It’s been a busy week and it’s not over yet. Stephanie, from Simon & Schuster, is stopping by today to introduce us to a very talented author. Grab your coffee and give a warm welcome to Ms. Deliah Dawson!!
DELIAH DAWSON
Delilah S. Dawson is a native of Roswell, Georgia and the author of the paranormal romance Blud series for Pocket, including Wicked as They Come and an eNovella, The Mysterious Madam Morpho. The second book in the series, Wicked as She Wants and a second novella, The Peculiar Pets of Miss Pleasance, will be out in spring 2013, and her first YA, Servants of the Storm, will be available in spring 2014.
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GUEST POST
On Damaged Women
If you’ve read any of the books or e-novellas in my Blud series for Pocket, you might have noticed that all my heroines have one thing in
common: they are damaged women. Tish in Wicked as They Come is leaving an abusive relationship. Imogen from The Mysterious Madam Morpho was kicked out of the house by her father and assaulted by her employer.
And Frannie from The Peculiar Pets of Miss Pleasance was wrongly used by the first man she ever loved.
When I think back to the strong women I’ve known and the characters that have been memorable, very few of them have led easy, carefree lives. Game of Thrones is a tapestry of women forced into impossible situations who made mistakes, found their inner steel, and rose to greatness. Book favorites that come to mind are Ayla from Jean Auel’s Earth’s Children series, Sookie Stackhouse from Charlaine Harris’s Dead After Dark series, and Claire Frasier from Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander series. Women are made strong for a reason, and many of us don’t truly find our strength until we’re pushed to our very limits and come out the other side.
And I speak from experience when I say that our tragedies make us more interesting and often more loveable. When I was younger, I thought romance was filled with swooning, naïve, virginal heroines who fell into the arms of handsome, tender dukes. Now that I’m older and looking beyond covers, I’m finding amazing stories about bluestockings, orphans, widows, queens, and uppity women who won’t back down no matter what their world’s mores dictate. Romance as a genre is just as varied as women as a gender, and I’m proud to contribute a series that’s filled for rollicking adventure and steamy romance but with powerful women at its heart.
My next book, WICKED AS SHE WANTS, is out April 30 and features my strongest heroine yet: a twist on the famous Princess Anastasia. But my Ahna is a blood drinker in a steampunk world who boards an airship brothel and faces bloodthirsty unicorns to find her way back home.
Part of the challenge of writing strong women is also writing men that compliment them, heroes who are confident enough to love strong women and give them the freedom to be themselves. Ahna’s paramour is Casper Sterling, a musician from our world with his own inner demons. When Ahna and Casper join forces, they become all but unstoppable.
When I was young, books were my escape and my salvation, and I was hungry for heroines who knew pain. Now, I like to think the underlying message of romance– my books included– is that there’s hope. Whoever you are, whatever you’ve been through, no matter how broken you might be, you deserve love.
Thanks so much for hosting me, and I hope y’all enjoy it! Please feel free to reach out to me on Twitter (@DelilahSDawson) or at my website, www.delilahsdawson.com anytime! And if you like artisan perfumes, be sure to check out the character-based scents at Villainess Soaps (http://www.villainess.net/wicked/). Seven new scents will debut this April to cover both books and e-novellas in the series.
ABOUT THE BOOK
From the author of highly praised steampunk-ian Wicked as They Come comes an urban fantasy romance about Frannie Pleasance, a woman who takes in stray animals to save them from the dangerous world of bludbunnies, bludbadgers, and Bludmen who populate Sang, an alternate-universe London. When her pet shop is set on fire by someone who doesn’t like her menagerie, Frannie meets a fireman who wants to help her track down the animals who ran away during the blaze, and find the person who tried to put her life in danger.
DISCLAIMER
No items that I receive
are ever sold…they are kept by me,
or given to family and/or friends.
