Dear Reader,
I hope this letter finds you well.
I wrote this book after two years of being faced with male leads that were held to zero standards and romance without accountability.
There are so many questions a reader gets plagued with: What does it mean to be a hero? What does it mean to be a villain? What will it feel like to read a book with romance, family saga, and inheritance drama?
Shape of the Sun was borne out of those questions, out of my quest, my need to make a difference, and to subvert expectations of what it means to read and to write and to be.
And there is no perfect letter without imperfect thanks.
There is no amount of roses or gifts that would impress an author as much as the presence of a reader. When I spent every day of eight months writing this book in my college dorm, I never imagined that over 4.5k people would read Shape of the Sun in its baby form on Wattpad, or the reviews on Kobo, or the DMs I get on Instagram without fail on how the book made them cry, or laugh, or feel something and nothing at once.
I never imagined that this book or news of it would get to you. And I still wonder, dear reader, what will you do?
I anticipate your action, almost as much as I anticipated this secret letter being made public, my love letter to my benefactors and friends who are spread across the oceans or might be just around the corner.
It's the uncertainty of our bond that makes our love turn stronger. Because that is what writing Shape of the Sun was really, a labor of love to my passion for reading and a desire to write a book that would entertain as much as it spoke meaning to others.
I sincerely hope you like Shape of the Sun as much as I do. Regardless, I wish more to read your sincere and productive feedback.
There is a book that tackles romance as unraveling, dynastic rot, toxic masculinity as a cover and collapse, as well as class contempt masquerading as elitism. And there is an author who is made better by the intentions of a reader.
Please have a good day ahead, even as you always carry with you that in the Shape of the Sun and everywhere in the world, nothing is perfect, but everything is real.
Love,
Paula
Paula Omokhomion is a Master of Public Policy student at the UC Riverside School of Public Policy, though she’s fairly certain that won’t be forever. She holds a B.S. in Public Health Nutrition from UNC Chapel Hill, where she also minored in Creative Writing (Fiction) and graduated with highest honors for her 120-page thesis novella, New Age Taffeta.
Paula developed her skills and love
for writing fiction in a very, very interesting Nigerian boarding
school, where the lack of television meant she had to invent
entertainment for everyone else. She loves reading manhwa, watching
Indian TV dramas, listening to music, and writing short stories.When not
doing any of those or in the classroom handling R code, she’s refining
her LinkedIn or taking Instagram selfies.
She lives in California with her family,
including her two fellow triplets, and is currently dreaming of a future
PhD in public health—and maybe another novel.
Visit her website or connect with her on Facebook and Instagram.
In a world where novels defy conventions and heroes defy expectations, Shape of the Sun dares to ask: What if the one at the center isn’t kind? What if no one is misunderstood? What does it mean to be the hero or the villain?
Beware: this is not a love story. The author just likes meta-fiction a bit too much.
Rajkumar ‘Raj’ Reddy is top-tier Male Lead material. And a freaking DRAMA KING.
He is a gorgeous, disgustingly rich, and ultra-confident Child Abuse Pediatrician. He’s also emotionally finished, a narcissist, and a scammer all but in name.
But what did it matter if he was soulless or morally bankrupt? Why should anyone care that he married someone only because of their money?
He was the Male Lead, right? Since when were Male Leads ever held accountable?
And then he falls in love. Utterly useless. Very, very unnecessary. Annoyingly delicious for someone as self-aware as he is.
Raj knows he’s in love. He knows it every second he smiles when she talks to him or says good morning Rajkumar, in that sweet voice he dreams about more often lately.
So now, our Male Lead is on a mission to GET OUT OF LOVE.
This relationship holds too many green flags!
Painful. Also doesn’t allow him to be hypocritical for more than three seconds. Horrid, really.
And in the background is the Reddy family. It’s not an easy home. It’s never been easy with all that power and wealth involved. There’s too much scheming and engineering in one place.
There’s an overlooked half-brother that literally descended from hell, a sweet twin sister that has more than her fair share of buried grudges to Raj (and vice versa), and a patriarch that might be loving father and enabler all rolled into one.
There are traumas that our Male Lead wants to never remember.
You see that’s the thing about Romance with Accountability. It can be sweet. It can be deadly.
Will our Male Lead manage to protect his secrets and secure the inheritance, or will his deepening emotions force him to confront his inner demons? Can greed truly give way to love? Or is that just something we only see in the movies?
Will he finally go to therapy?
A gripping tale of love, family, the high stakes of inheritance, and the journey to self – Shape of the Sun explores what happens with leads in a world where the rest are left to silence.
Read a sample here.
Shape of the Sun is available at Amazon, Kobo and Apple Books.
