"The beauty of putting out three books in one year is the story remains front of mind, "says Simons, who's written 13 novels and two non-fiction books.
Amazon is excited about this three-in-one year model, adds the author, who likes to support the independent bookstore near her Long Island home in New York but is pragmatic enough to be a regular Amazon customer as well.
Simons, whose writes romance, historical and mystery books, has sold 2 million books worldwide. She often describes the immigrant journey in her novels, which is not surprising as the Russian-born author moved to America with her family aged 10 in the early 1970s, a life-changing event for a little girl who desperately wanted to be accepted as an American.
She made her writing debut with 1994's Tully and was, at the time, a solo mother, taking menial jobs to pay the bills and living off her redundancy from a financial reporting job while she wrote. The book was embraced by Australian and New Zealand readers even before those in the United Kingdom and the USA discovered it.
The Bronze Horseman trilogy, which started publication in 2000, was also successful in New Zealand and Australia but Simons finds it hard to fathom why her World War II era novels were so strongly embraced here, saying perhaps it is because she describes universal human experiences.
In any event, after the success of the trilogy, set in her former home city of St Petersburg (known as Leningrad from 1924 to 1991), Simons proved herself more than capable of telling gripping stories over a book series. She's also perfected the art of being able to change genre without a backwards glance.
It means readers who like her historical romances might find a very different writing style in the End of Forever trilogy which centres on urbane Julian Cruz and dazzling but unreliable young actress, Josephine Collins both making it in the entertainment/media world in contemporary Los Angeles. The story then moves to London - and switches historical eras with a bit of time-travelling.
While that may be a bit of a stretch for some readers, other might question Julian and Josephine's love affair and quickly planned marriage but Simons says it matches her parents' romance when they met, in the early 60s, holidaying at a Russian mountain resort.
"He came home and told his parents, 'I have two pieces of news for you, I'm no longer engaged to the woman I have been engaged to for the past four years and I'm marrying someone else in September,'" Simons says, "So, I know these things are possible."
Nevertheless, The Tiger Catcher has rocketed up the NZ bestseller lists and Simons is looking forward to meeting fans when she arrives here later this month. She'll appear at events ranging from a meet and greet at the Takapuna Library, a function at Auckland's Northern Club and book signings at stores across the country. They obviously love her in Palmerston North, where there's an event at the city's convention centre.
• Paullina Simons is in New Zealand from Sunday, August 11 – Wednesday, August 14.
