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Sometimes love happens in unexpected places – like a soccer field. The Striker is the latest novel from Ana Huang, a New York Times Best Selling author. Huang first captured the literary world’s attention when she used TikTok to promote her If Love series. Readers found themselves captivated by her lovelorn characters, and the drama surrounding their romances.

Popverse recently had a chance to sit down with Huang, who opened up about her writing process, her upcoming plans for the Gods of the Games series, and some teases about her upcoming projects. Let’s dive in….

Popverse: The Striker is your first book in your new series, Gods of the Game, and our leading man Asher Donovan is no stranger to fans of your books. What can fans expect from this new series and Asher and Scarlett’s love story?

Ana Huang: The God of the Game series, it's going to be three books. They all follow players in a UK football club or soccer as you call it, in the US, so all of the leads are going to play different positions. The striker, Asher, is of course a striker. The other two books will follow different positions for Asher and Scarlett themselves. This is going to be kind of a brothers/rival, semi-secret relationship story.

It follows Asher after he transfers to a new team, but when his rivalry costs the team a championship trip, he and his rival are forced to bond during off-season training. The only catch is their trainer is his rival’s sister Scarlett, and so, of course, romance and drama ensues, and there is a lot of found family dynamics with that team as well and it's a lot of fun.

Asher is the soccer player, and Scarlett is a former ballerina, so this is also a sports romance in a sense, and I believe this is the first sports romance you're diving into. Is that correct?

It is. I've never done a sports romance before, and when I was first writing it, I looked at it and I was like, “Wow okay, so there’s, you know, soccer, there was ballet, it’s set in London, when I live in the US.” I was like, “Wow, I really set myself up for a lot of research with this first book.” But it was a lot of fun to write, and honestly, I think soccer/football romance is probably the only type of sports romance I can write, because it's really the only sport I like watching.

You are currently in the middle of writing your Kings of Sin series. Can you talk about why you decided to pursue The Striker now?

It’s interesting because the Kings of Sin series is a seven book series. It's quite long. Asher has been introduced since Twisted Hate, which came out in January 2022. It's been quite a while since he first joined my universe of characters, and after I finished King of Sloth, sometimes characters just speak to you, you know?

Asher also showed up in King of Sloth for a little bit, and after I did it, I was like, “You know, this really feels like the time to tell his story.” I also kind of needed a little break, I think [from] all of the billionaire romances, which I love, but I really wanted to dive into something different, and so for the future, I'm going to be alternating. I will release one Gods of the Game series and then one consistent series, and I think for that it'll keep things fresh and interesting for me.

Can you talk about how you decided to pursue writing a book about a previous minor character, and pursuing the love story for this new series with him as a protagonist versus creating a new character altogether?

Most of the time side characters, they kind of come to me on their own. A majority of the time when I write a book, I don't go in being like, “I have to write this person as a secondary character.” I mean, sometimes I do, in the sense that when I start a series and I plan it, sometimes I'll be like, “Okay, I know who the main characters for this series are going to be already.” 

But the side characters will sometimes pop up on their own, and there are some, like Asher, who will go on to have their own stories, and there are other side characters I introduced that maybe fans love a lot, but they won't get their own book just because when I sit down and I try to think if I were to tell their story, what would this story look like, and what story do I want to tell? Sometimes there's not enough there for me to be like, “This is going to make a whole book.”

For Asher, it was very clear to me what I wanted to do with his story, and he was already a previous character that showed up. The heroine in The Striker, Scarlett, has never showed up in any of my books before. When I was writing her, I really had to put in a lot more work because I didn't have two years to think about what her development.

I had to sit down and really think through what I wanted her arc to be. It's two very different processes, but I think they're both really interesting, and sometimes, honestly, it's kind of nice to have a brand-new character because there's no preconceived notions of who they are. I could do anything I want with them.

Was it after Twisted Hate when you had the idea to want to pursue more of his story?

He showed up at the wedding. That was interesting. I was like, “Oh, you know, a sexy professional athlete. I think that could be a lot of fun.” That was when the seeds were already planted in the back of my mind. I hadn't fully pursued what his story would look like at the time, because I had been planning for Kings of Sin, after the Twisted series.

I was mostly focused on Kings of Sin, but in the very back of my mind, I already had kind of like the seeds for the Gods of the Game series turning, and so it had a long incubation period, but I'm excited for it to finally be out in the world. 

Your novels are interconnected standalones, and we’ve seen characters from previous books pop up. Can you say if there will be any potential cameos from any characters in your previous books coming up in Gods of the Game?

There are a few cameos from some of my previous books. I don't want to spoil who they are, but I will say, in my previous books all of the guys kind of hate Asher. He's like all of their significant others’ dream celebrity, so they all hate him, and he doesn't even know [laughs]. I think you'll see a few fun cameos that kind of play on that dynamic a little bit in Gods of the Game. I love a good Easter egg.

Can you talk about if there are any other minor characters from your previous books that you have an interest in wanting to pursue a story with later?

[Laughs] I will say there is one character from Kings of Sin that has showed up who will get his own book later in a different series. I can't say who that is yet because that series is still quite a ways away. I still have to finish Gods of the Game and Kings of Sin first, but when he first came on the page, I was like, “Yeah, this guy needs to have his own book.” I think the readers really loved him as well, so I'm excited for him to have a time to shine.

Something I've really enjoyed about reading your series is how they are interconnected stand-alones. What do you enjoy most about writing interconnected stand-alones?

I think my favorite part is I sometimes get a little sad when you finish a book and you're like, “Oh, wow, that's the end of the story.” We don't really get to see this couple anymore, but I think the great thing about interconnected standalones, it's kind of like a very long extended epilogue of the previous couple, and maybe they're not the focus of those books, but it's nice to kind of check in and be like, “Okay, these are my friends from a previous book and they're still doing great and they're happy.” 

It's kind of [like] getting life updates on your old friends is how I like to think of it, and I think there's just something so comforting and cozy about that, and I never really have to say goodbye, which may be a selfish reason, but it's still a reason. I kind of love that aspect of it. For me, it's like building a whole universe of characters that people, when they read it, can kind of feel like this is family. It’s not just like, oh, they read a book and then it's over and that's it. It’s like entering a universe of its own, and I think there's something really comforting about that.

Are there any additional upcoming projects you would like to talk about?

I am currently working on King of Envy, which is the fifth book in the Kings of Sin series that will come out in the Spring. That is mostly my focus for now, but as I mentioned, I have a long incubation period for what I want to write in the future. I already have ideas and seeds in my mind jotting down for the series that I'm going to write after God of the Game, to when the Kings of Sin is over. I think that's going to be a slightly darker series than what I have written so far, but I have that churning in the background as well. There's a lot going on.

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