Spill the Smut
Where the books are spicy, the conversations are juicy, and the stories rarely fade to black. Each week, I dive headfirst into the delicious world of smut with the people who live and breathe it—authors, creators, and bookish babes who aren’t afraid to spill all the steamy tea. Through interviews and unfiltered chats, I'll explore everything from fan-favorites to behind-the-scenes secrets of the bookish world. This is your weekly escape into the world of steam, swoon and unapologetically bookish.
So get comfy. Pour a drink. And get ready to spill the smut.
Spill the Smut
Interview with Author: Nikki Ash
Dark Romance with a Secret Baby Twist
Ever wondered what happens when you can't find the exact romance novel you're craving? For Nikki Ash, the answer was simple: write it yourself. In this captivating conversation, the USA Today bestselling author shares the unexpected journey that transformed her from an English literature teacher into a prolific romance novelist with nearly 40 books to her name.
What stands out most is Nikki's genuine passion for storytelling. "Writing is the only thing that doesn't stress me out," she confesses, describing how she becomes noticeably restless after just a few days away from her manuscript. Her approach to publishing—writing what she loves rather than chasing trends—reflects an authenticity that resonates throughout her work, even as she navigates the ever-changing landscape of indie publishing.
Grab your coffee (Nikki's other passion), settle in, and discover why sometimes the most satisfying stories are the ones we create ourselves.
Follow Nikki Ash on IG @authornikkiash and her website authornikkiash.com
Cover Art by: moi
Intro/Outro Music: positive vibes by nanaacom on Capcut
Contact Email: spillthesmutpodcast@gmail.com
Podcast IG: @spillthesmut TT: @spillthesmutpodcast
Jordan IG: @sipsoffiction TT: @sipsoffiction
She's a USA Today bestselling author who knows how to deliver all the swoons with her contemporary romances. She loves getting lost in words, which same though, let's be honest, she's the one that can actually write them. I also discovered she's a fellow coffee addict, which makes me feel very seen because yep, guilty as charged. Her brand new book, sweetest Sin, is out right now. It's a dark, small-town romance with all the delicious tropes we live for A possessive hero serving major touch-her-and-die energy, plus a secret baby twist. And that's just the beginning. It's the first book in her tempting love series, so grab your coffee, settle in and help me. Welcome to the podcast, nikki Ash. Hi, that was quite the intro, and at least you got to hear it this time. It might have taken us a minute, but we are here and I have Nikki Ash on the podcast, and I am so excited.
Jordan:Hi I'm excited to be here. Oh, thank you so much. Okay, so we'll just dive right in. Well, I do like to ask one question what has been the highlight of your week so far?
Nikki:Definitely delving back into a dark world. It's been a minute since I've written a dark romance, so it's been a lot of fun. Everybody just loving the dark world and getting back into it.
Jordan:I do love a good like dark, dark romance. I not gonna lie, though, I have been in my like summer era. Just because it's like summertime, and even though it's like reaching into fall now I don't want it to be fall, I want it to be summer.
Nikki:Oh God, I live in Florida. We don't, I don't like summer.
Jordan:OK, I feel like that's too hot. Yeah, no, um, I've only been to Florida a handful of times, and I've been in July, and it was miserable.
Nikki:It's actually miserable yeah, it is so, I'm, I'm, I think. I got in my car the other day and it said and obviously it's, it's hotter in the car, but it said 111. And I, just, I just wanted to die On.
Jordan:I, I don't, I didn't even feel it and I want to die Like that sounds miserable. Ok, so I have three parts to this interview. We have author reading and personal. So we'll dive into the author questions first. What first inspired you to be an author and to start writing romance books?
Nikki:So a couple of things. One my major, my degree, is in English literature and I taught college writing for over 10 years, so I already love the writing aspect of it. I'm also a huge reader from like when I was little, like growing up, my mom always had a book like on her nightstand, like all over the house. We literally would spend every weekend going to these bookstores and I just can remember like sitting there like reading while she was looking for like Danielle Steele and Nora Roberts, and so I grew up like with those like Fabio guys on her covers and it's just like a core memory.
Nikki:And I, you know, obviously I went from, you know, reading like the children's books to reading Sweet Valley High and eventually, when I became a mom, I had stopped reading for a little while because with the kids it was just so busy and I got lazy and tired. And then when I went back to school I was able to then pick up my love of reading again and I was reading all types of books. And then I was actually sitting in a college class, one of my lit classes, and somebody was reading a romance and you know I kind of looked over at it and I was eyeing it and a few classes later she was like I'm done with it if you want to borrow it, and I was like, oh, that's so creepy. She totally saw me like checking out her book.
Nikki:And I was like sure she did, and, um, and that, and I just I started reading and I was at one point, um, honestly reading it, it kind of like it. I feel like in a lot of ways it saved my life. Um, I was going through a divorce and I was back in school and reading kind of became like that escape for me and at one point I was reading 350 to 400 books a year, like when my kids would go with their dad, I was listening to it while I, would, you know, driving to school and it just it, it consumed me. And one day, uh, I had read, I was like on a MMA UFC romance kick. And one day I wanted a certain trope.
Nikki:Um, from the beginning I've always loved the secret baby trope and it's never been one of the more popular ones. And a friend of mine was like, why don't you just write your own then, if you want this and you can't find it? And I like laughed at you know, like, yeah, okay. And then my ex-husband had taken the kids for a week during the holidays and it just kind of came to me and I started typing and I just I couldn't stop and I haven't stopped since.
Jordan:That is so cool. That is such a cool story. It's like you didn't have the book you wanted, so you wrote it.
Nikki:That's kind of what I do now, which is it's funny, because smart marketing would be like you're supposed to write for the readers what trope is popular, what is trending? And I suck at it. I suck at like all marketing and trends and I tend to write for myself and I have it like in my head that, like the readers who are like me, they're gonna love it anyway.
Jordan:So we're good and that's all that matters. Because I think sometimes I feel like you can tell when certain off, not certain authors, when some authors write to like a trope to the readers, it's almost like you can, I don't know. Sometimes I feel like you can just kind of tell. So it's kind of exciting when an author like you know they're writing the story they want to tell you, can it just crossed in their writing.
Nikki:I feel well, it's like I've had readers that have said to me oh, would you ever write? You know, let's say, like an enemies to lovers, you know where he is? Just like a bully romance. And I've read bully romances and I've read and loved plenty of them. But I know that like I could not write it because every single book, no matter how much the guy like hates the woman, no matter how like if she's messed up and he's mad at her and he like wants to hate her, he still is like never gonna treat her like crap. So, no matter like what I got, I know that I could never write one, it doesn't matter how popular it is, and I'll read them with the best of them. You know, um, you know rooting for her and you're rooting for him and like whatever it is. But I know that if I was like let me jump on this trend, I'm gonna write this bully romance like five pages in he's gonna be like down on her, like down at her feet, like begging her to just like forgive him.
Jordan:The very quickest enemies to lovers. That's ever been read.
Nikki:Yeah, there's no bully. No, bullying is happening.
Jordan:It's just all in theory, it's just like you make it up. They would be so disappointed. So then, along those lines, would you say you're a panter or a plotter when writing oh, I'm 100% a plotter.
Nikki:When I go to write a series I think about the series or standalone, whatever it is, but like so. For example, with the Tempting Love series it's a four book series. Actually started off as three, but as I was plotting it and outlining it, I create full-on Excel spreadsheets, like the series Bible. It has like who they are, their names, the businesses, the cities, like everything possible. My outline alone for one book is like 10,000 words. A lot of it's because I have no memory, so I have to like remember all of these things. But the other part of it is like I like it comes to me and I just it keeps, like, I keep going.
Nikki:So, like an entire series gets plotted, um, like what is happening? What are the main points? Um, sometimes, as I'm driving, certain scenes will pop up in my head. It gets added to the outline and then, when it comes time to write a lot of like my author friends that I sprint with, they're like, oh, you're such a machine and it's like it write a lot of. Like my author friends that I sprint with, they're like, oh, you're such a machine and it's like it's already been written, like I'm just, you know, like I'm not writing it, but it's already been written in my head, it's been written through the outline, like I could tell you in the book I'm ready. I like what is going to happen now. I mean, does it sometimes go off course and I have to like move with it Of course, like the characters start talking and you're just listening and you know it definitely gets derailed. But for the most part I can tell you like what's going to happen throughout this entire series before I even start writing the first book.
Jordan:Oh my goodness. But then that might be kind of cool though, because then I feel like, since you know what the general idea is for each book, you could put Easter eggs essentially and like little nods to other books, in the first book or in other books.
Nikki:Oh, absolutely. Yeah, One of the things like I love and my alpha readers will point it out when I'm doing it, because I know it's going to happen they're like, oh, I see this foreshadowing, oh, I see where you're going with this, you know, because they know what's already going to happen, because they have to be able to look for plot holes and whatnot, like different little things, little nuances, like in the Tensing Love series. The first book is Dominic and Peyton and then the other three books are his siblings and a close family friend. And when I decided to write the fourth book which wasn't like already happening, it's because something happened in the second book and I went, oh. So then, like I stopped and I started like reworking it all and I was able to go back to the first book and be like, hey, let's add some of this in here. Now that we know what's going to happen and I know he's going to get this book, let's make this intentional.
Jordan:I like that. That's really cool. That's really cool. So you've been publishing books for a few years now. What has surprised you the most about your publishing journey?
Nikki:I think what surprises doesn't surprise me anymore, but what surprised me in the beginning was that, like, nothing is set in stone. Everything changes. I started publishing about almost nine years ago. I think in December or November it'll be like nine years and what worked nine years ago, you know, doesn't work now. Like it, it evolves and it changes and like you think that you like have it like under control.
Nikki:Like I remember nine years ago I was like, okay, you have to know how to do Facebook ads, okay, I'm going to learn this. And then bam, it's Instagram, then bam, it's Amazon. Then all of a sudden we've got TikTok and everything has changed. Like, oh, okay, I've got these couple covers. I was buying images left and right. I had a whole stock full and they're like oh, couple, you know, I had a whole stock full and they're like oh, couple covers. No, no, no, we're switching to object covers and I'm like, what, what my people covers? So, uh, it doesn't surprise me now, but from the beginning I thought, like you know, it's like as a teacher, you get up and you do the same thing kind of every day and things evolve, like with technology, but it's at a slower pace. The book industry is so fast paced, and so it changes so much so frequently that I feel like I can never keep up.
Jordan:I even I've I've been reading for a while and like reading romances for a while. I've been reading for a while and like reading romances for a while, but I feel like and I only just joined Bookstagram back in like 2021, but I feel like from when joining Bookstagram to now, I feel like it's just changed so much and that's just four years.
Nikki:I started reading romance in, I want to say like 2010,. You know, and I remember like finding out that there was like Facebook groups and that's how I found like all of my recommendation was a Facebook group. Now I post in my, my reader group, and I'll maybe get like two comments. You know like nobody sees it anymore and everybody's on a million different platforms. And back then you know like that was it, like that's where you went and and and got all your recommendations and you know, or, and then you would get like a in the reader groups. People would be like, oh, you know, I look at this website. Natasha is a book junkie and and you would go to her website and you'd save it to your favorites and every week I would go through my list of websites and refresh them to see what books they're recommending and I feel like that's just.
Jordan:I mean, I think maybe they're still out there, but I don't, I don't use them, I don't go to them. I mean, I think maybe they're still out there, but I don't, I don't use them, I don't go to them, I don't see them.
Nikki:It's very unfortunate, but you know, I'm sure, like some people do still keep it up with it. But keep up with it. But it's not. It's not the same thing anymore. Now you scroll through TikTok and you know I could find a hundred different recommendations.
Jordan:No, that's true, because it's like I think you go, I go to Tik TOK and it's just like bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam bam.
Nikki:I can't keep up. Yeah, no, and I think yeah, and that's the other thing that's changed. Is, you know, years ago, let's say, you had Danielle Steele or Nora Roberts, they would release a book, one every two years. And now, like I release a book every, let's say, four months, and, um, I'll have readers like, oh well, I mean, have you thought about releasing sooner? And I'm like I can't breathe like.
Nikki:And four months, that's pretty fast yeah, well, I don't write a book in four months, um, it takes a lot longer. But like I was releasing farther out years ago, so I got ahead. So I continue so that I can stay ahead, because I feel like it takes away, um, like a lot of the stress, like I could like if I wanted to like this. The Tempting Love series is completely done. All four books are done. But if I release them all then I would no longer be ahead and that would be so stressful. So, even though I probably could, I keep you know, I keep at it.
Jordan:But then does does it stress you out to have to like keep writing so you stay ahead? I know you were saying it would stress you out not to be ahead, but then does it also stress you out being ahead and staying ahead and not getting behind? Sorry, that was not a question.
Nikki:No no, no, it makes sense. So I think writing, writing is the only thing that doesn't stress me out. I write every day, pretty much seven days a week, not like because I force myself to, but because when I don't like, if we go out of town we were just in London for a book signing and I went like three or four days without writing I actually start getting like antsy and cranky. And my daughter was like let's go to the coffee shop and I'm going to read for a little while and you can write for a little while, because I see this, I see like this antsiness in you. Like writing is the only thing that doesn't stress me out.
Nikki:I can write every day of my life. I crave it. I get up in the morning, I can't wait to do it. I just wish I could just write and my books would just sell without, you know, having to like market because I suck at all the rest of it. What stresses me out is the TikTok pages and the Instagram and the threads and the Facebook and the newsletter. Not that I don't love my readers, because I absolutely do, but I wish I could just go on and be like hey guys, like I have a book.
Jordan:And let's talk about it, yeah.
Nikki:What? Yeah, what trusts me out is like when people like when TikTok became a thing and all of these companies like, okay, well, you know, if you want to hire us, we're going to be pushing out like thousands of TikToks and I'm like like, you know, I just want to run, that's all I want to do.
Jordan:Yeah, okay, well, I guess that's that's really good, though, too, it's like you can use it as like it's like your form of, like an outlet.
Nikki:Yeah, I love it. Every day I wake up and I'm like do I write or do I read? Cause I still read over a probably close to 150 books a year. So yeah, like I literally like this morning, I woke up, I made my coffee and my breakfast, I read some of the book I'm reading, was chilling with my dog, and then I start getting like a little bored of my book, not because the book's boring, but because my right, like it, comes into my head like okay, it's time to write. So I'm like okay, so I I finished the chapter and then I start writing, and then I write like all day, and then at the end of the day I'm like, okay, now I get to read again.
Jordan:That's it. That's kind of nice, though, so it's like you split up your day too, so it's not all just like one thing either, which is nice yeah and somewhere in between I'm like shoot, I've got a post on TikTok, post on Instagram.
Nikki:Yeah, my, actually I hired my daughter as my assistant to help with like some of my posting like on Instagram because I like make everything, and then she just like helps me schedule it and stuff like that. Um, because I really dread like going on there and I forget like before her, I would forget, like I would post like alcohol. You on my Instagram, on my stories, you're gonna see a hundred pictures of my dog and not a single picture of like the book that I've just released, and so she, um, she's a college student and so she needs extra money. So I hired her to like help like run my art team and stuff. So now it feels like things actually get done.
Jordan:That's kind of. That's kind of nice though. So then it's like having, it's like having some help, but then it's also like mother daughter, like bonding time.
Nikki:And she loves she reads romance. She has like several shelves in my library because she's in college and she has a very small apartment, so all of her books are here waiting for the day that she has like an income and can have her own bookshelf.
Jordan:Okay, so then what would you say is the most challenging part of writing a romance book? I think.
Nikki:I don't. I think we talked about it earlier like like how I said from the beginning that like the secret pregnancy trope, it's like not as popular. It's, you know, it's harder to find, which is why ultimately, like, I ended up writing my own. My first book was a UFC sync secret baby romance was a UFC secret baby romance, and I think that the most challenging is finding the balance of writing for me while also like paying attention to like what's popular, what are the trends? Because I want to give the readers a variety as well and I could write like pregnancy and single parent. I could write those all day long for the rest of my life. But you know, I also like want to give people a variety, so I think that can be challenging writing right now.
Nikki:Um, that's releasing next year is called the wild love series. I said to my friend who's my alpha reader. I said, oh my god. I said I've written, um, this is the second book in the series and neither one of them have like a pregnancy in it. And she was like, oh, look at you evolving, like, and it wasn't even on purpose, you know. And I and I was like, don't worry, don't worry the pregnancies are coming.
Jordan:Yeah, it's coming.
Nikki:But yeah, I find that to be challenging because I tend to write what I want to read, like what I love, what I enjoy, and you know, it's unfortunately not always the most popular, at least it's something that you want to write, so I think that's also that you want to write, so I think that's also equally as important, yeah, okay.
Jordan:So then what advice would you give to an aspiring author and romance author?
Nikki:There's two different types of advice that I would give. The first advice is obviously just write the book right. Write it for yourself. Write what you love. Don't worry about you know what anyone else is doing, what anybody else is writing. Just write the story that comes to you. The other piece of advice is the more professional advice and it's what I didn't understand when I first started writing is that if you want people to read your books and you go through all of this work, you need to make it professional. You need to find the professional cover designer, you need to find the professional editor.
Nikki:In my brain, like the first time that I wrote a book, I was like why teach writing? Why would I need an editor? First time that I wrote a book, I was like why teach writing? Why would I need an editor? Like I mean, I edit my students' work. I can, I can find the typos, um, and I quickly learned that me editing my students' work or somebody else's work is not the same thing as an editor. Work is not the same thing as an editor professionally editing my romance novel and you know, I had a friend of mine make my cover.
Nikki:She was good with you know Photoshop, but she's not a romance cover designer. You know, and like so over time. You know and like so over time. You know I learned these the hard way. You know I had to get a professional editor. I had to find professional proofreaders. I had to. I had to change my covers multiple times, not because I was like cool, I just want multiple covers, but because I was like, well, this isn't professional, this is not high quality, this is not, um, you know, calling to romance. This is not what the this is not. You know, calling to romance. This is not what the top 100 romance books look like.
Nikki:And you know if I could go back again from the beginning, even if it would have meant like you know what, maybe I don't release my book as quick, but I'm going to wait to have the money for that editor. I'm going to wait to have the money for that cover designer Because you just wrote, let's say, an 80,000 word book that you put your heart and soul into and the reader opens it up and three pages in there's a typo. You're done. I mean, I do it. I'm not even going to lie. I read a book and when I see those typos in 2% in in the ebook. I go back to the copyright. I don't see an editor and I'm like, oh, this book isn't edited. I can't deal with this, and I say that as somebody who published her first book without a professional editor. You know, don't do it.
Jordan:Well and too like I know, for, like myself, if I write something I know what's supposed to be on the page, so I'm not catching my typos. I need someone else to look at it, who has not seen it, who doesn't know what it's supposed to say. To catch those editors.
Nikki:Absolutely. Oh, I'll read Sometimes like I'll read through something like 15 times and because my brain tells me this is what it's supposed to be, I read it as you know, as it's supposed to be. That's why you need somebody with the outside, and it's more than that. I mean it's taken me 40 books Well, I mean she's been editing now for me for a while, so like 35, or maybe 36, whatever 34 books. 34 books is taking me multiple books to find the editor that I'm in love with, and if she ever leaves me I will die, um and. But seeing the difference, it's not even just like, oh, these are the typos, because a lot of authors and new authors are like, oh well, I'll just find a proofreader. It's more than that. It's the, the plot, it's the sentence structure, it's the way you're conveying something. You know, sometimes I, I will.
Nikki:My first book, I wrote the F word. When I did a search, I wrote the F word 380 times. Like in my head, I thought that in order to convey emotion whether it was, you know, sexually or you know, anger, or whatever it was I had to use the F word. I don't know why. It's just how my brain worked and there was no editor to be like hey, you don't need that, you know. And so sometimes I get on yeah, I get on like a kick and my editor's like um, you said this three times already, I'm not going to tell you again, but you need to go back and remove. You know all of these. And I'm like, oh, I was really in this state of mind, like I was really loving this word, it was just really coming to you.
Nikki:Yeah.
Jordan:Okay, so I know you mentioned you love the secret baby and the single parent trope, but are there any tropes you would never write or tropes that maybe you just haven't written but you might want to in the future?
Nikki:So we talked about the bully romance. Like I could never, I think I'm too old. So, okay one is I taught okay, so I taught college writing, but I was teaching at a high school, it was seniors and it was college courses. So I taught at a high school for 10 years and so it makes it difficult for me to read and write high school romance, because a lot of times I find myself reading a high school romance and I'm like that is not happening and I know, I know that it's fiction, like I write fiction all day, but it's hard to get myself out of that headspace. Like some of these, like 18 year old boys, are written like men and I get it because it's, you know, it's romance and it's really supposed to be for young adults and adults to read, right, so they write them so mature. But every time I read it I think about, like my 18 year olds, that I was teaching and I'm like no, like no, he is not capable of being that mature. So I don't think I could do that. Even when, like I write an older romance and it starts off with their younger, with them younger, I find myself like kind of doing, let's say, those first scenes like fade to black, because I'm like it's really hard for me to get myself out of that headspace. So I tend to write like people in their at least 20s you know, mostly 30s, to write like people in their at least 20s you know, mostly 30s. Um, some tropes that I would write, that I'm actually writing right now that I'm looking forward to um for the first time ever. Um in the wild love series, um is the um. Uh, I probably shouldn't say it, but what I've read at this point, um is that give the trouble away, like a year out, you know everybody will be super excited. So the not marriage of convenience, the uh, marriage in crisis. I've never written that trope before Um and it was a lot of fun, and I always hate to say that like a marriage in crisis is not fun, but it was fun to write something that I've never written before and I don't. It's been a long time since the words like really flowed.
Nikki:I think because I write the same tropes a lot. It's not that I struggle to write them, but that I tend to go slower because I want to make sure that they're so different. Right, I I don't. Yeah, I don't want my readers to read the book and go, oh, that was like this book, you know, like. Oh, she just like regurgitated that book. So I tend to pay more attention to what I'm doing.
Nikki:Um, because I want it to be different. Even though it may have a pregnancy trope in it in three different books, I want them all to read. A friend of mine she's reading the Tempting Love series right now. I sent her all four books for her to read and she was like one of the things I really love about this series is that each story is so different. Every guy is so different, like they might be friends, it might be in the same world, but it feels so different. So, writing the marriage in crisis trope, it felt so fresh and so new that I just it didn't feel like there was a chance of me writing anything similar to what I've already written and the words just like poured out of me.
Jordan:Oh, that's like that. That's kind of cool. I don't think I've ever read any marriage in crisis books, but now I feel like I want to. I'll just wait a year.
Nikki:I feel like, yeah, you know, I don't, I don't. I can't think of any off the top of my head that I've read. I'm sure I have, I feel like I have. But I feel like they're also a little different than second chance, because so with second chance, let's say you are married and you get divorced and then you kind of have both moved on. Or maybe you haven't moved on Right, but you're doing your own thing, and then you get back together, right that on. Or maybe you haven't moved on right, but you're doing your own thing, and then you get back together, right, that's second chance. Marriage in crisis is different, because there isn't a divorce yet. You know like right, yeah, yeah, but they're struggling, and so it was. It was cool, it was different to write and I really enjoyed it.
Jordan:Okay, well, so I know you're talking about your book. That's a year out, but Sweetest Sin just released on September 5th. What did you do to?
Nikki:celebrate. I don't ever celebrate. No, you have to. I don't, I don't. It's so weird. Every release my daughter, when she lives at home, she'd bring me flowers and a card, but now that she's away, she doesn't do that. She always texts me, like you know, congratulations on another book, you know. And then I literally just spend the day writing really just spend the day writing.
Nikki:Okay, fair, but like you do like to write, so I guess in a way, that is kind of celebrating, yeah, yeah, because everything is like set up and everything's ready to go, you know, and so I just I do what I love and I just I write the next book and hope that everybody reading that book is loving it.
Jordan:Okay then, how did you come up with the idea for Sweetest Sin and like the Tempting Love series? Is it something that like you thought about? I know too you were like excited to dive back into like dark romance, but were you thinking about it for a while? Did it just come to you? What happened?
Nikki:Yeah, so sweetest sin. Um, so when an idea comes to me, it's always just kind of like a single idea, a series doesn't actually come to me. Um, the idea comes to me. So one of my good friends, she's a blogger on instagram. Her name is jasmine. Um, it's like filthy read something, but anyway, she is a airline attendant and, um, she's always posting like places that she's visiting and she's always in like her cute little you know airline attendant get up.
Nikki:And um, so we were, we were traveling and, um, I was traveling with my daughter this was like a while ago, obviously, which I would honor and I had traveling with my daughter this was like a while ago, obviously, which I would honor and I had to use the bathroom and I went into like their tiny little bathroom stall and I came back and I was cracking up laughing and she's like what's wrong with you?
Nikki:And I was like I was just thinking about all these romance books where they're like oh, um, you know we're gonna join the mile high club and we just had sex in the bathroom in this, you know, on this plane, and I'm like I've lost 100 pounds and I'm not fitting in there with a man and like we're not having sex in this bathroom. And my daughter's like stop talking right now and soon as then. He, um like, meets the airline attendant, you know, and she, like you know the cliche. She falls into his lap and he's attracted to her and he's like he's never been on a commercial plane before. It was like an emergency and his private plane wasn't available, and so he's like thinking about how like he is going to convince her to have sex with him in the bathroom. So then he gets up to the bathroom and he's like that's not how it's formed.
Jordan:That's amazing. But honestly though, because it's like, I know it's like fiction and it's like not real, but every time I go into the bathroom on a plane, I'm like there's no way anybody could actually be here. But it's like also like you're just like thinking about it too. I'm like unless someone's like standing on the toilet with the toilet seat down, like I don't know how they're making it work, yeah, that's how it formed.
Nikki:And then when I started like plotting it, he had I started like plotting it and he has like a brother. So then a story came to me for his brother and then like there was like this side plot and then so the story came to me for his sister and then the fourth book came. So it kind of like all starts like, but it takes like months and months and months. So like when that series came to me I was still writing um, uh, drunk on you, hooked on you, waiting on you, and exposed ink, like I was like you don't need like writing them. And this story starts coming to me and little by little I like jot down notes and it like consumes my side braid.
Nikki:I call it my side brain, like because my you know, let's say my left brain is writing the series and it takes over my brain and that series consumes me. But then there's like my side brain and it's like like thinking about all of these other side plots and stories. So I'm like like jotting it down. I don't actually like outline it until, like that series is done, like I only do one book at a time, but things are getting jotted down when I'm talking to my friend Ashley on the phone, I'll say something and she'll like type it and text it to me Like cause she knows I won't remember it, but it like pops into my head. So it's like you know, in the back of my head I'm thinking about all these ideas and from like a single plot it turns into an entire series, and then all of a sudden I have titles and then I have a series name and then I put it on Goodreads and I'm still like writing this other series, but I already know like this series is happening next.
Jordan:Oh my, gosh, you are like, oh my God, you're like the Taylor Swift planning ahead. Yeah. You're working on one thing, but you're like planning the next thing.
Nikki:So like. So right now, right, I just released Sweetest Sin and Deadliest Desire, beautiful Betrayal and Secret Seduction. Those are all done. And then the next series is Wild Love. It's Taylor's book, which if you've ever read, or if you ever read Exposed Inc. She's the daughter in the book and her story came to me. So it started off as a standalone and then that turned into a series. So that's a four book series and I'm currently writing the second book in that series. So that whole series is plotted and outlined like it's from writing it.
Nikki:And then I was in the car the other day talking to my friend and like another plot came to me. So like I have like plots for days but before I can write that book, years ago I wrote a book called Clutch Fire. It was part of a world and the world it ended. So I have to like redo it a little. Well, he has two children. Their books came to me and that's gonna be a five book baseball series and all of those are like roughly plotted. So after I'm done writing these four books, then those five books will get written. So I mean just, you know, ask me for an update in like 2035.
Jordan:My goodness. And then you're gonna have like four other series on the horizon.
Nikki:Yeah, it just keeps coming to me. Somebody was like, have you ever gotten like writer's block? Or it's like, knock on wood, no, I can't write fast enough, I just they just keeps coming and it just keeps. It just never stops and not and again. Like some people will be like, well, I can't force myself to write and I I've never experienced that, I've never had to force myself. If I don't want to write, I don't write. There's been a few times where, like, I've gone a month or two months without writing. It's happened. It's not often, but if I don't want to write, I don't want to write. Or I'll go a week or I'll go visit my daughter and you know I'm there for four or five days and I'm not writing, or whatever it is. I don't force myself. But for the most part I always want to write and I can't write fast enough and I have so many thoughts that I don't. I don't know. I don't see them stopping anytime soon.
Jordan:But it must be OK, so it must. I know we were talking about to being like stressed before, like staying ahead, but it must be nice being ahead, because then if you like, don't want to write, or if you go on vacation or you visit your daughter, it must be nice knowing that you don't have to write. There's no deadline for you to hit because you're already ahead.
Nikki:No, there's no deadline and even like my deadlines for my editor, when I sit down to write a book, I give myself six months to write the book. So I go on pacemaker. If you don't know what pacemaker is, it's like a word goal app that I love. You put in like the date that you're starting your word count goal and then, based on that I put that I write 1200 words a day, five days a week. I never put anything for the weekend. If I'm going away days a week, I never put anything for the weekend. If I'm going away, I mark it off so it skips those days.
Nikki:And I do it for, like roughly, like you know, four to six months, depending on the word count goal, all that stuff. I don't ever stick to it. But I give myself six months just to be on the safe side. It always ends up being shorter. And then I'm emailing my editor like she's like I got you, I got you, but no, I don't ever. I never sit down and I'm like, oh my God, I've got six months, I've got to write this book. Like I get myself usually starting six months and then, as I write quicker, I narrow it down so that it's six to 1200 words a day. So, like right now I'm 30 words into the book I'm writing. My word count goal is 85,000 words. So it like says that I'll be done by, like October 20th, but when I first started my deadline was, like the end of January. Wow.
Jordan:Okay, that's kind of cool. So then you know you're like, you're on your shit, you are on top of it. It's a whole process You're just writing away. Okay, so, for the Sweetest Sin, if it was made into a movie, who would you want to cast for Dominic and Peyton?
Nikki:Yeah, peyton, yeah, that is so hard because I don't watch a lot of like television or movies like ever I read, so, like, my brain is always like fiction, um, but when I was, um doing the character art, my does my character art designer will ask me if I can, um, give her like you know, like you like give her an example of somebody, Um, and so I'll go on Google and I'll search you know like different actresses and actors or models or whatever, just so that she could see, you know, like this is roughly this is, you know, the vibe that you're going for, um and for Swedish sin she's, she's a redhead. Um, emma Stone, okay, okay, she had her vibes because she has that red hair. If it was longer, her hair is a little longer and I think Emma Stone's hair is shorter right now, but if it was longer, I think Emma Stone and the guy, what is his name? Michelle Marano. Um, what is his name? Michelle marino marino from the 365 days.
Nikki:Yes, so I actually didn't, so I didn't see him on there. Um, I saw him. Um, he was like in some gossip with. It's gonna sound so bad, but I was scrolling on instagram and he was in some gossip with that, he was supposedly dating Khloe Kardashian, which I don't think it was real, oh well, no, no, no, I think I know what you're talking about.
Jordan:I like have seen episodes of keeping the Kardashians on Hulu. They did something where Khloe really wanted to date him and they were trying to set him up with her, but I don't think he wanted to date him. And they were trying to set him up with her, but I don't think he wanted to date her.
Nikki:Yeah, so I didn't like see him on anything, but when they were like showing him, you know, like on my for you page thing, um, he gave me Dominic vibes, even though I like had looked him up and he's Italian and Dominic is like Russian, american, but he gave me like he looks like he could be in, like you know, like something dark and um, you know. So he gave me that vibe not gonna lie.
Jordan:I just like put every every like male main character, as like Henry Cavill. That's just like who I am.
Nikki:I don't think I can see him as anything other than.
Jordan:Superman. Oh well, I've never seen Superman with him, okay, so I think that's probably that's who it is, right, he's Superman, right, I think. So I think so. But there's a new Superman.
Nikki:Yeah, they changed that.
Jordan:Yeah, I don't know who it is, though, like some guy, some other guy, I saw something.
Nikki:I think he was playing Superman, and I saw him like as like Superman in a commercial or something. So every time somebody says his name, I just imagine him like when the Superman like tight, you know like ripping his Superman outfit off, and so I can't picture him as anything but that.
Jordan:Now, OK, fair, um, and so I I can't picture him as anything, but that now, okay, fair, I do picture him as like the witcher, but I don't know something with the white hair is just really hot. So, even though it might not, he might have like dark hair, or like the character might have dark hair. I'm just like picturing the witcher and I'm not mad about it. Okay, okay, so now we can dive into reading. So what is your favorite book? A book you would recommend to anyone and everyone?
Nikki:That's so hard. So, like I'm a huge reader, like right now in my library, I have over 550 signed books in my library and I only collect my five-star reads and it's nothing against like my four-star reads, but just because for space purposes, like, I can't collect like every single book that I've read and enjoyed, so to give myself like my own parameters, you know, I was like, okay, I'm only going to collect like my five star reads because those are the books that like I'm a super easy reviewer rater, I think because of being an author like and I've seen like how mean reviews can be I'm like five stars, I'm going to remember it for a week Because I don't remember anything past a week. Four stars, I'll remember it for like a day, and if it's like less than four stars, like I don't even rate it or anything. I just kind of leave it alone and I'm like I've already forgot about you. So my five star reads, um, I have a lot of them, but when you ask me the question, the books that popped into my head, like you know, like there's those books that's like immediately, like something pops into your head without even meaning to um, the kids of the district series from nikki harris.
Nikki:Um, it starts with our thing. It's a dark romance, like mafia series. Um, I'm obsessed with that series. I, I have those covers, like every cover, probably like five or six versions of those covers. It's like a whole series. It's like a whole family, a whole world. Um, one of the duets and I can't think of like all the titles right now it's like our thing duet, um, our way. And then, um, there's the, his little burden, his little queen is like an age gap romance and then broken something, broken air, I think. But anyway, I am obsessed with that series. She's coming out with like another book to that series and I'm already like planning, like to reread the entire series, like from beginning to end, before this book comes out. So that is a book I would recommend.
Nikki:And then a book that is stuck with me that I've reread a couple of times and I'm not usually a rereader, like once I read a book. There's too many books out there that I don't usually read. But sometimes, when I'm in like a little bit of a book slump, when I'm not sure what I want to read, I have like a few comfort reads and I shouldn't use this book as a comfort read. I shouldn't say that because there's nothing comfortable about the book. But Surviving Amber Springs from Siobhan Davis.
Nikki:It is a bully romance. It's a poly romance, but the men in the book are not the bullies Like they actually protect her it has. It has the like a mental health awareness trope. There's a lot to it. It's a very deep, emotional book Like. I've read it multiple times and every time I still cry, every single time, like I already know what's going to happen, I already know how this turns out, but I still cry every time. Um, I had my daughter like I recommended it to my daughter as one of her not first romances but like her first, like um explicit spicy romance and we had like a lot of good conversations about it. It does have spice but it's just so emotional. It's so I feel like it just in. Siobhan Davis is a popular author but I feel like that book does not get talked about enough.
Jordan:It's one of my favorite.
Nikki:It's so good. It it's just it's yeah. So if I had to like recommend you know books or whatever that I mean, I could go on, for I could start listing you know my favorites, but, um, that's definitely. Uh, it's, it's high. I recommend it to everybody. She was like every time like I recommend it. Now she'll like reply and be like I swear you're my biggest fan. Thank you, oh that's so cute only that book. Like I love her other books just that one, no, just that one.
Nikki:No, like she has a secret baby romance I love, condemned to love. Um, like that's a five-star read. So there's other books I've read and loved for her. So, like that book surviving the amber springs, like that's, that's, uh, um yeah, I have to look it up.
Jordan:I have, I have to go look it up now. It's so good, okay. So what is the spiciest line in one of your books? And then it could, you could also do, like the spiciest line in sweetest sin okay.
Nikki:So I'm not even going to pretend to even have a single line memory, um, because I don't. I couldn't even like tell you a single line in that book. I wrote it like over a year ago, um, um, but I think so for my overlay. Like in the book, um, I did character art in the book and I have like an overlay of the character art that like if somebody buys a signed copy from me, it comes with like the character overlay and my readers got to pick like, do you want sweet or do you want spicy? Still do the save for work art, because I I think that for me, I want the art to be more about the chemistry than about showing the body part. Um, because I feel like, even if it's the most emotional chemistry filled scene, as soon as you start like showing all of these private parts, I feel like it takes away from it, and that's just my opinion.
Nikki:So in Sweetest Sin, the most chemistry filled scene for me, which I think is also very spicy, she comes back into his life and she like cannot stand him.
Nikki:Like, not that she can't stand him, but she's terrified of him. She um like found out, like who he is and she ran away from him and he like drags her back, like kicking and screaming, and she's like I'm never gonna be with you. And so the the chemistry is like building. He's making her like she's living with him with their child, um, and this chemistry, you know, is off the charts. And she goes to the club one of the clubs that they own with um, his sister and some other girls and um, he shows up at the club and they're in like a private room and like the chemistry just boils over and they end up like hooking up at the club. But it's just so much more than that. So the character art is of her like sitting on the liquor bar in the private room with her legs spread, and he is, you know, his fingers are up there and you know. So to me some of the spiciest scenes are the ones that are filled with the most like tension and chemistry.
Jordan:I do. I do love tension. That's it's the buildup. It's the buildup, that is everything. So I agree with you, okay. So if you could have a a dinner party we're going from sex to dinner party if you're having a dinner party, if you could have a dinner party with any three authors, living or dead, who would you invite and why?
Nikki:whoa, okay, um, definitely the Bronte, and I'm counting that as one. So, like, weathering Heights is one of my favorite books ever. I actually did a modern telling of Weathering Heights with Kay Webster. It's called Heath and I think it's one of the coolest books like we've ever written. It has three love stories in one.
Nikki:If you've never read Wuthering Heights, um, it's a love triangle between two cousins and an adopted brother, like it's, it's taboo, um, and so I just feel like she was, um, like ahead of her time. So I would want to like have dinner with the Bronte sisters, because they're coming like as a pack. Um, oh, this is. So maybe John Milton, um, john Milton, um, such a nerd, I don't know anything like romance. Um, that's, that's my, because I I majored in literature and I've read so much different like, even though I love romance, like I love, like all different types of of books, um, oh, I don't know.
Nikki:And then probably nikki harris series, and she's in australia and, um, it's so far away. I was like she was like, oh, you should come to australia to see me, you can stay with me, and I looked up flights and it was like 20 hours and I was like I'm never meeting you. Like I'm never getting on a plane and flying 20 hours, nine hours, to London was like hell. So I mean, if she's coming to dinner and she has to fly to me, then I'm inviting her. That's horrible. I'm not good at that. That was a horrible question. No, I loved it, I'm not good at that.
Jordan:That was a horrible question. No, I loved it. I loved your answers. Well, your answer. However, you want to say that. Okay, so now we're in the final section, the last two questions in personal. Okay, what is a fun fact about you that your readers and the listeners might be surprised to learn?
Nikki:Okay, I don't know, I'm so boring, um like, literally my life just consists of, like my dog, my kids from a distance because they're in college, my husband, um, like, is home occasionally, um, um, okay, well, I mean, I feel like it wouldn't really surprise them, but I turned on the television myself for the first time in over 15 years this week, like I've never, like I have not turned, like I actually didn't even know how, like I, I don't know, I didn't know how to like I've never like actually picked up a remote in like the last 15 years. And actually, like I don't know, I didn't know how to like I've never like actually picked up a remote in like the last 15 years. And actually, like I don't watch television by myself. Um, like, when I watch the shows with my daughter, like she turns them on, or my husband, like I'll be like, oh, you know, there's another the summer I term pretty episode, can you like can you get it on for me? And he's like, okay, what's it on? I'm like I don't know, let oh Amazon rhyme Like, but for the first time last week, or maybe like this last week, it was so weird.
Nikki:I like was writing and I kind of just like I finished a scene and I went out to the living room and my husband had bought me these Legos for my library Cause I like to put like little things like in my library. And it was the love. Have you seen, like in New York, the L? O V? E? Um, anyway, it's like a love, it's like a I don't know how to explain it it's like a big statue and it says love and they sell it in Lego form, like a mini one.
Nikki:And I sat down on the couch to go, like build the Legos, but I, my, my iPad was dead so I couldn't listen to my book and it was too far away. And, um, I couldn't read the book while doing Lego who's? Because I have to like look at the Legos. So I like looked up and I was like I'm, I'm going to watch Sorry, my dog is right here. He's proud of you here that he has a cone. He had eye surgery, so he's sitting right behind me and he's like scratching at his cone, so it's like cloth to plastic.
Nikki:Um, so I I turned on the television. It was so hard I couldn't figure it out. I almost gave up, but then I did it and I clicked on the first thing because I didn't know how to work it and it was Hulu, and I think it was Hulu, and on Hulu there was this show called we Were Liars. I'd never even heard of it, but it looked cool, so I clicked on it and while I did my Legos, I watched a show like by myself for the first time in 15 years. Wow.
Jordan:Okay, I think that's awesome, that is awesome.
Nikki:I'll tell you something else. I'll tell you something else. Okay, you said that you love coffee. This is something that nobody like, that I've never really like told anybody. You know like it's something that you do but you don't really talk about. In the morning, when I get up and I make myself coffee, I think to myself so I can only have three shots of espresso a day, because otherwise two to three, because otherwise I'll be be like wired later on. So when I get up in the morning and I'm deciding which espresso pod I want to put into my Nespresso machine, when I'm deciding between a single and a double, I think to myself am I going to want coffee later? Because if I do want coffee later, I'll do a single shot. I think I'd rather take a nap this afternoon. I'll just do one double shot and only make one cup of coffee.
Jordan:I just always want coffee.
Nikki:So I just always have. When I go to a coffee shop and like I'll order let's say I go in the afternoon I'm like, oh, okay, I'm going to order you know this coffee. And then she's like okay, how many shots would you like? I have to think to myself, oh, okay, I'm going to order you know this coffee. And then she's like okay, how many shots would you like? I have to think to myself oh, this morning I only had one, oh two or oh, shoot, I already had a double shot this morning. Oh, just make it one shot, please.
Jordan:I really should be better about my coffee intake. I'm the type of person that I will just drink coffee until the point that I get so jittery that I'm shaking and I'm like, fuck, what did I do? I can't have any more coffee today. But I'm already at that point.
Nikki:So then I'm just like yeah, I don't get jittery, but for some reason it goes through my body later. So if I drink a coffee at two o'clock, like six, seven o'clock, I'm sitting at my computer writing because I'm wide awake, like I don't know why it like it hits like you know. Like, however, it hits a little longer. Yeah, one time I made the mistake I was out with my daughter and I lost track of time and we went to grab a coffee and it was like 4 30 and at like midnight I'm like okay, so we're on the last question, um, what is one future goal that you would like to achieve, either long term or short term?
Nikki:one goal that I would like and I think it's one that a lot of authors want now, um, is that I would love to have my books in bookstores. I've, you know, I've had like a few in like small indie bookstores when I, you know, I can reach out to them and say, hey, you know, I'd love to send you some signed copies, you know, and they'll buy a few. But there was a shift in the publishing industry when bookstores became popular again and I think a lot of it was from TikTok, you know, people wanting paperbacks and a lot of the more popular authors, more successful authors. They're able to have their books more in Target and Barnes and Noble and you know all of these bookstores around the world. And unless you're with a publisher, you you can't do it because they, they only work with publishing companies, you know. So no matter how successful my books are, let's say, unless you're with a publisher, my book, like won't be in Target, it won't be in Barnes and Noble, it won't be in Walmart.
Nikki:You know, and I'm so grateful to every single indie bookstore that's willing to put my books into. You know their bookstores. You know I wish it was all just indie bookstores, you know, but I feel like for me, a goal of like having that achievement, you know it would mean that one I'm traditionally published in a certain way that allows my books to be seen by a lot more people who go to these bigger, you know, bookstores and whatnot, or even like some of the bookstores, even the indie bookstores that are bigger and they're more popular. They really, because their space is limited, they only work with publishing companies, even though they're indie, you know. So just like being able to like I see different authors where, like they'll go into Barnes and Noble or they go into Target and they're like, oh, oh, I'm gonna sign a copy, you know, like my book is here in Target and it's like I've never been able to experience that and I would like that, would that would like make my, my life so we are manifesting we are manifesting this.
Jordan:This will happen and you can go into a target and be like I'm gonna sign some books. So we are manifesting this.
Nikki:It's, it will happen, my husband once joked he was like you should just like bring a book, like to target and just pretend to do it and then you just leave with it. Somebody will pick it up and then you know they'll go to check out and they'll be like I don't know it's, it's not our book.
Jordan:You just want a free book. Okay, so that's the end. Thank you so much for letting me interview you. And then I I don't know if you want to say like where people can find you. The sweetest sin is out now, Not a target but one day one day.
Nikki:Um no, thank you for having me, it's been fun. Um so sweetest sin is available in ebook, is available in ebook, audiobook and paperback on Amazon. I think it actually is like available like at walmartcom and burnsandnoblecom for the paperback, because anybody can do that. It's just not in stores. And then you can also grab signed copies on my website. I have limited special editions and tons of swag and all that good stuff, so you can find all of that on my website.
Jordan:Oh, perfect, and is that just at Nikki ashcom?
Nikki:Yeah, yeah, author Nikki ashcom is my website and yeah, I sell all of my sign books and everything on there and yeah, that's pretty much it, okay.
Jordan:Again one day. But okay, perfect. Thank you so much for letting me interview you. It has been a lot of fun. Thanks for having me.
Nikki:Thank you so much for letting me interview you. It has been a lot of fun. Thanks for having me. Thank you. Now I'm going to go make a coffee and write.