Happy Monday! Usually I’m not super excited about Mondays, but today is a holiday in Ireland. Woot! There’s another reason why I’m excited. Divya Sood is here to share about her latest release Nights Like This. And, she’s giving away one copy to a lucky winner. You can enter the giveaway below or by clicking this link.
Please welcome Divya Sood.
Hey guys! I’m totally excited to be posting! One of the things I love most about TB’s writing is her honesty. It took me a while to find the same in my writing and it was an enlightening journey. A lot of people ask me where the idea for Nights Like This came from and I want to share the story with you because it’s a good one.
So, about a decade ago, my first novel, MAYA, came out. But MAYA did anything but “come out” or let me “come out;” it was a story that flirted with a lesbian relationship for about 5 pages but essentially stayed a good old boy meets girl story.
After its release, I was at a party one night and it was autumn and a few of us were outside enjoying the crisp air and I said to one of my lesbian friends, “Hey, did you check out my book yet?” She turned to me and said, “Not yet…is it a girl meets girl story?”
Now I grew up in a conservative Indian family and just the mention of “girl meets girl,” even though that’s what my heart desired to write and live, made me tingle as if the whole idea were a secret we weren’t supposed to talk about.
“Well, it’s kind of a girl meets girl story…I mean it’s in there…” I replied.
“It’s a boy meets girl story?” she asked.
“Mostly,” I conceded.
She made sure to make eye contact before she stated flatly, “I don’t want to read it. There are a thousand boy meets girl stories. But I can’t read about me. Write about us. About the lives around you. About our stories and our heartbreak and I’ll read it.”
That conversation really struck a chord. And that’s how I started to write Nights Like This. While I can say that my honestly in life led to the writing of the novel, I can also say that writing the novel allowed me to be more honest as a person.
Nights Like This is a lesbian love triangle because, if I am honest, love is not always easy and cute but sometimes raw and painful and in all the wrong places at the wrong times. I wanted to craft a novel that captured all the nuances of love be that happy or sad or angry. And as I wrote and as those emotions came through in my writing, I found that I allowed myself to honestly feel those emotions in my life as well. The more I wrote my characters, the more multi-dimensional and unique I became.
What I learned in the writing of Nights Like This, what my characters, Jess, Vanessa and Anjali taught me is this: sometimes creating art helps you create yourself more fully, more honestly than if you hadn’t ever written the story.
NIGHTS LIKE THIS
“LOVE is a haphazard thing that blows like the wind this way and that and then, having found a nook to settle in, quiets down and beats in a heart full of haphazard hope.” And so begins the story of Jess, an unapologetic Indian woman in her mid twenties caught between two careers and the attention of two very different women. Trying to write fiction at Starbucks while pretending to study for MCATs, Jess balances her relationship with her live in girlfriend, Anjali and the a woman whom Jess meets randomly and believes she wholeheartedly loves, Vanessa. It takes scandal, betrayal, heartbreak, and a trip halfway around the world for Jess to find herself at the risk of losing all that ever mattered.
DIVYA SOOD
Divya Sood is the author of the novel NIGHTS LIKE THIS. She has written most of her life and loves the creative process. Her writing delves into issues of love and heartbreak and sometimes happily ever afters. Divya’s work deals with the sensual, the taboo, and the raw underside of love. She loves exploring relationships in all their facets. Divya resides in New York. Her website is www.divyasood.com. Drop her a note.
Enter for a chance to win NIGHTS LIKE THIS
Thanks so much for Divya Sood for stopping by and best of luck to everyone who enters the giveaway!
