From Austin, Amanda Hocking spins a fanciful, lucrative, world

When Amanda Hocking writes of trolls, she strays far from the hideous beings depicted in old fairy tales.

In Hocking's novels, trolls are indistinguishable from humans, with the same motivations and desires, the perfect beings to surround with intrigue — and romance.

For the past few years, they've made Hocking a publishing sensation, hooking readers of different generations.

Hocking, who lives in Austin, will see the first book in her latest troll trilogy, "The Kanin Chronicles" published today. The cover of the first novel in the series, "Frostfire," depicts its action heroine Bryn as a Taylor Swift lookalike. In its opening pages she quickly encounters a chiseled love interest.

"I'd gotten so used to gazing at him from a distance, it was hard not to stare," Bryn says in the novel. "The way his lips curved up slightly more on the left side as he smiled, or the shadow of the stubble that had grown darker on the smooth line of his chin as the night progressed, or the way his black hair was slick and straight until it began to curl at the nape of his neck, where it curled just above his collar."

Hocking, 30, writes what the book industry calls young adult paranormal romance. She's almost comfortable with the designation.

"The term romance can sometimes be limiting," Hocking said. "Because people just view it as Fabio on the cover and making out. But I think there is a lot of action in this, there's a lot of political motivation, there's a lot of mystery and stuff going on."

In Hocking's books, she moves trolls into the 21st Century, but maintains elements of their folk tale roots. They are hoarders who love gathering the newest gadgets instead of gems. But they seldom use them, as a traditionalist streak makes them prefer quills and paper. She took old Scandinavian horror stories of trolls switching their babies with humans at birth and re-imagined them as a troll economic tool in North America.

"They would leave a troll child with a wealthy human family, and the child would have access to good medical care and good education and the best that society has to offer," Hocking said.

In "Frostfire," it's Bryn's job to quietly approach the unsuspecting children as they enter adulthood, tell them the truth of their identity, and lure them back to the troll kingdom hidden in northern Canada.

"And then they take their trust fund and any other money they have collected as a human child and they move back with all the money and infuse society with cash," the author said.

Just as Hocking's trolls have found success in modern times, so has Hocking in the turbulent world of modern publishing. In 2010 she began self-publishing her work as e-books, charging a buck a time for the early ones. Young adult paranormal romance readers, fresh off the Twilight series, consumed them.

"She is the very first self-published author to make it big," said Rose Hilliard, Hocking's editor at St Martin's Press.

Hilliard saw Hocking's growing popularity online, and quickly signed her. Hocking had already sold one million copies of her books. St Martin's re-published Hocking's first troll trilogy, the Trylle series, and it just took off.

"It spent 23 weeks on the New York Times Best Seller list," Hilliard said.

Many of Hocking's early readers, Hilliard said, likely were older women with e-readers, such as Kindles.

"But by publishing her in print we were able to get her into the hands of more young adult readers since we find that more young adults actually read physical books," she said.

"Frostfire" is the first in Hocking's new trilogy. They'll hit bookstores on an almost e-book schedule, just months apart. Hilliard describes Hocking's sales as extraordinary.

Despite her success Hocking won't be heading to the bright lights. She could work anywhere and she chooses Austin.

"I like to travel," she said. "But I like to have a home to come home to where the people that I care about are. And so that's here. So that works for me."