She has virtually no reading presence in South Africa but romance novelist Natasha Anders is making a name for herself in the US, with a prestigious nomination to her name to boot.
Born and raised in Mitchells Plain, Anders has been writing romance novels for the past five years and has become a prolific writer, releasing seven books and writing up to 100000 words for her stories.
Last month she was nominated for a Romance Writers of America Award (RITA) in the category of Contemporary Romance: Long.
The RITA awards, named after Romance Writers of America's first president, Rita Clay Estrada, are considered the most prominent award given for the romance genre in the US.
Anders said she was honoured to be nominated after having looked up to many of her fellow nominees.
“It’s been a weird month for me,” said Anders.
“Some of these women that have been nominated, I’ve been reading for years and now I’m considered one of their peers.
"It still doesn’t feel right.”
Her nominated book, The Wingman, was released last year and is part of her trilogy series, Alpha Men.
The sequel, The Best Men, was released this month, while the third book in the collection, The Wrong Man, will be out in September.
The story follows Daisy McGregor, who decides to go to her sister’s wedding alone.
At the bachelorette party, Daisy and her sister find themselves being flirted with by Mason Carlisle and his older brother.
Daisy decides to ask Mason to be her pre- tend boyfriend at the wedding.
“Every guy I’ve written is unlikeable but this time he’s actually a pretty good guy and the twist is that he becomes a wingman for her in a sense,” said Anders.
In July, Anders will travel to Den- ver, Colorado, where she will attend the Romance Writers of America Conference, where the RITA winners will be announced at a glitzy red carpet affair.
“I’ve always been saying I would go and then always putting it off,” she said.
“Next year it’ll be held in New York and I thought I would go but then the nomination came and now I have an excuse to go this year.”
Before Anders made writing her full-time profession, she taught English in Niigata, Japan, for nine years.
There she would work on her first novel in between breaks.
“I’ve always been into writing.
"My parents bought me a typewriter when I was younger.
"I discovered romance writing when I was 12, and I’ve been doing that ever since.
“I was working on my story in class and my co-workers thought I was so hard-working but I would always close the laptop slightly when someone came close,” she said.
When she returned to South Africa she moved to Somerset West and has been making a living as a writer ever since.
Her books come out as ebooks, paperbacks and audiobooks.
“I’ve been living in my own little world here,“ she said.
“My books are mainly sold in America and Europe.
"There doesn’t seem to be a market here for romance writers.
“If you’re a romance writer you don’t really get taken seriously, you’re not seen as a real writer, but I’m not writing your typical Mills and Boon and my books have sold over 100000 copies on multiple occasions.”
Her books are published by Mont- lake, which is a subsidiary of Amazon’s in-house publishing branch.
In South Africa, Jonathan Ball Publishers are one of the largest publishers of romance novels.