• Blog

    Love Comes Later blog tour – Q&A with author Mohanalakshmi Rajakumar

    8/9/2012

    Mohanalakshmi Rajakumar1. What was the inspiration for your novel?

    I grew up in a culture that believes in arranged marriages and was startled by the similarities I found between Indian and Qatari society attitudes towards women, adulthood, and yes, love. Pondering on how hard it is for young people to establish their own identities in these cultures, I brought the two sets of questions together to explore what the modern twentysomething traditionally conscious person does when faced with the choice of family over individual identity.

    2. When did you take up writing?
    I’ve been writing some version of books since I was in middle school. As an adult I wrote for more than 10 years, first putting out academic work as a scholar of literature and then waiting to get an agent in order to get to a publisher. Becoming an indie, or self published author is the best decision I made (about a year ago). Now I have six books out that readers love.

    3. How important is setting/place in your writing?
    Setting is pretty key to the stories I tell because they give shape to how the characters react and what happens. If Love
    Comes Later wasn’t in Qatar, for example, or you didn’t have the overflowing streets of London during the Olympics, then the dramatic tension would have to arise from another source.

    4. Do you have a favourite character (s) in your current novel?
    I feel for them each differently but for Abdulla the most. People forget that in societies where masculine privilege is
    heavily emphasized, it disadvantages women but also men. Men can’t be who they want to be if they’re expected to live up to some idealized stereotype.

    5. What’s the best piece of writing advice you were ever given?
    Write. Every day you can for as long as you can.

    6. Do you have a schedule for writing?
    It used to be for three hours on Saturdays. I was then lucky enough to quit a full time job at a publishing company and go back into teaching at the university level which is what I’ve been doing for the last year or so. During this period I was editing, writing, or marketing a book everyday. It was exhausting but exhilarating at the same time. So much so I had
    to spend July completely away from the desk in order to
    recover.

    7. Are you a plotter or someone who tends to wing it?
    I have an outline or sketch of how the story begins and where it ends. The complications in the middle are the
    surprises to develop along the day.

    8. Can you name three of four of your current favourite books?
    There are so many to choose from! I recently finished Colin Cotterill’s The Corner’s Lunch which is set in the 1970s in Laos. I loved the dry humor of the 70 something old protagonist and how Cotterill brings an unfamiliar place and person right to the reader as if he’s someone you’ve known all your life.

    Other reads… Bitter in the Mouth is lyrical in prose and delivery. Anything by Alice Munroe.

    9. Can you tell me a little bit about what you are working on now?
    I’ve saved August for a massive re-write of the first novel I ever attempted, An Unlikely Goddess. It’s a coming of age story of a South Indian girl in the United States and though the manuscript is complete, it isn’t yet what I know it could be.

    Be honest with yourself about why you’re writing.

    Love Comes Later Synopsis

    Hind is granted a temporary reprieve from her impending marriage to Abdulla, her cousin. Little does anyone suspect that the presence of Sangita, her Indian roommate, may shake a carefully constructed future. Torn between loyalties to Hind and a growing attraction to Abdulla, Sangita must choose between friendship and a burgeoning love.

    A modern quest for the right to pursue love and happiness, even when it comes in an unconventional package, LOVE COMES LATER explores similarities between the South Asian and Arab cultures while exposing how cultural expectations affect both men and women. Identities are tested and boundaries questioned against the shifting backdrops of Doha, Qatar and London, England.

    About the author
    Mohanalakshmi Rajakumar is a South Asian American who has lived in Qatar since 2005. Moving to the Arabian Desert was good in many ways, since that is where she met her husband, had a baby, and made the transition from writing as a hobby to making it her full-time gig. She has published three e-books this year: Mommy but Still Me, So You Want to Sell a Million Copies, and Coloured and Other Stories. Since she joined the e-book revolution, she has dreamed in plotlines.

    Mohanalakshmi Phongsavan, PhD
    www.mohanalakshmi.com
    Maktaba, Children’s Library Project, co-founder
    www.maktabaqatar.org
    Twitter@moha_doah

    Love Comes Later - Mohanalakshmi Rajakumar - Cover

     

    Comments

    Mohana Rajakumar
    8/10/2012 07:25:06 am

    Thanks so much for hosting me Monique. I’m new to the world of contemporary romance but really loving it so far :).
    Reply
    Monique
    8/10/2012 09:18:49 am

    My pleasure. I enjoy ‘meeting’ and learning about new authors.

  • Blog

    In Praise of Motherhood – blog tour

    8/8/2012

    Phil Jourdan
    Back in late 2009, when I began
    working on Praise of Motherhood, I had envisioned a book
    very different from what I ended up submitting to my publisher. I’d just lost
    the woman who’d raised me, and when I wasn’t sitting around numb and brooding, I was frantically trying to contain the universe of loss and suffering in a single Word document on my laptop.

    I wanted to write a book that expressed the impossibility of letting go. We’re often told, when someone close
    to us dies, that we have to move on, that things will get better. I couldn’t accept this back then: I didn’t think it was possible to let go of my mother, who had been so patient and kind during my weird teenage years.

    The first two versions were entirely different from each other in form and tone, but they did have a certain
    delight in chaos in common. I was mourning the only way I knew how: by adopting a hundred different voices, each trying to say something about my mother that the others couldn’t say. One chapter was pure dialogue; another was a series of letters; for a while I wrote in breathless page-long paragraphs because it was the only way I could feel “honest” about what I felt. I’d swing from rage to self-pity to sadness to bliss to sheer bafflement.

    It was only when I decided to turn this book into something that others could actually read without going insane
    that I figured out how to structure a book like this. I cut a great number chapters because they were “honest” but unhelpful. I tried to make myself a sort of antagonist, so my mother’s qualities as a human being could be emphasized. I
    left things relatively ambiguous instead of offering anything like words of wisdom to my readers. I tried to leave the book as open as the wound that stayed after my mother died.

    This has irritated some people. They ask why I don’t provide a real sense of what my mother was like on a
    day-to-day basis, or why I focused so much on how she affected my life instead of just writing about her, as a person in her own right. Fair questions — but I never set out to just “write about my mom”. I wanted to write about the struggle
    of losing her, and what made losing her so painful. That’s why I ask questions in the book that I never really answer: because I was never able to answer them myself. They are questions that will remain.

    Praise of Motherhood isn’t a book praising all mothers across all ages. It’s not meant to praise the idea of “motherhood” itself as some glorious ideal. I wrote this book because I wanted to transmit something of my mother to those who
    didn’t know her; those who, perhaps, need to hear that it’s okay to say you love your mommy and you wish she could still be here when you feel like crying.

    ***
    As part of this special promotional extravaganza sponsored by Novel Publicity, the price of the Praise of Motherhood eBook edition is just 99 cents this week. What’s more, by purchasing this fantastic book at an incredibly low price, you can enter to win many awesome prizes.

    The prizes include $500 in Amazon gift cards and 5 autographed copies of the book.

    To enter click below or leave me a comment.
    Praise of Motherhood - Phil Jourdan - Blog Tour

  • Blog

    Blog tour winding up, paperback coming!

    8/7/2012

    Mr Right and Other Mogels Book Cover
    It’s a cool but sunny Wednesday morning here in Sydney. I’ll be spending some of it at my daughter’s sports carnival, though hopefully not too much. It’s not an event I’m a huge fan of but at least with the Olympics on there is an extra layer of context. She won’t be going for Gold today like so many at the Olympics though she should get full-marks for participation.

    It’s great to see a star perform but it’s equally nice to see people out there doing their best.

    As I said over at facebook yesterday I’m just waiting on a proof for the paperback of Mr Right and Other Mongrels and then hopefully if all is well it will be ready next week.

    Here’s the cover..or a close approximation.

    Also the blog tour continues.
    There is a lovely review here on Jersey Girl Book Reviews today and a guest post as well about Sydney as a character in the book
    http://jerseygirlbookreviews.blogspot.com.au/2012/08/mr-right-and-other-mongrels-by-monique.html

    Last two stops tomorrow are:
    Nothing Better than a Book
    http://nothingbetterthanabook.blogspot.com.au/
    Queen of all She Reads
    http://queenofallshereads.blogspot.com.au/

    Don’t forget you can enter to win a free e-copy at each stop or click directly on the button below.
    Mr Right and Other Mongrels Blog Tour Promo

  • Blog

    Let the blog tour begin!

    7/30/2012

    Mr Right and Other Mongrels Blog Tour PromoThis week I’m having a virtual blog tour.

    Do you know what that is?

    It’s where an author is featured on a series of blogs or websites over a period of time.

    So where will I be?

    Here is the schedule below. Please visit these blogs and leave comments. You can read some more about the background of Mr Right and Other Mongrels. Also you can win copy of the e-books

    Schedule of where I’ll be.
    Jul 30: She Who Blogs Behind the Rows (Guest Post) TODAY!!!
    Jul 31: Reading with Holly (Interview)
    Aug 1: whoopeeyoo 😀 (Guest Post/Review)
    Aug 2: Sandra’s Blog (Guest Post)
    Aug 3: (Read, watch, listen) – Disincentive reviews (Guest Post)
    Aug 4: Melissa’s Eclectic Bookshelf (Guest Post)
    Aug 6: LOVE. WITHOUT YOU (Guest Post)
    Aug 7: Jersey Girl Book Reviews (Guest Post/Review)
    Aug 8: Nothing Better Than a Book (Review)
    Aug 8: Queen of All She Reads (Guest Post)

    Tour-Wide Giveaway:
    Follow this VBT and enter the tour-wide contest at each participating stop for a chance to win one of three eBook copies of Mr. Right and Other Mongrels. More entries = more chances to win!

    You can also stop by Coffee Beans and Love Scenes who arranged the tour to read some book excerpts and enter.
    http://cblspromotions.blogspot.com.au/2012/07/scheduled-vbt-mr-right-and-other.html