Fan2Author Interview with…Victoria Vane!
Tag Archives: The Sheik Retold
SEP302013
b2b Melanie: Please help me welcome an Author that I just discovered a few months ago, Victoria Vane [although when I discovered her it was under the pseudonym of Emery Lee as I read ‘Fortune's Son’]
Since then I’ve had a pleasure to read her other novels and can safely say that she’s quickly become one of my must read authors.
I’m so happy she’s here with us today! Welcome Victoria!
Victoria Vane: Thank so much for having me, Mel. I’m delighted to be here-and so happy you enjoyedFortune’s Son enough to seek out my other books. :)
b2b: Before I start with the questions, how about you tell us a bit about your writing career?
VV: Writing was nothing I ever planned on. It’s one of those things that happened to me. I woke up one day with a story that wouldn’t go away and knew I had to write it. Fourteen months later I had a finished novel (The Highest Stakes) and my life has never been the same!
b2b: Since I never read the original, can you tell me if it’s easier or harder to re-tell the story, or writing it from scratch?
VV: In the case of THE SHEIK RETOLD it was easier because the characters and basic plot were already there. Moreover, the author’s voice was very compatible with mine. After that it was mainly a matter of deciding what to keep and what to discard from the original story and then putting my own particular spin on it. THE SHEIK RETOLD most definitely has my distinctive stamp in regard to character development and sensuality!
b2b: Victoria, you took my breath away with the descriptions of the setting, but you also captured Diana’s thoughts and actions so well that I felt every emotion she did. This story was told only from her POV. Why was that?
VV: Although E.M. Hull’s THE SHEIK was written in third person with only a few scenes/passages from Ahmed’s POV, I never quite connected with Diana. Part of that was certainly the way in which her character was originally portrayed, but given that the story was told primarily from her POV it only made sense to me to re-tell it in first person. First person allowed me to more fully explore her thoughts, motives, and desires. I also felt readers would empathize more with her character. I think first person also works in this story because it allows the sheik to remain a bit of an enigma. ;-)
b2b: The hero of this tale is as Alpha as you could possibly make him, yet he still came off as fair and sensitive at times. Was it much altered from the original book?
LINK TO FULL INTERVIEW AND BOOK REVIEW : http://bookworm2bookworm.wordpress.com/tag/the-sheik-retold/
