RomanceEverAfter

Featured Author

Shoba Mano
www.shobamano.com

What made you approach American publishers with your Asian romance novel Prodigal Child, Shoba?

I approached American publishers because the U.S. is the most established market in the romance industry.

I call Prodigal Child an Asian romance because the story is set in Vietnam and the characters are generally Asian, although the hero is half-American. I’ve always enjoyed reading romance novels, and for me, the backdrop, ambience, and basically the whole stage on which the story is being acted out, contributes towards the romance factor. In this area I feel Asia has a lot to offer.

Does this Asian theme make your novels differ vastly from the present romance novels selling in the American marketplace?

Yes, because the storyline incorporates Asian customs, lifestyle, thought-patterns, dressing, food and so on.

For instance, in Prodigal Child, the heroine, Kim has an uncle completely loyal to the Communist regime. As such his rigid beliefs always clashes with Kim’s more liberal and Western outlook because she grew up abroad.

The hero, Bryan, is Kim’s family chauffeur. There is a general tendency for the elite in Vietnam never to hire chauffeurs who speak English. Then there is that lack of support for Amerasians in Vietnam and the story gives the reader a glimpse of what life on the streets is like for an Amerasian child.

All of these present new and fresh conflicts within the romance genre never before seen. If you take novels such as Gone With The Wind, The Thorn Birds and other memorable stories you will find that the backdrop is almost as important as the chemistry between the hero and heroine. What I’m doing is exploring a backdrop that has rarely, if ever, been explored in the romance genre.

What challenges did you face in writing and marketing your Asian manuscript for the publisher Treble Heart Books?

While writing Prodigal Child, I wondered if the Western world would take to an Asian romance. But then, it was the story of my heart, and I just had to write it and hope that the characters and storyline were strong enough to make people look past the Asian element and the unconventional factor. Happily it paid off.

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