Nivashni Nair Sukdhev is an award-winning journalist, wife and mother who revels in her work. Her book-writing journey began with a non-fiction title, What’s on My Mind… Making Babies.
A critic described the book as “a personal account that tells of the remarkable nexus between faith and science leading to triumph over seemingly insurmountable odds”.
Facebook’s daily prompt — “What’s on your mind?” — inspired Nivashni to transform a digital social media diary into a book. On the surface, it is about infertility and one of its leading causes, Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome (PCOS).
But it is not a medical journal article. Instead, it is part memoir and part romantic adventure.
“Mostly, it is a story of hope, love and heartache,” she says.
Nivashni has interviewed presidents and superstars and covered some of South Africa’s biggest court cases. Amid all that, she turned her hand to romance novels and has since written five: Pillow Talk, Fireworks, Kissing Her Senseless, The Heartbroken Florist and I Think They Call This Love.
Astonishingly, Nivashni has written all her novels on her cellphone while waiting for press conferences or for her son to be let out of school.
“When I start writing, it takes me three weeks to finish the book. The characters have to come out!”
“Romance is the biggest literary genre and a billion-dollar industry, yet it is often looked down on as smut, predictable or unbelievable. It is perhaps the most difficult genre to write. It has taken courage for me to put this out there because I am in the business of writing facts, but I am proud to add a new genre to my portfolio.”
