Finding the Para in the Normal with Nina Croft

We can accept the world as we see it, or we can walk through our outwardly ordinary lives and see magic around every corner.

Don’t you just love the idea that every seemingly normal occurrence could contain just a little bit of magic? What if you could open your door one morning to a stunningly gorgeous new neighbor? Which would be great enough on his own, but how much more exciting if there’s a feral gleam in his eye, or a freakishly unnatural sexual pull. What if you’re walking along the road and a black feather falls from the sky. You glance up and…

Hi, I’m Nina Croft and I write romance, all sorts of romance: science fiction, paranormal, suspense, straight contemporary and of course Covet books.

Of all the books I write, I probably find contemporary the hardest. Usually, I’m half way through and I get this panicky feeling that nothing exciting is happening (by ‘exciting’ I’m talking; alien invasion, black holes exploding, people sprouting fangs and fur). Instead, you have to rely on really strong emotions and internal conflict to drive the story. And I love that. I love the challenge of digging deeper for the emotion, understanding what makes my characters tick, how to make them break apart so I can put them back together again. All the same, there’s still that point when I can’t help thinking…wouldn’t it be great if Becky turned out to be a….

Covet stories are based in reality but with a supernatural twist. They still have the strong emotional feel of contemporary romance, and rely on internal conflicts as much as external, but there’s always that chance of the unexpected, the magic, the feeling I love when writing speculative fiction that absolutely anything can happen.

One of the things I enjoy about writing paranormal is the world building, but when I write a Covet, I try to make the world as real as possible. Maybe the story is taking place at the office, or the house next door or… That doesn’t mean to say the paranormal world hasn’t been built. It has—usually before I even start writing chapter one. Then I have to try and work out which aspects of that world-building are essential for the story to work, which I need to at least hint at, and finally, what I can leave to the readers’ imagination (I always presume my readers have huge imaginations—so usually quite a lot.)

So for me, Covet books provide the perfect balance of contemporary romance and magic. They allow us to put the para into normal. So next time you answer the door, take a really good look at your neighbor. You may be missing something.

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