Latest news with #AnaHuang
29-05-2025
- Entertainment
Author Ana Huang on bringing the heat and heartbreak in new book ‘King of Envy'
ABC News' Linsey Davis speaks with best-selling author Ana Huang about her new book, "King of Envy," and her rise to literary success on TikTok, as the platform makes waves in the publishing industry.
Indian Express
11-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Indian Express
The Ana-verse unraveled: How every story connects in Ana Huang's world
(Written By Prachi Mishra) Ana Huang has become a force in contemporary romance fiction, crafting emotionally rich, trope-filled stories that go far beyond standalone novels. Her books are set in a shared world known as the Ana Huang – Universe, and her fans love to call it the Ana-verse. She has either published or announced 15 books in total based on the themes of love, loyalty and ambition. Each series holds its own, but when taken together, they form a dynamic web of characters and relationships that make the experience incredibly rewarding for the readers. The If Love series consists of – If We Ever Meet Again, If the Sun Never Sets, If Love Had a Price, If We Were Perfect. Originally planning a duet, Huang finished the story of Farrah and Blake in the first two books. And, you actually get to observe the character growth and evolvement as you jump from the first book to the next. The series only gets better with the additional two books, which explores two different stories that of Kris-Nate and Sammy-Olivia. The series explores themes of giving love a second chance, introspection and keeps the reader turning pages without taking a break. Twisted series include the books – Twisted Love, Twisted Games, Twisted Hate and Twisted Lies, and is suggested to be read in this sequence. Although, every book can be read as a standalone. The Twisted Series is what garnered the fans attention the most and worked wonders in making Huang a popular Rom-Com writer. The series is centered around four best friends – Ava, Bridget, Jules and Stella. And, the readers get to see varied tropes including enemies to lovers, fake-dating, grumpy-sunshine and literally that of Bodyguard and Princess. On January 9, 2025, Ana Huang herself took to her instagram account to announce that the Twisted Series would be soon brought onto the screens for the viewers. Kings of Sin series is an ongoing one with seven books in total, out of which five books have already been published which includes – King of Wrath, King of Pride, King of Greed, King of Sloth and King of Envy, which is the most recent addition to the series published on 29 April, 2025. The series was inspired by the seven deadly sins or capital vices according to Catholicism. Throughout the series we see powerful men falling for women who have the guts to challenge them and break their false egotism. We see the grovelling trope every now and then, which is quite hard to resist as a reader, and Huang seems to have mastered this art. Be it Dante-Vivian from King of Wrath or Isabella-Kai from King of Pride, the chemistry between the protagonists feels amazing. Huang has announced two books in her Gods of The Game Series so far, The Striker and The Defender. Published on October 22, 2024,The Striker follows soccer star Asher Donovan and ballerina Scarlett's story. The plot is simple, and can be well explained by the first line Huang wrote in the synopsis, 'She's the only woman he wants, and the only one he can't have'. The Defender, on the other hand, is going to be the story of Asher's rival and Scarlett's brother Vincent and his love life, and is soon getting published on October 9, 2025. One of the most adrenaline-inducing aspects of Huang-style storytelling is the dread when a reader realizes that no character is truly on his own. The Ana-verse is a carefully constructed environment where every cameo, passing reference, or veiled allusion could soon blossom into a whole story. Asher Donovan, for instance, the handsome footballer who is the protagonist of The Striker, was referenced and admired by some of Huang's female leads long before he had his own book written about him. He almost existed like an urban myth in the Ana-verse. So, when he finally steps up to take center stage, the reading public already feels like they have been long acquainted with him. That is interwoven narrative mastery that Ana Huang wields with precision. And, most importantly we see that throughout the Ana-verse, characters meet in organic ways, nothing seems like a forced interaction. We find that the male leads are part of the Valhalla (the ultra-exclusive) club and their future interaction with each other therefore naturally plans out. Like Christian Harper (Twisted Lies) and Alex Volkov (Twisted Love), used to play chess at this club and therefore knew each other. Alex made an appearance in all the Twisted series books in one way or the other. Similarly, the Twisted series female leads were connected because of Thayer University, where they become friends, and, then later we observe that Dominic and Alessandra from King of Greed, also attended the same University. All these details are very subtly planted by Huang. And, sometimes these connections are fleeting yet unforgettable. For instance, In King of Greed, Dominic and Alessandra bump into Josh and Jules (Twisted Hate) while in Spain. In King of Sloth, Xavier's journey to open a nightclub becomes a collaborative effort involving Jules (as his lawyer), Alex (whose bank vault he wants to buy), and Kai (who supplies the right contacts). The icing on the cake is when Sloane, Xavier's love interest, casually refers to Eldorra's royal couple, Bridget and Rhys (Twisted Games), grounding fantasy in familiar names. A lot of such references keep popping in her novels linking her previous characters to the new ones. And, therefore it feels what Ana Huang has done is nothing short of genius. She's built a world where everyone feels like they belong to something bigger. The romantic arcs may end, but the characters live on, evolving, interacting, and leaving breadcrumbs for what's to come. For readers, it turns every book into more than just a love story. It becomes a reunion, a glimpse into a larger world that's still unfolding. (The author is an intern with The Indian Express)
USA Today
01-05-2025
- Entertainment
- USA Today
Ana Huang gets back in her groove with steamy, billionaire romance 'King of Envy'
Ana Huang gets back in her groove with steamy, billionaire romance 'King of Envy' As a young reader (probably too young, she admits), Ana Huang scouted her favorite romance books at the supermarket. Her journey with the genre started, like many others, with Harlequin trade paperbacks. Here, Huang could find a guaranteed happy ending and arcs that made her favorite fictional characters feel real. But as a Chinese American reader, she rarely read any with characters who looked like her. Now, Huang is dominating the romance genre herself, even solidifying a place on the Top 5 bestselling BookTok authors with over 1.47 million copies sold in 2024, according to Forbes. Publishing is still a largely white industry. Four out of those top five bestselling authors are white women – Huang is the only Asian author and author of color represented in the entire Top 10. As we kick off Asian American Pacific Islander Heritage Month, USA TODAY talked with Huang about the representation she wants to see in the romance genre and how she crafted her new dark, steamy novel 'King of Envy,' out now from Bloom Books. King of Envy is a 'return to form' for Huang 'King of Envy' is Huang's 14th book and the fifth in her 'Kings of Sin' series, each of which focuses on one of the seven deadly sins. The series uses the beloved billionaire romance trope – thank you 'Fifty Shades of Grey' – often combining glitz and wealth with high-stakes action. In 'King of Envy,' our pair is the tortured billionaire Vuk Markovic and renowned supermodel Ayana Kidane. When the novel opens, Ayana is engaged to Jordan, one of New York's most eligible bachelors, but you quickly learn it's a sham so that he can get his inheritance and she can get paid off enough to leave her abusive agency. It's a perfect plan, except for when she finds herself falling for his best man – Vuk. The story is teeming with tension and morally gray love interests and a healthy dose of the 'touch her and you die' trope. While her recent projects have had 'softer' leading men and themes, Huang calls 'King of Envy' and its palm-sweating suspense a 'return to form.' She listened to angsty songs like 'Let the World Burn' by Chris Grey and 'Moth to a Flame' by The Weeknd and Swedish House Mafia to set the tone for 'King of Envy.' 'King of Envy' – like any Ana Huang book – has plenty of spice Having written many 'spicy' scenes across 14 books, Huang knows a thing or two about how to convey sex on the page. It starts with the emotion, she says. Rather than structuring a bedroom scene on mechanics alone, she asks the characters what they need to get emotionally out of a sexual encounter. But how do you keep it from being formulaic? She admits it's harder to write steamy scenes the more books she writes. 'I tend not to be as liberal with the spice scenes as maybe my earlier stuff, just because I want to make sure they all serve a purpose. But also, I'll be honest, sometimes I get a little bit tired,' she says, laughing. 'I still love them, but it just takes a little bit more out of me.' Still, there's plenty of spice in 'King of Envy.' Though romance is often dismissed as 'fluff' or 'guilty pleasure reads,' Huang says she's proud to offer a safe space for readers (especially women) to explore their sexuality. Readers told USA TODAY earlier this year that spicy romance is empowering and even translates off the page into developing healthy sex lives. The genre is booming and driving the publishing industry. It's so big, it's crossing over to the silver screen with adaptations like "It Ends With Us" and Huang's own "Twisted" series coming to Netflix. 'It's a place for play and exploration,' Huang says. 'And I love that romance is a genre that centers female desire and pleasure. They can take agency over that. You can't really say that of a lot of other genres.' In a video she made for Audible in 2023, Huang told the story of the time she told an Uber driver she wrote romance. He gave her a pamphlet of religious teachings. It's an attitude many readers and non-readers alike have – that romance has no substance. But most of that is coming from people who don't read the genre at all. 'It's so frustrating, as an author, to see those conversations play out from people outside of the genre,' she tells USA TODAY. 'Obviously, a lot of it is rooted in misogyny … but I think the romance community is strong. It's been here for so long, and the umbrella is growing every day.' Huang's books prioritize diversity. She wants publishing to be the same. A hallmark of Huang's work is her diverse cast of characters across race, ethnicity and life experience. In 'King of Envy,' Vuk is selectively non-verbal and uses American Sign Language, which Huang included because it's a demographic she doesn't often see represented in the romance genre. Because the Kings of Sin series is set largely in New York City, one of the most diverse major cities in the U.S., not creating a diverse cast of characters would be a 'disservice,' she says. She hopes to see the same reflected in publishing, at every level. 'At the end of the day, publishing is always about the bottom line,' Huang says. 'But sometimes I find it a little frustrating because they'll say, ... 'We published this book and it just didn't sell that well and it just happened to be a diverse book by a diverse author.' And I'm like, 'Well, did you put as many marketing resources into this book?' 'This is something that needs to be at every level," she continues. "You need to have BIPOC acquiring editors. You need that type of representation on the marketing team. It can't just be like, 'We acquired this book to say that we did it.'' Clare Mulroy is USA TODAY's Books Reporter, where she covers buzzy releases, chats with authors and dives into the culture of reading. Find her on Instagram, subscribe to our weekly Books newsletter or tell her what you're reading at cmulroy@
Washington Post
26-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Washington Post
How BookTok sensation Ana Huang brings the spice
For romance author Ana Huang, the past five years have been a whirlwind: Since publishing 'If We Ever Meet Again' in 2020, she's gained 1 million followers on TikTok, the same number on Instagram, sold 19 million copies of her books worldwide and acquired a legion of fans who are fervently anticipating the release this coming Tuesday of 'King of Envy,' the fifth novel in her series inspired by the seven deadly sins.
USA Today
16-02-2025
- Entertainment
- USA Today
No longer guilty: How romance books have changed readers attitudes toward sex in real life
No longer guilty: How romance books have changed readers attitudes toward sex in real life Show Caption Hide Caption Decoding Bookish Slang: Essential Terms Explained The rise of BookTok has created new slang. Become an expert with our guide to all the terms you might come across on the internet. Love is in the air – and on the page. Look on any 'As Seen on BookTok' table at your local bookstore, and you're likely to find them: Romance books that seem demure with cursive fonts and illustrated couples on the cover, but contain pretty explicit sex scenes inside the pages. Because of that, there can be an air of pretentiousness when readers talk about romance novels, saying 'I like something with a little bit more substance,' or feeling the need to qualify them as guilty pleasures. 'What is so guilty about reading stories about love and connection and happy endings?' says Ana Huang, the bestselling author of the 'Twisted' and 'Kings of Sin' series. 'Why is it only that the 'substantive' books are the ones that are sad and challenging?' No guilt, just pleasure in spicy romance books As one of romance's hottest authors (both in steamy scenes and popularity), Huang says she gets frustrated when she hears how romance is cast aside as fluff. 'A lot of genres enjoyed by women tend to be dismissed, when to me, sexuality is one of the most natural things in the world,' she tells USA TODAY. 'Obviously a lot of it is rooted in misogyny.' And that misogyny can be internalized – many readers discover romance after years of turning their nose up at the genre. Erica Cerulo and Claire Mazur, the founders of romance entertainment company 831 Stories, said they began reading romance again during the pandemic and quickly became 'compulsive' consumers. They take issue with the thought lauded books have to be 'challenging and/or traumatic.' 'When people discover romance … they tend to have that realization that, 'Oh wait, reading is fun.' I really like reading and why was I ascribing this homework kind of quality to it?' Cerulo says. 'It helps them fall back into the habit of reading for pleasure, reading for entertainment.' Readers push beyond double standards to ask for what they want Two of the most popular romantasy series – 'A Court of Thorns and Roses' by Sarah J. Maas and 'The Empyrean' series by Rebecca Yarros – have been referred to as 'faerie smut' or 'dragon smut.' You don't see those terms connected fantasy books with sex that are written by male authors, like 'Game of Thrones' by George R.R. Martin. Not to mention that of the 50-odd chapters in 'Onyx Storm,' only five or so contain 'spicy' – or sexual – scenes. Huang said her romance books typically only have three to four. '(The Empyrean series) is about politics, this is about leadership, this is about divided kingdoms, this is about self-journey, addiction, propaganda,' says Lexi Ayala, co-host of the Fantasy Fangirls book podcast. 'You do not walk away from it being like 'Oh my gosh, I just read a real spicy book.' No, I just read a really exciting book that had so much plot and fantasy and character growth and development and relationships on the page here and, yes, it's wonderful that sex is part of that because that is part of many of our lives.' And despite naysayers, the genre – and all its subgenres, from contemporary cowboy romance to dark romance with morally grey leads to STEMinist rom-coms – is only growing. Sales of romance books rose almost 9% in 2024, according to Circana BookScan data, contributing to the first year of growth in print book sales in the last three years, says Publisher's Weekly. Readers are asking for what they want and authors are getting a bigger platform to write about it being dismissed. Kimberly Lemming, who writes fantasy romance novels like 'That Time I Got Drunk and Saved a Demon,' is one such author. Lemming started as an independent, self-published author but after her cozy fantasy books (that include a fair amount of spice) took off on BookTok, publishers started calling. Her next novel, 'I Got Abducted by Aliens and Now I'm Trapped in a Rom-Com,' publishes Feb. 18 from Penguin Random House. 'If you're not sure about a job opportunity, you should just make a ridiculous offer. So I sat down and went, 'Now, what does trad (traditional) romance not buy? Alien romance, poly romance,'' she told USA TODAY. The finished product involves an alien-human throuple, a romantic relationship between three people. 'I wrote this crazy synopsis being like, here you go, call my bluff. And they didn't.' The boundaries of spicy romance continue getting pushed, and they keep ending up on bestseller lists – including books that heavily discuss kinks and other taboo sexual topics. 'This is what people want to read and it proves the power of the female readership and of women,' says Huang. 'Regardless of what people say, obviously these books are touching people in some way. It's bringing joy. And for me, that's what matters most.' When sex in books is about just more than the act The power of spicy romance books lies beyond the sexual acts on the pages – many readers and authors say these scenes offer important lessons about communication and trust. 'My husband and I have had more conversations about sex since I've picked up these books, he has also since picked up these books,' says Nicole Holleman, the other half of the Fantasy Fangirl podcast. 'That has massively impacted our lives, not only behind closed doors but also just as communicators over how to load the dishwasher.' Mazur, of 831 Stories, calls spicy romance a 'mainstream form of sex content' that's a direct 'counterpoint to porn culture.' According to a 2022 study from the Journal of Interpersonal Violence, while pornography can have 'some positive effects on romantic relationships,' it can also 'contribute to a culture that supports both physical … and sexual … intimate partner violence (IPV) toward women.' Women receive 97% of the physically aggressive acts in pornography, one study found. The sex in romance books, readers say, instead prioritizes female pleasure outside of the male gaze. Female characters are in control of their pleasure, emboldened to explore or let go. And male characters are complex, more of a reflection of contemporary masculinity. For some queer readers, it is the first time they see themselves represented in a sexual context that is designed for them. 'What if these books get more and more popular? What if they become even more mainstream? What if men started reading these books? How could that start to shift our ideas of what sex and relationships and beauty could look like?' Mazur asks. Huang echoes the sentiment. "It provides a very safe space for women to explore their different fantasies and maybe even see new things that they might not have thought they were interested in. Society tends to tell you there's a specific way that you have to approach desire, there's just one great way of having sex.' Seeing healthy relationships and sexual chemistry on the page can be formative for newly adult readers, but it's not all for the young and hungry. Kennedy Ryan, the bestselling author of 'Before I Let Go,' often features protagonists who are divorced, who are parents and who are in their 30s and 40s. She told USA TODAY she wants to write sex that is sometimes messy and is always real – she crafts women with scars or changed bodies from childbirth who have someone that loves and desires every part of them. Spicy romance is 'an act of resistance' Spicy romance bucks the trad wife trends, which promote traditional gender roles and more demure discussion of sexuality. It's also increasingly popular during a time when female bodily autonomy and reproductive rights are targeted. Similarly are queer and trans love stories that don't shy away from on-page sex as attacks on LGBTQ+ marriage and trans rights increase. Ryan says she writes romance, especially featuring Black and interracial couples, as an act of resistance. Female authors driving the bestsellers and centering female pleasure 'defies the patriarchy,' she says. 'I further see Black romance even as more of an act of resistance, because of ... how we have been portrayed and how often even our beauty was not the standard,' Ryan says. 'When Black and brown women see themselves centered and celebrated, it is an act of joy. It is an act of resistance." Cowboy romances having a moment: Why readers want to saddle up with the genre Clare Mulroy is USA TODAY's Books Reporter, where she covers buzzy releases, chats with authors and dives into the culture of reading. Find her on Instagram, check out her recent articles or tell her what you're reading at cmulroy@
