- On Tuesday, Ana Huang released “The Striker,” her first sports romance.
- Huang had to research soccer and ballet to bring the book to life.
- She worked with alpha readers with knowledge of the crafts to write the book.
If you have read any of Ana Huang’s books, you know about her affinity for billionaires.
Huang, 33, writes spicy romance novels, many featuring billionaire love interests, like Alex Volkov in “Twisted Love” or Dante Russo in “King of Wrath.”
Readers seem as smitten with Huang’s wealthy protagonists as she is. Variety reported that she has sold over 15 million copies of her books to date, and she has become a fixture on bestseller lists since “Twisted Love” was released in 2021. She also has over 731,000 followers on TikTok, where BookTok has embraced her romantic leads.
For her 13th novel, “The Striker,” released Tuesday, Huang decided to explore a new romantic archetype: the athlete. “The Striker” follows professional soccer player Asher Donovan as he tries to find love with a former ballerina.
Since the book revolved around two high-intensity sports, Huang told Business Insider she had to take a different approach to preparing to write than with her previous works.
Tackling sports
Huang introduced Asher in two of her previous titles — “Twisted Hate” and “King of Wrath” — but “The Striker” finally tells his love story.
A professional soccer (aka football) player in the Premier League, Asher is forced to train alongside his teammate and nemesis Vincent Dubois at a ballet academy after they fall short of winning a championship. Scarlett Dubois, Vincent’s sister, is their trainer — and the woman Asher can’t stop thinking about.
“It’s my first ever sports romance,” Huang said. “I think that it is, of course, a little different from the new adult billionaire romances I’ve written in the past. I think the tone will be slightly more lighthearted.”
Soccer and ballet are heavily involved in the book’s plot, so Huang needed to learn about both to write it.
She said that was a newer experience for her, as she had already been interested in how the wealthy live and travel before she wrote the “Twisted” and “Kings of Sin” series.
“I have been reading Vogue and Travel & Leisure and Forbes and all of that since I was a teenager,” she said. “So the billionaire stuff, I actually didn’t have to research that much, but the sports, I really did.”
For instance, Huang’s characters often hop on private jets to romantic destinations or splurge on expensive jewelry without a thought. She also uses a fictional private members’ club called Valhalla Club as the backdrop of several scenes in “King of Sins,” creating an air of exclusivity.
Getting in the mind of an athlete
Huang told BI she spent a lot of time researching for “The Striker,” first connecting with “experts” in soccer and ballet before she even started writing.
“Some were former or current ballerinas and football players,” Huang said of the experts. “Others work for a Premier League club or are such huge fans that they know most of the rules and technicalities. I like having a range of perspectives on every topic.”
Huang also said she worked with alpha readers who read portions of her novel as it was in progress and provided feedback. She told BI that alpha readers are particularly popular with self-published authors, though traditionally published writers could benefit from them, too.
Huang has a “core group” of alpha readers who have been reviewing drafts of her books since mid-2021 or early 2022. She also tapped readers with expertise that would be helpful for “The Striker” as she worked on it.
“I have ‘specialty alphas’ who read for accuracy in specific niches like soccer or ballet,” she said. “The specialty alphas vary by book and are mainly sourced from my reader pool.”
For “The Striker,” Huang said she made a Google form application that she shared on her social media pages and her newsletter to find readers. It asked questions about an applicant’s experience with ballet or soccer and being an alpha reader.
“I usually select two to three readers per niche,” she said. “I’ll also ask my editors if they know anyone who can alpha read for certain topics, and they usually do.”
Huang told BI the kind of insight she gets from alpha readers varies by person.
“I have an alpha reader who leaves general notes at the end of each set of chapters, but most provide granular feedback via track changes,” she said, adding that some readers ask specific questions while others just react to sections of the book.
“They’ll often tell me whether a line made them swoon, laugh, or cry, which is great because it’s helpful to know which parts of the book need to be improved and which parts readers already love,” Huang said.
In addition to speaking to alpha readers and experts, Huang also watched “day in the life” YouTube videos of soccer players, learning the ins and outs of their lives.
“It was kind of a multimedia sort of research process,” she said. “Thank God for the modern age of video.”
Despite all of the new elements, Huang said “The Striker,” which is just book one in the “Gods of the Games” series, still has many features her readers loved from her previous works, like found family, glamorous events, and travel.
“I think it’s going to be a fun mix,” she said.
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