📚 A Bookish Chat with 'Shape of the Sun' Paula Omokhomion | Author Interview | #AuthorInterview

Today we welcome Paula Omokhomion to The Writer's Life e-Magazine! Paula is the author of the new literary fiction, Shape of the Sun and is part of her Blog Tour by Pump Up Your Book. Enjoy!

Paula Omokhomion is a Master of Public Policy student at the UC Riverside School of Public Policy, though she’s fairly certain that won’t be forever. She holds a B.S. in Public Health Nutrition from UNC Chapel Hill, where she also minored in Creative Writing (Fiction) and graduated with highest honors for her 120-page thesis novella, New Age Taffeta.

Paula developed her skills and love for writing fiction in a very, very interesting Nigerian boarding school, where the lack of television meant she had to invent entertainment for everyone else. She loves reading manhwa, watching Indian TV dramas, listening to music, and writing short stories.When not doing any of those or in the classroom handling R code, she’s refining her LinkedIn or taking Instagram selfies.
She lives in California with her family, including her two fellow triplets, and is currently dreaming of a future PhD in public health—and maybe another novel.

Visit her website or connect with her on Facebook and Instagram.

Welcome to The Writer's Life, Paula! Shape of the Sun offers family drama, the high stakes of inheritance and romance. Which of these was the most intense for you to write?

I believe it was the family drama. It can be intense writing about something that is not a first experience, and at the same time I had to make sure that the family and inheritance drama is believable and not cliche. I didn’t want the characters involved to be greedy for the sake of greedy and so on; I needed them to be fully fleshed out with motivations and backgrounds that people can relate to. So, I had to put in a lot of work writing and getting feedback to the point that it felt visceral when reading.

Which of the characters from Shape of the Sun do you most closely identify with and why?

I identify most with the female lead, Manmeet. She’s someone who is well-educated and putting in a lot of effort to do good things to others; she is strong but at the same time, doesn’t expect bad things to come her way. I also think she feels more than she lets on, even though she lets on a lot, and she (might) get disappointed and be upset. Manmeet is very human and serves as a strong anchor for other characters she is in scene with, and that’s someone I hope I am right now and will continue to be.

What do you think sets Shape of the Sun apart from other books of the same genre?

I think it’s distinct because it serves well as romance but the romance is a vehicle for deeper issues in the novel such as dynastic rot and elitism masquerading as class contempt. It’s really love as unraveling and allows us to see how the character behaves in spite of it, not because of it like other books in the genre. Furthermore, the villain is also not written off as a villain that just does bad things; in this book, the villain is not good, but the reader is in close contact with many scenes that reflect why he is the way he is, even those that depict questionable treatment from the lead character. And I did not write to glorify the lead, rather it felt like I am a stage for people to watch the characters and judge for themselves. The villain also has no feelings for the female lead, as I do not like triangles.

Surprise me. What is something that happens in the book that would make my mouth drop without giving too much away?

The lead had actually conspired to have his sister be married to someone who he deemed as weak so she can be safe but not a threat to his inheritance agenda. And whenever things go wrong in her marriage, he blocked out this memory because it contains guilt. It was deliberate to have him not recall this at all and be surprised, only to reveal later that he planned this because of a certain thing she did to him years ago….

Who is your favorite author?

Chimmanda Ngozi-Adichie. Her writing has soul and actually inspires the work I wrote for my undergraduate thesis.

Do you think writing a contemporary romance novel is more complex than writing books of other genres?

No, I don’t think its more complex, than say writing historical romance. I am working on the latter for something and it involve pinterest boards to cue things. Contemporary is easier in the setting aspect because these are backgrounds you know, but you also need to fill in their lives aside the plot, so they feel full and complete.

What’s next for you?

School and revising my debut novel, Aurora.

In a world where novels defy conventions and heroes defy expectations, Shape of the Sun dares to ask: What if the one at the center isn’t kind? What if no one is misunderstood? What does it mean to be the hero or the villain?

Beware: this is not a love story. The author just likes meta-fiction a bit too much.
Rajkumar ‘Raj’ Reddy is top-tier Male Lead material. And a freaking DRAMA KING.

He is a gorgeous, disgustingly rich, and ultra-confident Child Abuse Pediatrician. He’s also emotionally finished, a narcissist, and a scammer all but in name.

But what did it matter if he was soulless or morally bankrupt? Why should anyone care that he married someone only because of their money?

He was the Male Lead, right? Since when were Male Leads ever held accountable?

And then he falls in love. Utterly useless. Very, very unnecessary. Annoyingly delicious for someone as self-aware as he is.

Raj knows he’s in love. He knows it every second he smiles when she talks to him or says good morning Rajkumar, in that sweet voice he dreams about more often lately.

So now, our Male Lead is on a mission to GET OUT OF LOVE.

This relationship holds too many green flags!

Painful. Also doesn’t allow him to be hypocritical for more than three seconds. Horrid, really.

And in the background is the Reddy family. It’s not an easy home. It’s never been easy with all that power and wealth involved. There’s too much scheming and engineering in one place.

There’s an overlooked half-brother that literally descended from hell, a sweet twin sister that has more than her fair share of buried grudges to Raj (and vice versa), and a patriarch that might be loving father and enabler all rolled into one.

There are traumas that our Male Lead wants to never remember.

You see that’s the thing about Romance with Accountability. It can be sweet. It can be deadly.

Will our Male Lead manage to protect his secrets and secure the inheritance, or will his deepening emotions force him to confront his inner demons? Can greed truly give way to love? Or is that just something we only see in the movies?

Will he finally go to therapy?

A gripping tale of love, family, the high stakes of inheritance, and the journey to self – Shape of the Sun explores what happens with leads in a world where the rest are left to silence.

Read a sample here.

Shape of the Sun is available at Amazon, Kobo and Apple Books.