Lhe “New romance” and its sulphurous subgenre, “dark romance”, are enjoying growing success today. This genre, which renews the rose-tinted novel, was not at the top of the list fifteen years ago. However, it was at this time that Nadine Rouillaud wrote down the first lines of her saga of dark romance tinged with fantasy. In her final year, she studied the works of the Marquis de Sade, “a great lover of women with a perverse side,” smiles the young woman. And a source of inspiration. She continued to write while studying psychology and neuroscience in Lyon, her hometown.
She puts an end to her “Sade” saga at the beginning of this year. Six volumes, of around 400 pages each, which she sent under her author name, Nade Arslan, to several publishing houses “after being pushed by a patient”. Because for ten years, Nadine Rouillaud has worked as a psychologist. She opened a practice in Barbezieux in 2019. “I received five positive responses, it was incredible! » She signs with the publishing house Imaginary Edge.
Tribute to Charente
Even before the launch of the first volume, Thursday, November 7, pre-sales were booming thanks to very good word of mouth on social networks from dark romance fans seduced by the central character of the saga. “I slipped into the skin of a psychopath who falls in love,” summarizes the novelist. A woman is forbidden to him and she obsesses him. » His antihero crosses five centuries with Paris as the main setting, “the city of love which never appears in dark novels”, laughs Nadine Rouillaud.
Passages also pay homage to Charente, “with which I fell in love”. Others do not water down the nature of the novel which is aimed at an informed and adult audience. “I describe sexuality without vulgarity, there are still scenes of rape which can be offensive, without making them taboo subjects, because it remains a reality. » The psychologist began to play the game of signings and meetings in pop culture salons. Coming soon at the TGS in Toulouse.
