Hi, Nikki. Welcome to the What to Read Next podcast.

Hey Lauren. Thank you for having me. I'm excited.

So happy to have you here. Tell us a little bit about yourself.

I am a romance author of Pride and Protest, sex Lies and Sensibility, and now, just recently The Princess and the pi. I'm a cultural anthropologist. I'm also like I'm just a walking version of that humanities course you're forced to take in college. That's who I am.

Yes, I love your substack. 'cause you take, you actually take some like bits of information and actually. Expanded upon and gives us a different point of view to look at. Where a lot of times we're just consuming like pop culture information. It's actually look at it this lens, look at this other lens. So I really appreciate your takes and to look at as a culture anthropologist, it's a better way to approach it. There's a lot to be explored in this era. think history books. I don't know America. 'cause America education is not that good. I come from Puerto Rico and I was telling a bunch of people, 'cause I'm from the island. With the whole bad bunny situation, everyone's oh, deport, deport. I was like we've been a colony for a hundred years. We want, they won a war.

Yeah.

I was explaining to a lot of people, the amount of people that ask me, what kind of passport do I have and what kind of passport do you need? I'm like, this is not. And I was like, I was, it's education. I was like, well, it's American education. They don't teach you that basic stuff. Like

Open the schools.

and so, so what's interesting is like I come from Puerto Rico. My education was both Spanish. I come from bilingual language, so I learned Spanish or learn English. I learn, I read the classics, American Classics or English classics as well as the Spanish classics. So I read Donte, Gabriel Garcia, Marcus, and I had a pretty well-rounded education, which. A lot of people don't think of it, they just assume that we're, third world country.

Yep.

But no.

Girl.

So, so you assume when we look back at 2025 or 20 20, 20 16 to 25 era, they're gonna be like, what? What's going on?

Yeah. Yeah.

so your work might be uncovered, in those internet archives.

Oh my gosh, I hope so. It's also incredibly optimistic of you to stop that era at 25. Like I'm really.

We, I don't wanna say it, but you know, it's gonna, the clock is gonna, when it can worse than this.

Oh my gosh. Oh my gosh. Who pressed on this elevator?

I don't know, but let's talk about sense and sensibility and pride and protests, which are your Jane Austen, retellings, DMV. little bit of little touch of cultural let's bring it back to the 2020s and era. Talk about what led you to write these retellings and what was your, what was important for your voice to come out from taking this text and, adapting it to this new, this era that we live in.

No, that's a great question. I think particularly when I was starting Pride and Protest, I was still doing a lot of research on aesthetics and power, which is. Kind of what we find beautiful and why, and what's kind of associated with and attached to notions of beauty. And something that we found in some of the data that like I think OkCupid released was that black women and Asian men were like the least responded to, in, in dating apps. They were presumed to have like kind of lists. Sexual capital. And and because of that, there were these associations with, masculinity and femininity that a lot of black women and Asian men like struggle with. I'm saying all this to say that I was always a Jane Austen fan girl. And when I started thinking about retelling. A Jane Austen novel, I'll very intentionally put this black woman and Asian male as these kind of archetypical heroes, because what would happen if you made Elizabeth Bennett witty, delightful, desirable, a black woman from round the way DC like Southeast, right? And what would happen if you made brooding, handsome, rich, powerful, Mr. Darcy, an Asian male? What has to change? What can stay the same? And it started as me asking myself those questions and then I I loved it and the people responded as well, so.

Yeah, we love it. We love what you're telling, that it brings up to light, like a new lenses to look at it, new lenses, to look at this classical text and to look at it from a critical perspective. At the same time, adapting to where we live now, and questioning the biases that we have. Perceived bias is when we think about these characters from the get go and be like actually exploring that beyond and actually. Having what we like, what we find in romances is to find empathy, to find common sense or commonality or find ways to look at the world differently. And that's what's important about reading romances. It's not just about the, the bad, the red flags that we listen to. It's helpful to see all the red flags and be like, okay, maybe not in my personal life, but also to look at other how other people view the world. And it's a safe space to explore that, so I love this take on credit protests and sense and the sense and sensibility take on, but how about the princes of pi, which is one of my favorite books. And I was telling you because I like a little bit of action mystery. Go for it. And at the same time, I don't like where my dispen are just like too dark. I like a little bit, I have PTSD, so I don't need more triggers to be added.

Yeah.

So this is it takes an amateur sleuth, it takes Reddit, it takes a pi, actually co a common ground of cherry to take down something to

Yeah.

it, and that's very technological very relevant to this time. So

Oh yeah.

elevator pitch and what you do and do about writing this book.

Oh I love writing this book because I'm. I'm really fascinated by how people curate curate these hyper competent online personas like Fiona's, Reddit, sleuthing. She's like when you engage with her online, you would never imagine that she's. Unprepared for anything outside of her own living room. And there's such a distance between the person that we are online and like that individual that we create online and who we actually are. And I wanted to write someone with an enormous gap between. That confident, knowledgeable person that they present online and literally having to ask permission to spend 20 minutes in conversation with someone at being 28 years old. Right? And that tension. And then just like pair that with my love, enduring love for sexually competent dirt bags with a guilt complex hashtag the bear. Then I just knew that I wanted to put. These two interesting people together to make them chase justice and see what would happen.

Yeah. So how did you plug this bug? Do you plot the characters before that or was it the conflict, the external conflicts for the drivers or the professions or their. Personas, like what was the, how did the book came about? Because it's always curious too, when you think about Romans it's a formula, but at the same There's different pieces of the And

yeah.

out

Yeah.

main driver that was the seed, and then allow the other things to spring forward.

no you're exactly right. It started off being a completely different thing. I will tell you, it was just a kind of straight up mystery. As I continued to write these characters, they started to unfold themselves to me. Tiny little details of their life that made the story that much more interesting, that made the story more interesting to, for me to tell. And because of that, I'll say that I had a sketch for what I wanted the story to be and what I wanted it to be about. And and a sketch of the characters. But in the writing, the characters deepen. In the writing, the characters push against certain ideas and lean into other ones. And sometimes when you follow that, when you honor that where the characters want to go, you come up with a story that's even better than what you thought you were writing. There's so many instances where you kind of. You write like the end and you look at it and say, oh that's what I was writing the whole time. It sometimes comes at you in that order.

So I love the fact the Fiona is a redditer.

Yeah.

An amateur sleuth. I've been a new, cozy mystery, actually more mystery, most Reader, and work as a fraud analyst. I am actually trained as an investigator and it's a kind of like a fun little, it's my day job. That's what I do. And so it's funny enough that, a lot of my job takes place at home. It's

Yep.

this sense like I'm chasing, I'm doing Surveillance and

yep.

it's like a lot of it, it's like looking at data,

Yep.

pieces of information, making a case. And so much of Reddit is about screenshots, receipts,

receipts. Network mapping, all of that. Yeah.

having and like connecting. And it

Yep.

you know how many times I spent online trying to,

Yeah.

me mor

Yep,

we find you the whole web of connection and stuff because we have an online persona. We If you don't have an online presence, that is a red flag.

yep.

Like

Yep.

of times I've heard the FBI from my area say we geotag you where you are so we know where to arrest you because you're so dumb that you put all the cars and all the things that you bought with the

Yeah.

money

Yeah,

with the location. Now we know it's online persona and Love this is like idea because we don't see that often in mystery. We think

yeah.

quirky characters and

Yeah.

but it's no, it's at home. Totally.

This is like more recent and Fiona's initial kind of fundamental misconnection. And he's just listen, I'm, I put my feet to the ground, and this like whatever internet thing you're playing at somehow, isn't real. And she wins him over. He starts to say okay, alright, okay, you're hot shake. Congratulations. And, but also she learns that aspect of. Of reading people in real time and getting what she wants out of people that she talks to. Which she needed to. Right. So they're they learned from each other and I think they're the better for it.

It's awesome. So I appreciate, this is like a love letter to me. I know you did not know that IT system, but I'm like, oh my gosh, it's so on your desk,

No, me too. Like I, I grew up like Church of God, Christ, like pretty religious, like high control religious community and.

Yeah.

In that instance where you're talking about which thing came first? I definitely closed the book and said oh, I was processing all of that body stuff and control stuff that I grew up with. Having Fiona be this, booing me girl, and having to. Like the terror of your body growing into something that might be sexually desirable and how people treat that. How mothers and aunties and uncles and dads treat that as something that needs to be managed, covered immediately. And I wanted to Fiona's Fiona to speak to that.

I think it's idea, and I just have this in therapy, is the perpetrator, acting like a victim and making the victim as a perpetrator ways is oh, it's your fault. It's how you dress, it's how you do. You are, you may not be the victim. I am the victim, but I'm the perpetrator and it's this, patriarchy, misogynist,

Yep.

cultural expectation. And A society that has hiding that up notches more. And so I think it's a lot of it that. Connection with yourself and try to self-trust within yourself that you may not have been given to.

Yeah.

in a role like a, like as an online sleuth, it's allow yourself to explore. Trusting your instinct, trusting your gut instinct, and trust yourself to be like no. This is the wrong and this is why, and I can give you the receipts and I can tell you

Yep.

And it's not. It's actually. your brain

Yep.

actually allowing yourself to have power again. So yes.

Yes. No, that's exactly what you have done is uncovered the entire theme, this notion of retraining your brain and taking the power back from a thing that had control over you. I mean, Maurice is a good detective, but he's also in the grips of guilt and rumination. That has kind of stalled his career considerably.

Yeah.

that ability to take control of your brain and tell the ghost that haunts him, no, you can't come into this room. It's a, it was just a powerful moment for him as well.

Yeah, the brain is valuable. The, there is neuroplasticity. It's not. It's not fake science. I know the wellness. They're like, oh yeah, change your brain. It is actually true. You can change your brain. It is not an easy thing.

Yeah.

But you know, there is, it's a powerful thing of shifting exposure, getting out of your comfort zone, trusting yourself, trying to have new beliefs, trying to explore things a little bit further, and just getting to that place

Yep.

Acclimate. Maybe you have symptoms and now doesn't mean that's forever. It's like how to regulate your emotions and Your symptoms to, to be your best self and to be open for love because I think that's a bigger part. You may not be open for love because you feel like you have all this. Baggage that you have to deal with and you may just think like it doesn't exist or it doesn't. I have friends who be like, I don't think I'm loved. And I'm like, no, you're loved unconditionally,

Yep.

see it. And I think in some ways that's where moments is very helpful for people who have that struggle to see that it's possible to see that it is happening. Have examples of healthier relationships

Yep.

unhealthy. Red flags, allure. And that's what Romans does. Romans is a great place to learn,

you are exactly right.

So this is deep, but let's talk about some book recommendations. What kind of books do you tend to read?

Ooh, that's such a good question. I read so widely. I just scuba up everything that I could possibly think of. And right now I'm reading what I like to call like weird fic. And this includes just incredibly angry women doing completely out of pocket things, their eyes are the best part, right? Or land of Milk and honey. It's another great one that I just keep going back to. And Regina Black is a favorite of mine and. Her work is relationship forward. But when we think about women doing amazing things, sometimes outta pocket finding love, Regina Black can write a really outta pocket woman. And I lo I love what she writes. So yeah, right now I'm in my my bitch. What era of reading and I'm enjoying it.

I love this era, and I think it's just what we need.

Yes.

Do you have any books or commend our listeners to pick up? Like after reading the prison cpi and it doesn't have to be romance, it can be another genre altogether, so

Ooh. I will always recommend Regina Black's. August Lane. I just, I love it. It you ball, you get a little spicy. It's great.

Yeah.

SA Crosby, king of Ashes. Was really good. Love a crime drama. I was really trying to get him to blurb the book, it's just can we, let's get weird, but we never got in contact, but I would've loved that. I love SA Crosby. What else was, oh my gosh. Alex Harrow. Alex Harrow is one of my favorite authors. She can put a. Turn the book down and say, just let me just, I'm gonna take a break. I'm gonna take a break from writing. I'm gonna take a break from breathing. I love the way she writes. I love the way she strings words together.

Oh, these recommendations are awesome and regional black. Is like a ever agreeing recommendation that you just keep doing. And we To keep her writing her life easier so Publishing books.

please.

So just like you, we wanna make your life easier so you can keep publishing books. So,

I love it.

Also, Nikki tells her can find you online.

You can find me on Instagram is where I'm at most often at Nikki PAYE books. I'm also on TikTok, Nikki Payne Romance, so I'm just goofing off. And, but, and also on Substack, on the Painful Truth, Substack, where I take. Cultural phenomena or social phenomena, and sometimes just build it with an anthropological lens or a lens of romance and just doing stuff that I find really interesting. So those are three places you're most likely to find me.

I love this. Thank you, Nikki, for being on the show.

Thank you.