Assassin’s Love follows an unhappy wife who hires a Romani assassin to kill her wealthy husband, only for deception, dangerous attraction, and unexpected loyalties to complicate the deadly plan. Where did the idea behind this story come from?

I often wake up with a story in my head, and I’m never quite sure whether I was dreaming or already thinking. Over the years I learned to write these ideas down straight away as a short synopsis, so I don’t lose them, and the next day I expand them into a couple of pages. I now have 86 of them saved. When I was preparing to publish The Love Secret Series, I wanted to offer readers something extra, a short story they could enjoy while getting to know my writing. So I went through my collection, and one idea stood out: an unhappy wife, a deadly plan, and an assassin who falls for the man she was sent to kill. I named it Assassin’s Love and deliberately kept it to a novella. I wrote it part-time, night after night, over about two weeks, writing and rewriting until it was finished.

How did the compact length of the book influence your approach to pacing and characterization?

The novella form forced me to be disciplined. My Love Secret trilogy spans continents and hundreds of pages, but here every chapter had to earn its place and push the story forward. I let the characters reveal themselves mainly through dialogue and action rather than long explanations: what they say, what they hide and what they choose to do under pressure. With a small cast in a confined world, each relationship carries more weight, and the tension builds quickly. I wanted readers to finish it in one or two sittings, the way you watch a good film, and still feel they knew these people well.

How did you develop Rafaella’s professional identity as an assassin?

I wanted Rafaella to be a professional first: disciplined, loyal to her clan and its code, and very good at what she does. That made her more interesting to me, because the story then tests something she believes is unbreakable. Her training gives her control, but love takes that control away. Psychologically, I was drawn to the conflict between identity and emotion: who are we when the role we have built our life around no longer fits the person we are becoming? Rafaella has to decide what she values more, the code that made her or the feelings that are changing her.

What do you hope readers take away from the contrast between Valentino and Rafaella and Heleanne and Alexi? 

Both couples are driven by passion, but they show two very different kinds of love. Heleanne and Alexi are bound by desire, greed and fantasy; their attraction is about what each can gain. Valentino and Rafaella discover something deeper, a love that shows itself through loyalty, protection and sacrifice. This is the same theme that runs through all my books: real love is not proved by words or desire, but by what we are willing to give up for another person. I hope readers enjoy the twists and the suspense, and then perhaps ask themselves which kind of love they recognize in their own lives.

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