This week’s Ten Questions features an author who you may remember from Jess and Melinda’s fangirl squeeing, Sonali Dev, the author of a soon-to-be trio of women’s fiction novels with a distinctly Bollywood twist. Ms Dev’s recipe combines the exploration of serious issues such as child marriage, mental illness, and black market organ donations with romance, humor, and intrigue, then adds a healthy scoop of garam masala to create a trio of novels sure to please even the most picky eater um I mean reader 😉 Sonali Dev’s newest novel, A Change of Heart, comes out September 27th but while you’re waiting we highly suggest reading The Bollywood Bride or A Bollywood Affair, oh and this Ten Questions of course! 

Ten Questions vol. 2 #21 Sonali Dev

Bookish Devices: What is your favorite word?
Sonali Dev: Ridiculous. It’s one of those words that is so ridiculously versatile and so ridiculously representative of the world we live in, it’s almost ridiculous.

BD: What is your least favorite word?
SD: Lave. Ugh. Even just typing it gives me the hibbijibbies. No one in my books will ever lave anything, ever.

BD: What turns you on creatively, spiritually or emotionally?
SD: Words. I think I married my husband because he was ridiculously articulate (and because despite this he has no idea what ‘lave’ means). Seriously, though, words are the form our thoughts take, wielding them well or ill is the difference between love and war, joy and heartbreak.

BD: What turns you off?
SD: Bigotry. Especially when it’s indignant.

BD: What sound or noise do you love?
SD: There’s too many to list here, but my puppy does this crying/whining thing as he climbs all over me when I come home after a long absence. It’s ridiculous how loved it makes me feel.

BD: What sound or noise do you hate?
SD: My pet peeve is that awful beeping of smoke alarms with a low battery. I have friends who let theirs go for years and it drives me batty.

BD: If you could have drinks with any author or literary figure, who would you invite?
SD: I know this makes me a cliche, but without a doubt, Jane Austen.

BD: What profession other than your own would you like to attempt?
SD: Would you believe, Professional Poker Player?

BD: What profession would you not like to do?
SD: I could never be a surgeon, unless I was allowed to take breaks to throw up/pass out.

BD: What would you choose for your last meal?
SD: Anything cooked by my mom. She has this way of making anything delicious and her food is home.

BD: What is your favorite curse word?
SD: That would have to be ‘asswipe.’ It’s just poetic to call a deserving person toilet paper.

BD: If you were going to be stranded on a desert island and could only bring one book, which would you bring?
SD: Oh dear, this is a tough one. I think Vikram Seth’s A Suitable Boy. For one, it’s some fifteen hundred pages long (this is important when deserted on an island) and it is utterly beautiful, endlessly multifaceted, and I never tire of reading it. Plus the characters are so real to me I would have company.

Have you missed any of our Ten Questions series? You can catch up on all of our author interviews here.

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