their love story.

00;02;52;13 - 00;03;04;01
Speaker 3
Maybe the, the pomegranates, maybe the the kidnaping or the abduction of poor Stephanie. And so those are like just a baseline of the story and everything else sprouts from that.

00;03;04;11 - 00;03;15;27
Speaker 2
There's a lot of creatures that I was not familiar with because I'm not familiar with Indian mythology and folklore. So what's it like bringing those into a different kind of audience?

00;03;16;01 - 00;03;37;27
Speaker 3
The Greek part of it is a baseline, right? And in Greek mythology, these are all gods. And so in my series, they are different types of Hindu Indian creatures, like some creatures are seen as demons like my Hades. Iran is a sura, which is called like a demon. And so he's kind of a gray, you know, anti-hero kind of a thing.

00;03;38;11 - 00;03;58;07
Speaker 3
I would say, like I would like him to be like Wolverine. And maybe with the weapon that he has might be a little similar to Wolverine and my main character is shiny. She's Naga, so she is like a creature that has a connection to serpents, to cobras, and all of the monsters and the other characters are also based off of these creatures.

00;03;58;07 - 00;04;15;00
Speaker 3
But I just kind of put a twist on it. So even taken from Indian mythology and the allure, I didn't make them out to be exactly what the stories say. And that's like the whole thing of the series is, is taking stories that we've heard mainly of one narrative or one point of view and kind of turning that around and saying, like what?

00;04;15;04 - 00;04;17;05
Speaker 3
What else is underneath the surface?

00;04;17;14 - 00;04;24;12
Speaker 2
So if somebody is interested in this book and they did not read a touch, a drop of venom, do they need to read that one first?

00;04;24;18 - 00;04;39;08
Speaker 3
They don't because A Touch of Blood is a companion novel. It's happening on the same timeline as a drop of them. But I would suggest I would recommend reading A Drop of Venom first. It sets up the worlds a bit more, whereas a touch of black just goes right into the action in the story.

00;04;39;17 - 00;04;46;15
Speaker 2
There's so much action throughout both of these books. How do you craft a good action sequence?

00;04;46;25 - 00;05;11;22
Speaker 3
That's a hard question. I tried to balance out like I write a cinematically like what I would like to see in a movie and kind of write that out. But then I have to go back and touch base about what's going on. Mentally, physically, the emotions, the physical feelings, like what's happening all around, like a wall around it's fight scene, I guess.

00;05;11;28 - 00;05;22;22
Speaker 3
So I had to go back and make sure that I add these things and also break them up. So it's not just like punch, punch, kick, kick. You know, I have to add a little, maybe a little bit of dialog and maybe a little bit of emotion or history or background or whatever is going on.

00;05;23;00 - 00;05;35;26
Speaker 2
One of the biggest like for lack of a better word, critiques from the first one was that people were upset that it depicted rape in a way book what was your decision like to include that as such a key part of this story?

00;05;36;00 - 00;05;56;24
Speaker 3
So it's a retelling of this event is this entire villain origin story is are being raped and so it was very clear upfront, like this is a story of Medusa. It's it's about rape. I have it in my blurb. There's like a four page no, it's for required and in the beginning that talks about rape and the statistics and how important the story is.

00;05;56;24 - 00;06;15;23
Speaker 3
And then I also have a lady known as for you know trigger warnings to let people know this is what you're going to get into. I the rape scene is not very detailed but it does happen on page and it is a pivotal part of the story. And also it's a young adult novel. But we go through rape, right?

00;06;15;29 - 00;06;35;28
Speaker 3
Like sexual assault is a big thing. We need to talk about it. Kids needs to be aware of it's young people because they're going through it. And in the opening letter from Ric, he mentioned statistics like one third of women of girls are sexually assaulted, like one fifth of boys and men are assaulted. The LGBTQ community as well are higher risk.

00;06;36;05 - 00;06;48;02
Speaker 3
He'll see women as well. So it's an important story. And a Medusa story can't be told without that because that is supposed to be what creates the villain, the monster.

00;06;48;10 - 00;06;58;27
Speaker 2
Which I was very surprised that so many people had issues with that. I was like, it's very clearly depicted on page one. It is such a part of her story. So it was kind of shocking to me to see people upset about that.

00;06;59;05 - 00;07;21;02
Speaker 3
I don't read reviews. I try not to. So I don't know that people had issues with it. I think, though, what people probably had a lot of issue with is that they saw that it's a Rick Riordan book, A Wreck, right? It imprints in and his books for the imprints previously or have been middle grade and they're pretty, you know, like nice and and quirky and happy going.

00;07;21;17 - 00;07;38;11
Speaker 3
This is not that. This was like that's why we said of France in the blurb in the blurb, it says he's sexually assaulted. That's all we have like six pages of warning beforehand. So it's a Medusa story. And it needs to be told. It needs to be told from our point of view, which is the whole point of the story to see how the narrative changes.

00;07;38;11 - 00;07;56;17
Speaker 3
Because in in society we've been told that Medusa was the villain, the monster. But it's like, no, this is a woman was assaulted. She was kicked out. She was exiled. Men still came after her. So, of course, she she didn't even really defend herself. She just happened to look at them and turn them into stone according to mythology.

00;07;56;17 - 00;08;16;10
Speaker 3
So that's not her fault. You know, someone knocks on your door, you're going to look outside and see who it is. And she's in the middle of nowhere. So why are men going after her? So she's not really a monster. You know, she was a victim but yeah, I do think that people saw the required imprints and thought that it was going to be like a very happy book.

00;08;16;11 - 00;08;17;28
Speaker 3
It is not. It's a dark fantasy.

00;08;18;04 - 00;08;29;10
Speaker 2
Yeah. It's it's very clearly a dark fantasy. It is way it's not too over the top graphic. What was it like for you to draw? Where did you pull from for all these dark parts of these stories?

00;08;29;24 - 00;08;55;28
Speaker 3
I spoke from experience, and I think that's another reason why the book is important, because a lot of people go through this experience. And while I guess there are some reviewers who didn't like that the topic was touched on or presented in that way, I had so many readers come up to me, DM me, messaged me, meet me at festivals at panels, at events and tell me how it touched them personally and how it's helped them to heal and move forward and have these conversations.

00;08;56;20 - 00;09;14;22
Speaker 3
I've had readers like come up to me in line like they're like trying to hold back sobs and it's like, Yeah, this book was for you and I'm glad that you read it. I mean, this book is for anyone as long as it doesn't trigger you in a negative way, whether it's a story that you can relate to personally or just be empathetic toward.

00;09;15;04 - 00;09;35;08
Speaker 3
Because for me growing up and these are some lines from a drop of venom we hear that girls who are assaulted like it's their faults and, you know, it's their shame to carry and nothing happens to the assailants. And it's like, well, what were you wearing and what were you doing? And did you talk too long to this guy and were you flirting with this guy kind of a thing?

00;09;35;19 - 00;09;56;27
Speaker 3
And in this story, Manisha learns like what rape is and how she is not to blame for what happened. But also as a victim, you can overcome these things. You can process these things. You can help others in your healing you can help others, period, and just come out of it stronger, which is what Misha did. And I think that's a powerful story to be a victim of something so horrible and heinous.

00;09;57;05 - 00;10;04;04
Speaker 3
But they come out not only more powerful and have your voice like to find your voice, but to be able to stand up for other people.

00;10;04;07 - 00;10;17;07
Speaker 2
And that is such an important topic that does need to be more widely discussed especially in this era of book bans where so many people are questioning what teens and children should be allowed to have access to.

00;10;18;06 - 00;10;42;26
Speaker 3
These things that didn't exist then I could understand that maybe. But these things exist and we need to be able to talk about it. So step up, find somebody to help us not be scared because we think it's our fault or shameful. This is one of the horrible things that young people go through, and they need to be able to know that that they can talk to someone or they can come out of this stronger because being sexually assaulted is like it sticks with.

00;10;42;26 - 00;10;59;16
Speaker 3
It's not just one act for the assailant is one act, right? But for the victim, they are traumatized and dealing with the issues for years, for decades, maybe even the rest of their life. And it impacts them negatively in so many ways. And it's horrible to think that one act did that to them and they had no control over that.

00;10;59;21 - 00;11;03;17
Speaker 2
What's it like for you to be able to give some readers hope in that way?

00;11;03;23 - 00;11;21;17
Speaker 3
Thinking about if I sit back and think about it, I think that's a very like wonderful, inspiring and powerful thing to be able to touch someone that way and to show them that they can do these things and to get over it and move forward not just like, OK, I say get over it, but I mean like process it ends and heal.

00;11;21;17 - 00;11;48;15
Speaker 3
Yes. Heal and be OK. Like not let the rest of your life be pulled down because of some or someone else. So in that way, it, it makes me very proud to be able to present a book like this and to have the, the support of a publisher who said, this is an important story, tell it how it is and, you know, required an imprint again, required in ASL, like supports it and thinks it's an important story.

00;11;48;18 - 00;11;53;15
Speaker 3
As he says, these are my words. As he says in those first my page is pleasing that that's.

00;11;54;00 - 00;11;57;22
Speaker 2
How did you get connected with him to publish this story through his imprint.

00;11;58;06 - 00;12;15;02
Speaker 3
So I wrote this story and, you know, I come from like a rom com backgrounds and I wasn't sure how my agent would feel about me making this pivotal turn, although this is a story I've been wanting to tell for a long time. Like, again, this is something that comes from personal experience. I've been wanting to tell this story for a while, and I said, You know, Tony, my agent was on board for it.

00;12;15;02 - 00;12;35;26
Speaker 3
She was like, Hell yes, of I can say that. Yes, yes, yes. We need this badass character, OK? And I said I already had two publishers that I want to send this to, and Disney was like my type publisher. And so we went with them and we submitted to them, and the editor loved it. The way that the the Disney editorial meeting works to acquire a book.

00;12;36;08 - 00;12;59;01
Speaker 3
So all the editors meet together as the editor who wants to acquire it once, you know, she presents it to the select the Board of Editors, Table of Editors. And one of the editors present is Rick Warren's editor, who's also the editor for his imprints. And at that time, I didn't know that he moved onto Y.A. as part of his imprints until that moment because the editor said, this sounds like something that might fit into the imprints.

00;12;59;01 - 00;13;13;06
Speaker 3
Is it OK if we take it to Rick right and of course, I was like, Oh, my God, Rick. Right. And I found girls like anyone else would. I was like, He's going to read my words. Of course you can have Rick read it. I wasn't expecting anything, so I thought it was too dark. Right. I thought was too dark for us in print.

00;13;13;10 - 00;13;29;08
Speaker 3
Again, like some of those reviewers, maybe they they and I thought that the imprint was for like slightly happier things. And so he came back the next day and said that he loved it and welcomed it into his imprints. And and I was like, yeah, of course, I want to go with that. And that's how that happens.

00;13;29;20 - 00;13;33;07
Speaker 2
What's it been like working with him and getting to do a tour stop with him?

00;13;33;16 - 00;13;53;05
Speaker 3
The way that the imprint works is that I don't actually work with him, but he does read the close, as close to final product of the book, and he gets feedback. His feedback was just this letter that everyone gets to read in the beginning of the book. So of course I cried because I was expecting some type of critique or comments on what to change.

00;13;53;05 - 00;14;15;17
Speaker 3
But it wasn't it wasn't that it was a six letter and doing a tour stop with him that was out of the blue. I wasn't expecting that. And that was wonderful. He's amazing. We all hear people say like, he's kind and generous and humble. He really is. He's just amazing. And he wanted the spotlight on me. So, you know, yeah, he he was amazing.

00;14;15;17 - 00;14;24;05
Speaker 3
And I love that it was both ordinary and extraordinary. And, like, ordinary. I mean, like, he's such a down to earth person, but extraordinary because they still regard him.

00;14;25;14 - 00;14;33;01
Speaker 2
What was it like for you going from Y.A. Romance? And Adult Romance into something darker? Did it change your writing process at all?

00;14;33;19 - 00;14;51;00
Speaker 3
So I've always been a dark person. Like, I really don't know how I came into the rom com space. I'm not romantic at all. I don't think I'm funny at all. But I've always been drawn to dark fantasy and horror and sci fi since I was a kid. Like, you know, Marvel Comics coming into the US and that was the first thing that I went to.

00;14;51;11 - 00;15;22;18
Speaker 3
And Stephen King, that's what I grew up reading. It is different because it's a fantasy. So with contemporary, I already know the world. The world is real and you just kind of like rights. I mean, for me, I writes, but for fantasy, I had to do a lot of research. I did a lot of research to make sure that what I was presenting from, from India, whether it was the mythology or the lore or the weapons or weapons, was really hard or the clothing, the culture, the food, everything I didn't want to present anything, not negatively, but incorrectly.

00;15;22;28 - 00;15;42;16
Speaker 3
So there was a lot of pressure. I felt a lot of pressure to make sure that I did that. And then also there were so many characters and details. You know, I had a plot a little bit, and I'm not usually a plotter, like I kind of just writes and go. So I didn't pay attention to more of those things in the fight scenes, of course, and describing the more grotesque dark things.

00;15;42;28 - 00;15;44;08
Speaker 3
That was fun, though. It was fun.

00;15;44;11 - 00;16;00;27
Speaker 2
You do a great job of describing something that's not grotesque, and it's like the underwater scene when when she's first going under. How does living in Hawaii help you with that scene? Because I feel like being in Hawaii gives you great inspiration for mapping that out.

00;16;01;10 - 00;16;06;24
Speaker 3
I don't like the water. I rarely get into the ocean because I know there are things in there.

00;16;07;16 - 00;16;11;06
Speaker 2
I mean, that's valid. I don't like going to the ocean either. So I understand.

00;16;11;06 - 00;16;27;13
Speaker 3
This. Yeah. If my feet are not touching the sands, I start freaking out. So like occasionally I will have my feet a few inches flooding. But the water is powerful. It's a powerful thing. And so you can easily get turned around and get scared and that's how I feel about the water.

00;16;27;26 - 00;16;32;08
Speaker 2
We are the opposite of my husband. He's like, Let's go play. And I'm like, No.

00;16;32;09 - 00;16;32;28
Speaker 3
He's in there.

00;16;33;14 - 00;16;36;26
Speaker 2
I know what's in there. I can't touch the ground. I'm not going further.

00;16;36;28 - 00;16;44;16
Speaker 3
I also need a way to get out quickly. And you can't move quickly in the water anyway. But, you know, there are sharks and things in the water. I need a way out fast.

00;16;44;22 - 00;16;55;10
Speaker 2
I think he wants a pet shark. No, he also wants pet otters and like big cats and others are cute. He's just like, What if we had a pet? Bayard No, sir, he's crazy.

00;16;55;25 - 00;16;58;09
Speaker 3
Now, please don't we see some documentaries.

00;17;00;05 - 00;17;10;07
Speaker 2
So Manisha had her little pet snake that was connected to her, and Ashanti has a tiger. What animal would you want to bond with?

00;17;10;18 - 00;17;15;13
Speaker 3
I do love tigers. She also has a snake later in the story.

00;17;15;13 - 00;17;18;00
Speaker 2
But spoiler alert. Oh.

00;17;18;23 - 00;17;37;08
Speaker 3
But it's not like. No, and it's not like when he says bestie, like, hey, Sean, his bestie is a tiger. I do love tigers. I think a tiger would be an amazing thing. I just think like something that's that's big and sea lion and has your back and ends in the books. You know, the characters are able to communicate with their besties.

00;17;37;08 - 00;17;48;23
Speaker 3
It's not telepathic. It's just they're so close to each other that they know what the other one is thinking or trying to say or trying to communicate I think a tiger be great, especially when you're feeling unsafe. I think as a woman.

00;17;49;02 - 00;17;50;02
Speaker 2
That would be pretty dope.

00;17;50;07 - 00;17;52;04
Speaker 3
Yeah. Like, say it, say something to me now.

00;17;53;04 - 00;18;02;08
Speaker 2
Or a lion like that picture of like the the lion behind the lioness and it's like. Mm. You wanna mess with her?

00;18;02;15 - 00;18;17;24
Speaker 3
Yeah. Yeah. It's always the her that's the great thing. OK, that's the one thing about lie. And there's a lioness that is the bad ass and the and the what do you call it? What do you call their click pride? The pride. Yes. She is the one that you don't want to mess with.

00;18;18;03 - 00;18;29;05
Speaker 2
So Johnny is the second oldest by 2 minutes. So talk a little bit about how that oldest daughter dynamic plays out when it's twins who are so close to being the oldest.

00;18;29;16 - 00;18;53;21
Speaker 3
So we don't get to see a lot of the sisters together because of the war. And then them just being pulled apart for various reasons. But Ishani is by nature a bit more calming and she thinks things through a bit more she's more she has a bit more hope. And the second sister, her twin, she's just way into get fully unhinged, you know, because of war and the things that she she does.

00;18;53;21 - 00;19;12;10
Speaker 3
And she has no problem doing things that needs to get done, whereas Ishani is like that's, you know, a benefit of the doubt or like in the beginning chapters she talks about don't let these things change you into a bad person because we still need to maintain our humanity. And her sister's like, no, we got to get shit done.

00;19;12;10 - 00;19;20;11
Speaker 3
You know, we have to them. Otherwise we're going to perish because it is genocide in the book. Like so they're the last of their kind.

00;19;20;19 - 00;19;31;19
Speaker 2
The sort of nightmares and like nightmares are part of this story. What is in your court of nightmares? Obviously, sharks and not being able to touch the bottom of the water.

00;19;32;07 - 00;19;53;02
Speaker 3
So one of my things, which is actually one of the nightmares presented in the court of nightmares, there are these, OK, so you know, we have Hades, we have the underworld. So my underworld version is the nightmare realm. And so there's this court of of nightmares, which is like these statues of creatures who can create nightmares and present them across realms because of course, it's a multiverse.

00;19;53;10 - 00;20;19;23
Speaker 3
There's a monster. There's a creature that comes after one of our main characters. And she is like that sleep demon that we hear about when he has state paralysis and you feel like that demon is on you. That's one of my my nightmares, too, how that I've had it partially. I've not seen her, but I would be terrified if I have because, yeah, I love horror movies and scary things, but I don't want to be in them, you know.

00;20;20;25 - 00;20;24;26
Speaker 2
Yeah. No, I'm doing a horror panel next week, and now.

00;20;25;06 - 00;20;28;26
Speaker 3
I'm a gym. I'm actually writing a horror right now. It's really fun, but I don't want to be in it.

00;20;30;08 - 00;20;34;28
Speaker 2
There is this third sister, is the third sister going to get her own story?

00;20;35;16 - 00;20;44;07
Speaker 3
I would really love for her to, but right now there's nothing in the works for. It's it was intended and we just don't seem like there might be right now.

00;20;44;21 - 00;20;47;00
Speaker 2
If it were to happen, which myth would it be?

00;20;47;09 - 00;20;56;07
Speaker 3
It would be combining chaos and the labyrinth like time bending, temporal shifting kind of a thing.

00;20;56;13 - 00;20;59;14
Speaker 2
So what can you tell us about this horror story you're writing?

00;20;59;21 - 00;21;22;04
Speaker 3
So I'm still in the early stages of it. I'm just writing ads. And so why a zombie thriller from Patient Zero point of view? You know, that girl, that good girl, and to stand up for herself, but in really violence, creepy ways. OK, so a lot of it stemmed from, you know, in the past political environments where women are losing their rights.

00;21;22;04 - 00;21;44;24
Speaker 3
And we have that saying like, you know, your body, my joy is kind of a thing. So I was envisioning the rage of having someone say that to you and what you would do. And my girl is becoming unhinged more and more because she's patient zero. So she's losing her shit. So she is just like, forget it. I'm going to, you know, maybe I'll bite your throat out or maybe I'll punch you or something like that.

00;21;45;01 - 00;21;58;21
Speaker 3
And so it's coming from some justifiable. Yeah, it's coming from some of that rage that we have to keep inside because we are human, you know, we don't act that way. But other people are really testing us because they act in human ways.

00;21;58;22 - 00;22;12;13
Speaker 2
One other thing I wanted to talk about that we have in common and I somehow managed to walk into so many of my conversations is keep up so let's who is your bias and what's your favorite band?

00;22;13;06 - 00;22;30;04
Speaker 3
I hope this doesn't make me basic, but I do like the mike drop yeah. I mean, he has a wow, if I can think of that. And then there was another one and now I can't think of their name either, but I play their music a lot on my social media. They have like a song about Venom, of course.

00;22;31;19 - 00;22;32;26
Speaker 2
Pink Venom, Black Pink.

00;22;33;00 - 00;22;36;05
Speaker 3
Now, I do like them as well. But no, it's a guy. It's a boy group.

00;22;36;26 - 00;22;39;03
Speaker 2
Oh, sweet venom and hype.

00;22;39;05 - 00;22;43;22
Speaker 3
And there's I can't, I can't. I'd have to look up in Venom.

00;22;43;22 - 00;22;45;17
Speaker 2
No, not something like that.

00;22;45;17 - 00;22;46;10
Speaker 3
No, it's like.

00;22;47;03 - 00;22;47;20
Speaker 2
There's so many.

00;22;47;20 - 00;22;57;05
Speaker 3
It's just like a hardcore, not a hardcore song by it's more like my job where. Yeah, it really gets you going. It's not a it's not a happy song. It's not slow songs. I really like dropping the beats.

00;22;57;20 - 00;23;09;12
Speaker 2
So we talked about how your husband and I are on the same level of hip hop of like we have other K-pop boyfriends, and you and my husband are on the same level of like, I enjoy it, but I'm not going to call them my husband. That's weird.

00;23;10;14 - 00;23;23;18
Speaker 3
My husband has like international boyfriend, so he's like, we're going to watch this movie because I like this, this character, you know, this guy, this actor, and he has so many and, you know, like trained to us on he has at least two boyfriends and that one and.

00;23;23;24 - 00;23;25;12
Speaker 2
Fan culture is the best.

00;23;25;13 - 00;23;25;22
Speaker 3
Yes.

00;23;25;22 - 00;23;27;07
Speaker 2
Yes. No matter what your fandom.

00;23;27;07 - 00;23;30;22
Speaker 3
Yeah. Yeah. He definitely is an international lover.

00;23;32;11 - 00;23;37;02
Speaker 2
Well, the last question we always ask, wow, the sun just got really bright. Hello there.

00;23;37;21 - 00;23;38;01
Speaker 3
Hey.

00;23;39;02 - 00;23;42;14
Speaker 2
Last question we always ask because this is literary hype. What books are you hyped about?

00;23;42;20 - 00;23;53;15
Speaker 3
I love thrillers and that's my audio book to go thing. I would devour probably like five to ten thrillers a month in addition to some romances.

00;23;53;24 - 00;23;55;20
Speaker 2
Well, thanks so much for hanging out with literary hype.

00;23;56;05 - 00;23;57;23
Speaker 3
Thank you. Thank you guys for listening.

00;24;00;09 - 00;24;18;21
Speaker 1
Thanks. Besides me for taking time out of her Emerald City Comic-Con schedule to talk to me about her brand new book, A Touch of Blood, which is the follow up slash companion novel to A Drop of Venom. If you'd like to check out either of those books or some of her romance, looks like the design of us. The links to do so are down in the description for you.

00;24;18;27 - 00;24;28;10
Speaker 1
If you enjoyed this conversation, don't forget to subscribe to the Literary Hype podcast. Give us some stars and share with friends. Thanks so much for listening to the Literary Hype podcast.