Author Anaya Dev writes psychological thrillers rooted in emotion, not just suspense. Her stories focus on broken people, impossible choices and the quiet moments that define who we become. She is known for creating deeply human characters and placing them in situations that test their morality, resilience and identity!

Questionnaire: 

The Literature Today: Your writing is rooted in emotion rather than suspense alone, with a particular focus on broken people, impossible choices and defining moments! So, what draws you towards exploring the emotional vulnerabilities of your characters within the framework of a psychological thriller? 

Anaya Dev: I had the story of HUSH in my head for a long time. But as I spent more time with it, plotting it and understanding the characters, I realised that doing justice to their emotions was just as important as building the suspense. I would never say that stories focused primarily on suspense are lacking in any way. There is something wonderful about a well-placed clue and the feeling of slowly putting a mystery together. But for me, the more interesting question was always the one underneath it: why? Why does someone make a particular choice? What happens inside a person before they cross a line? What makes an ordinary belief become something dangerous? Those questions interested me more than simply making readers collect hints and stare at a wall trying to figure out what happens next. With HUSH, the suspense became a way of taking readers deeper into the characters rather than the destination itself. I wanted the mystery to make readers curious, but the emotions to make them stay.


The Literature Today: Well, HUSH begins with the powerful idea that women are often told to “stop dreaming” or “cut their wings” before they learn to fly. What inspired you to turn this metaphor of silencing into the central emotional and thematic foundation of the novel?  

Anaya Dev:  I think the idea began with something I witnessed at a family function. There was a family of four sitting together for lunch. The son was openly talking about how much he disliked the food, while the daughter barely said anything. Yet when the adults became annoyed, the scolding was directed at her. She simply nodded once and stayed quiet.

It was a small moment, but not an isolated one. I have seen variations of it many times: girls being taught to be quieter, more accommodating and less opinionated, sometimes before they even understand what an opinion is. That stayed with me while writing HUSH. “Stop dreaming” and “cut your wings” are not always said literally. Sometimes they exist in expectations placed on girls until silence begins to feel like good behaviour.


The Literature Today: The killer in HUSH is driven neither by lust nor greed, but by belief. What fascinated you about creating an antagonist whose violence emerges from ideology? And, how did you approach making his psychology disturbing without reducing him to a conventional villain?

Anaya Dev:  I believe that when a person blindly believes in an ideology, they can become dangerous. But what interested me was the question of where that ideology actually comes from.

Ideologies are not inherited. Our lives, the people around us, our environment and even the content we consume gradually shape the way we see the world. And that raises a question that always bothered me while writing HUSH: who do we actually blame for an ideology? There is rarely one obvious villain.

That is what I found fascinating about creating this antagonist. I did not want him to feel like someone who simply woke up evil one morning. His beliefs have a history, and he has made choices along the way. Understanding that history does not excuse what he does, but it makes him more disturbing because, in his mind, he is not the villain of his own story.

The Literature Today: The murders of ambitious young women become more than a criminal investigation because every victim carries a story of the quiet violence women experience. How important was it for you to ensure that these women remained individuals with identities and aspirations rather than merely becoming victims within the plot?

Anaya Dev: When you are writing about people who are affected because they share something in common, it can become easy to forget that they are still individuals who lived completely different lives. They had different dreams, relationships, fears and reasons for becoming who they were. I wanted to hold on to that. The women in HUSH are connected by something terrible, but that should never become the entirety of who they are. Before they became victims, they were people with lives that mattered to them. I wanted readers to see the human before they became a story.

The Literature Today: Interestingly, SP Karan Singh and profiler Seetha Verma approach the investigation from different professional perspectives. What did you want their partnership to reveal about the relationship between traditional investigation, psychological profiling and understanding the human motivations behind violent crimes?

Anaya Dev: Karan is more of a practical person, and in many cases, that approach works. He looks at the logistics, evidence and risks, while Seetha approaches things through both profiling and an emotional understanding of people. For a case where ideology is involved, I think both perspectives become important. Karan's approach helps them understand how the crime was carried out and what risks were involved, while Seetha's helps them understand the person behind it. When there is no obvious clue pointing towards a killer, the killer's mindset can often become a clue itself. Understanding what someone believes, what they fear and what they think they are achieving can reveal patterns that evidence alone may not immediately show. I wanted their partnership to reflect that neither perspective is enough on its own.

The Literature Today: Seetha’s deeper investigation leads her to recognise that the killer’s ideology reflects some of the invisible rules society continues to impose on women. How did you balance this social commentary with the demands of maintaining tension, mystery and psychological suspense?

Anaya Dev: I tried to balance the two, though I am not sure if I completely succeeded. Frankly, my focus was less on making the social commentary invisible and more on exploring how society shapes us, how our lives affect what we believe, and how differently those beliefs can take form in different people.

I would be the first to agree that revealing some of this early takes away a small portion of the mystery. But I was willing to make that trade because I wanted readers to understand how an ideology is carried. It does not simply appear in someone one day. It is shaped by experiences, people, circumstances and the world around them. For me, understanding that process was important enough to become part of the mystery itself.


The Literature Today: Your book, HUSH suggests that violence against women does not always leave visible bruises, yet can leave lasting scars. How did you portray these less visible forms of violence and their psychological consequences without making the narrative feel overly didactic?

Anaya Dev:  I believe every character and their emotions are different, and I lean on that while writing. For instance, if a person's instinctive emotion is anger, for whatever reason, I let that shape how they respond to what happens to them. I think that becomes especially important when writing about invisible forms of violence. People do not process the same experience in the same way. Some become angry, some withdraw, some become afraid, and some may not even recognise what happened to them as violence at first. When I write those emotions through the character's own voice and experiences, I don't think the narrative can become overly didactic. I am not explaining what the reader should feel or telling them what the message is. I am letting them experience how that particular person has been affected.

The Literature Today: Silence is almost treated as a character in the novel; a force that can protect, isolate, control and ultimately destroy! What does “Hush” mean to you beyond simply being the title of the book and how does silence shape the choices of your characters?

Anaya Dev: Silence is such a culprit, in some ways. In HUSH, it begins with the mother's silence and eventually shifts into an ideology that he wants to impose on society. It becomes a powerful weapon for someone who believes that communication and speaking up are wrong.

As a girl, I was often asked to stay silent too. Fortunately, not by my parents, but by teachers, friends and relatives, people you naturally look up to and trust. At some point, I started wondering: if so many people were trying to shut me up, how important were the questions I was asking? And how important was my silence to whatever they considered important?

That was when I realised that silence is not always neutral. Sometimes it protects people, sometimes it protects systems, and sometimes it protects the very things that should be questioned. HUSH is, in many ways, my attempt to work against that silence.


The Literature Today: Psychological thrillers often invite readers to question who is truly right or wrong. How did you navigate the moral grey areas in HUSH, especially when exploring the complicated relationship between justice, revenge, ideology and the desire to control another person’s destiny?

Anaya Dev: This question literally did not let me sleep for two nights while I was writing HUSH. Who do I punish? Yes, the killer is obvious. But what about his origins? He was six years old when his entire life flipped upside down. A part of me felt that, as he grew up, he should have known better. But another part of me kept thinking about how difficult beliefs can be to let go of when they are instilled in you so young, especially when someone keeps reinforcing them. I initially wanted to end the book with capital punishment. But somewhere along the way, it started feeling too easy. Who do I single-handedly blame in this story? And yet, justice matters too. Would it not also be justice if he were ever forced to truly confront the extent of what he had done? There is a good chance he may never get there. For me, HUSH was also about giving justice to the little boy he once was, not by excusing the man he became, but by acknowledging the childhood and adulthood he never really got to have.

The Literature Today: You describe your stories as ones that “don’t end on the last page” but follow readers home. What kind of emotional or psychological after-effect do you hope HUSH leaves with readers once the mystery is solved and they begin reflecting on the invisible rules and silences present in everyday life? 

Anaya Dev: I hope readers begin questioning the rules they have been given and how important they really are. If you are telling a daughter not to go out at night, are you also asking your son to follow the same rule? Not only because of equality, but because the fear behind the rule deserves to be examined too. I think that is the kind of thought I want HUSH to leave behind. Once the mystery is over, I want readers to look at the invisible rules around them and ask where they came from, who they protect, and whether they are still justified. If the book makes someone question one rule they had always accepted without thinking, then it has followed them home.


The Literature Today: If HUSH could leave readers with one uncomfortable question about the way society responds to ambitious, outspoken and independent women, what would you want that question to be? And, why do you believe it is important that we continue asking it?

Anaya Dev: That is something I have always wanted to ask, because I have witnessed that discomfort firsthand. Sometimes I think we underestimate how much our reactions reveal. As humans, we tend to run away from what makes us uncomfortable, or try to hide it rather than understand it. But in this case, the consequence can be much bigger. If a woman's questions make us uncomfortable, and our response is to silence her rather than examine why those questions bother us, we are not solving the discomfort. We are simply shutting her up. And perhaps that is the question I want HUSH to leave behind: when a woman asks a question that makes you uncomfortable, do you question her, or do you question yourself?