The Rogues Who Went Rogue stands out against traditional shifter novels and brings its own twist to the genre. I think this original idea is intriguing. How did you come up with this idea and develop it into a story?

I can say the trick is to start with ‘what ifs’, then ask an endless amount of ‘whys’ and ‘hows’.

Rogues, when they aren’t the main love interest, are often given a peripheral or antagonistic role in shifter worlds. So, I wanted to know what could unfold if they were given a more central, protagonist role instead – one that doesn’t rely mainly on romance. And that’s how it all began. Rogues are known to not run with a pack, either because they’d been kicked out or because they were born as rogues.

But why had they been kicked out or why were they born as rogues? Was it wholly their fault? If it was, how do they feel about what they did, and was there another choice in their circumstances? If it wasn’t their fault and they were punished for it, how has that changed the person they once were and affected who they choose to be today? Do they like who they are today? Do they feel they have a choice in this life? Rogues are a community who – depending on their circumstances – may have most, if not everything taken from them, and this is an aspect that isn’t often explored. It’s always about what the rogues have taken and continue to take, so I delved into the flip side of the coin – of what was taken from the rogues and continued being taken – instead.

As for the newly-introduced species – vampires, it’s a common concept that vampires and lycans/werewolves do not get along, but the reason behind why that is isn’t always given the depth it deserves. So, I played around with their history and expanded the hatred from there to give it more context and to make their animosity understandable, even to lure readers to take a side.

The next issue was how I would bring these two age-old enemies together. And although the usual way would be to form a forbidden romance between two characters of opposite species, I wanted to try something new. So, I plucked out a piece of the plot in the previous book mentioning vampires and expanded that nugget of history, then weaved out a whole new interspecies relationship using the concepts of loss, platonic love, and reincarnation of souls, along with how shared pain can bring people together, no matter how different they may seem.

There was a lot of time spent crafting the character traits in this novel. What was the most important factor for you to get right in your characters?

Relatability, because the goal is always to have every character felt, not just imagined.

From the protagonists to antagonists to supporting characters, my aim is to make each one understood, regardless of the stance they take. Each character has their own backstory, motivations, goals or lack thereof, and a reason behind how they approach life and its challenges. It was crucial to make these distinctions and allow their differences to guide me in weaving the plot – you wouldn’t get a character who’s never been wronged suddenly wanting revenge. There has to be something that was taken away from him/her to justify them embarking on the vengeful route. It’s never about moralizing questionable choices. It’s always about having those choices make sense and letting the reader decide whether they would’ve reacted the same way had they been in that character’s shoes.

What scene in the book did you have the most fun writing?

Any scene with the Forest of Oderem. I never intended to make the forest what it is now, thinking it was just another fantasized location with magical elements when it started as nothing more than an abstract idea. But when I began writing about it and got carried away, I realized it deserved to be a character in its own right (though a non-verbal one).

Can you tell us where the book goes and where we’ll see the characters in the next book?

The next book, entitled The Indomitable Huntress & the Hardened Duke, transitions into the world of hunters, where new lore, characters, and territories will be explored along with the mystery that’s been weaved into the story. A certain huntress would catch the duke’s eye, and we’ll see whether their courtship would develop into something more while also learning about another aspect of the mate bond.

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