I started the idea for the Talented Saga years ago, but originally Talia’s story didn’t start with her pledging the Hunters. I thought that the series would begin with Talia returning from her mission to find Ian Crane and her subsequent journey to uncover the spy in the Agency. But after writing about three-quarters of what became Caged, I realized that Talia had a lot of backstory that was important to the overarching theme of the series. I put Caged on hold and started writing Talented. In the beginning I thought it would be more for me, so I could keep all the important events in Talia’s past straight. It wasn’t long before I had an eighty thousand word manuscript instead of a short story. Somewhere between eight and ten rounds of edits later, I had a hundred thousand words that I was ready to share with my friends.
After a lot of debate I made the decision to officially make Talented the first book in the Talented Saga. When I mapped out the entire series I thought that it would be a trilogy, but with the addition of Talented it will now include four books – at least. Talia’s story will definitely span four novels: Talented, Caged, Hunted, and Created. But at least one companion novella from Penny’s point of view is already in the works, and it’s not out of the question for several others. I am always open for suggestions from readers on who they want to know more about!
Happy Reading,
Sophie