Series Introduction: Adi Shakti

This is the first year I’ve considered myself as part of the AANHPI Community. The realization wasn’t dramatic, but more like a light bulb moment of, “Oh!”.

Being a 1.5 gen Fijian Canadian, Bi/Queer intersectional feminist brings with it upholders of systemic barriers. In a nation that hasn’t sustainably tackled its white supremacy and colonialism, inclusive of internalized, the nonsense stacks quickly. Growing up, I was consistently “informed” by the predominant Brown community that I wasn’t Brown, and to stop calling myself that.

Lol, thanks.

Fast forwarding years after, my professional and personal networks became a pragmatic push against nonsense. My peers, friends and select family are amazing people from whom I receive different perspectives. Without them, I wouldn’t push myself to be a better human, and my mindset wouldn’t be what it is now.

I appreciated my networks so much more when I launched my author profile this year. It’s fascinating to better understand biased algorithms and celebrating the connections I’ve made despite it. It’s these relationships that I value so much 😊

These lived and professional experiences motivated my writing style and narratives, leading to one of my most ambitious projects: a genre hybrid of Dark Romantasy, and Epic Family Saga, within a Why Choose framework.

Today, on the last day of AANHPI Heritage Month, I’m announcing details of my multi-POV, WIP series, “Adi Shakti”:

“Two or more clans cannot not unify by means of progeny.”

29 years ago, Kali Nayakar’s parents breached Anla’aor’s governing law. The birth of her and her sister caused her mother’s exile on Earth.

As Kali’s 30th birthday approaches, she attains the title “Sentinel of Anla’aor”. However, her accomplishments don’t mitigate the journey of proving a mixed identity of Apsara and Human isn’t a danger to inhabitants, nor a loophole in governing law for ambitious Clan leaders.

On Earth, Kali’s struggles differ: her mother is in a care home, her father doesn’t have a place in her life, and her irresponsible sister manages Kali’s orphanage in Anla’aor.

She’s exhausted.

Then comes her father’s announcement: he remarried, to a woman with 13 children. A rarity even in Anla’aor. Red flags everywhere, especially when her stepmother prepares a suite for Kali in the Evergreen Manor, where most of the Pak kids live. Suddenly without a home, she accepts the offer, albeit temporarily.

But something’s off about Evergreen…

Pak Zhenwei, eldest son of the Pak family, senses danger with his new stepsister. From a circulating picture alone, his family destabilized. Some of his brothers became annoyingly compromised. So much for discipline.

But his siblings are one thing, the manor is another.

It hates women. It ruins them.

The whole damned town already thinks the Pak family’s involved with the recent missing women! How the hell was he going to manage an adult stepsister between the manor and his love starved siblings?!

“Adi Shakti” explores identity from the space where marginalized members of society don’t do the work.

• What happens when these individuals collide?
• What happens when assumptions are made in lieu of difficult conversations?
• What happens when the political part of life will never leave marginalized minorities alone?

Over the coming weeks, I’ve commissioned artists to bring these characters to life. I look forward to sharing them, because the collision of the Pak family with the Nayakar family, inclusive of found family, has been my favourite crafting.

I hope you enjoy and cringe at their interactions, like I have while writing them ❤