Featured Interview With Karin Shah
Tell us a little about yourself. Where were you raised? Where do you live now?
I was raised in Greece, NY, a suburb of Rochester, NY. Our house was about a mile as the crow flies from lake Ontario. The winters were cold and snowy (which I loved as a child). The summers were spectacular with a lovely breeze off the lake. They call Chicago the Windy City, but Buffalo, to the southwest, and Rochester both get more wind. The lake goes on for as far as the eye can see and on a foggy day, sometimes it seems like the world just ends at the edge. Perfect for a writer’s inspiration. Now, I live in Westerville, a suburb of Columbus, Ohio. It’s a bit milder in the winter here (though not lately!) and summers can be pretty hot, but I love my adopted town. It has some cool history, (Benjamin Hanby lived here, the Temperance league started here–though the town is no longer dry), and the community is a really wonderful place to live and raise children (I have two. A girl and a boy) I also have a trail-running husband and two wild dogs, an active vizsla and a mischievous basenji.
At what age did you realize your fascination with books? When did you start writing?
I was bullied a lot as a kid, so I learned to live through characters in books. Greece had a number of libraries when I was growing up and the closest one to our house was Paddy Hill Library. It was an old church, with a steeple and stained glass and everything. It had a second story balcony and had a sense of mystery and magic about it. I read everything in the children’s section and started on the Romance and Sci-Fi at age eleven. I started writing seriously in after I was married. Although, by this time I was a school librarian and wanted to write YA and children’s books, I was intimidated by the kid’s market which required an agent, so started with my other love–Romance. I love my Happily Ever Afters! And I’ve just released my fifth book, a YA Romantic Fantasy.
Who are your favorite authors to read? What is your favorite genre to read. Who Inspires you in your writings?
In children’s and YA, I am a sucker for JK Rowling and I re-read the Harry Potter series about once a year. The aftermath is dangerous though as I walk a long in a Harry Potter induced haze for days after wanting to get back into Harry’s world. Fantasy is my go to in YA. In adult reading, I’m all about Romance on the wild side, vampires, shapeshifters, fantasy, and Science Fiction Romance. Give me your tortured heroes like Sherrilyn Kenyon’s Dark Hunters or Robin D. Owens Heart series. I also love Linnea Sinclair’s Sci-Fi Romances. Her Kel-Paten from Games of Command is probably my favorite Romance hero of all time. Everything inspires me. Currently, I’m exploring the kick-ass heroine. But, I don’t think she needs to actually fight people to kick-ass. She can be strong in other ways, too. Really smart, or emotionally resilient.
Tell us a little about your latest book?
My latest book Halfling, is a YA Romantic Fantasy or Fantasy Romance. Deyna, my heroine is the lowest of the low in her world, a crippled Valayan wanderer (Think gypsies in the olden days).
When her father sells her to their enemies, the winged darklings, as the annual sacrifice, it seems like the end of the line, but when it’s discovered she’s half darkling her life is spared.
Of course, her troubles are just beginning. The darklings are in the middle of an undeclared civil war and she soon has to decide whether to risk her comfortable life as a servant in the palace to help others. She’s had to be selfish to survive, so risking her neck for her new friends is not something she enters into lightly. She’s probably my favorite heroine to date, because she has endured so much, but she never gives up.
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