Dark Legends Block Party!

Laxmi Hariharan

Featured Book: Redemption

Hello from London :)

Hello and welcome, Laxmi; so nice to have you here. How long have you been a writer and how did you come to writing?

I've been writing since very young and with intent from 2003. Published my first book in 2011

How did you come up with this storyline?

I wanted to write a paranormal story with a difference. Set in a futuristic Bombay where I grew up, dystopian, yet intense and romantic. Borrowing from the threads of Indian mythology yet spanning both Eastern and Western cultures.

What are the best and the worst aspects of writing?

Writing helps me plumb the depths of my consciousness. By understanding character motivations I understand my own.

What inspires you to write?

The 'aha' moment from breaking a character and rebuilding him or her back and understanding why they do what they do. And hence understanding why I do what I do in life.

How did you conduct your research for Redemption?

I look for the key emotion that will be the theme of the book. In this case it was Leana and Mikhail finding Redemption. Leana putting an end to the cycle or the curse that has plagued her ancestral line for centuries.

What are 3 of your favorite quotes from Redemption?

Opening of Redemption is my fave: One of us is going to die. He looks at me, the beast. Wolf. Man. Wolf? He's both. He's neither. He's just like me.

More Favorites from Redemption:

I'll give you a poem from Feral, the first book in this series for the main character of Feral and later Taken is a soldier poet You are the only person I wish I had never met. I suspect if you knew you might have more respect for me now than you did then.

So strike a fracture through this glass this view this thing that shimmers like doubt between us, break it apart with your hands.

What would your friends say is your best quality?

My persistence

Are reader reviews important to you?

Yes they are hugely important in discoverability especially on Amazon. But I am too scared to look at them. I don't want to get too demotivated by the not great ones or too affected by praise either. So instead I look for feedback from my beta readers who are amazing.

What do you do when you don't write?

I like to be active - work out, yoga, walking in London and gardening and spending time with my film maker husband watching films and series.

Tell us about your other books?

Feral the first in the Many Lives Series is my favorite. About Maya a wolf girl who leaves her mate Luke to go in search of her blood family. Only to uncover secrets.

If you could share one thing about yourself that you would like readers to know what would it be?

That I hope my words will move them and help them understand themselves better. That I hope they will see a bit of themselves in my characters.

I hope you'll read Feral the first book in this series. If you join my newsletter you'll get Feral for free.

Blurb:

Mikhail Anton Ray: I needed her to fulfill my destiny but she became my life

Leana Iyeroy: I'll never submit to a vampire or another shifter - but he is so much more than either.

Micah must mate with wolf-shifter Leana to harness their collective energies, and overcome the vampire built mind-net that has infiltrated the humans robbing them of their emotions. But when Leana's ward is kidnapped and used against them, the future of humanity is at stake.

Excerpt:

Mikhail looks at the shifter girl as she passes by him, so close that if he put out his hand he can touch her cheek. Touch that skin shining with sweat, and pale under her tan as if it's taking all she has just to keep the pain at bay.

She adjusts the strap of the scabbard that crosses between her breasts, and his eyes fall on the rise-fall-rise of her chest. Over the swell of the vest that stretches tight across, outlining her nipples.

And despite the fact that she doesn't even notice him, despite the fact that he's surrounded by jostling crowds, Mikhail finds himself aroused.

Heat twists his gut with such suddenness that he gasps.

It's the second time he's surprised himself in the space of an hour. The first was when he'd seen the girl fall to the ground in the cage... and not move.

He was sure she'd be up on her feet and downing her sword at the brute hybrid coming at her, but she hadn't.

She'd just lain there still, so still he'd been sure she had been hurt badly or worse that she'd been killed. And before he could stop himself, before he'd even known what he'd been doing he'd run through the crowd, breaking through to the front and then he'd felled the guard at the entrance to the cage with one blow. Had taken the keys from him, unlocked the gate, slammed it behind him and had run towards the fallen figure all in a matter of seconds.

As he'd leant over her she'd moaned and something tightly clenched inside him had relaxed.

She was alive.