Want a Wicked Vacation? Try a Parallel Universe!
Thanks so much for hosting me at The Qwillery and including WICKED AS THEY COME in the 2012 Debut Author Challenge! I’m so excited to spread the word about my first book, and I’d like to officially invite everyone to join me on an adventure in a new world, one without mortgages or head colds or children bickering over the last granola bar. Because I’m betting that, like me, you could use a vacation.
That’s why I made up my own world.
The stories in my Blud series all take place in a parallel universe called Sang. Basically, it’s our Victorian-era world, but with limitless steampunk and clockwork technology. And magic. And sort-of vampires and sort-of demons and lizard people and all sorts of strange things that have tails and swallow snakes and go bump in the night. In Sang, anything can happen.
That’s what’s so compelling to me about the melding of steampunk and paranormal romance. Stories aren’t fettered by silly things like physics and reality. The male lead of WICKED AS THEY COME is a sort of vampire, rakishly handsome and quite skilled at magic and… other things. We all love Mr. Darcy from Pride and Prejudice, right? Now what if he was nearly indestructible, long-lived, long-haired, extra naughty, owned a traveling circus, had a helpful pet clockwork monkey, and could conjure butterflies out of dust? Better, right?
All of Sang is like that. Sure, there’s prejudice and poverty and hardship. But in that optimistic, pull-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps steampunk mythos, the characters are empowered to move beyond the walls of their cramped cities and into the dangerous but fascinating world beyond. Flying machines, clockwork animals, automatons—technology can do the impossible, and magic can do everything else. When almost anything is possible, there’s an abundance of hope.
Plus, in Sang, and in my imagination, there’s someone for everyone. Damaged people can find healing. Lost people can find comfort. No matter how strange someone might be, there’s always a perfect fit out there, just waiting to love them—and possibly to roger them in a submarine.
Sang is being built, piece by piece, as I write each book in the Blud series, kind of like when Bastian had to rebuild Fantasia at the end of The Neverending Story. The first book takes place in Sangland, their version of England. The land is divided into countryside ravaged by bloodthirsty rabbits and huge, walled cities where humans are outnumbered by Bludmen, which are like vampires without the superstition. The second book starts in Sangland and moves (via airship brothel) to Freesia, their version of Russia, which is a romantic land of glittering snow, cyborg bears, and ice-white royal Bludmen. The third book will hopefully take place in the cabarets of Franchia, the Sangish France. I’m hoping it will be like Moulin Rouge, but with a much hotter private interlude in the clockwork elephant.
Will there be more books in the series? I hope so! There are so many more countries and peoples in Sang to explore via dirigible or submarine. The Far East, the frozen Arctic, the Sangish version of America. And I still have to figure out where Eblick the Lizard Boy came from. There are so many people I haven’t discovered yet, just waiting for their chance to shine.
All you need to do to apply for your Sangish passport is read WICKED AS THEY COME. I’m hoping you’ll be as hooked as I am, and we can continue to discover a new world together.
About Wicked as They Come
Wicked as They Come
Blud 1Pocket, March 27, 2012
Mass Market Paperback, 416 pages
Have you ever heard of a Bludman? They’re rather like you and me—only more fabulous, immortal, and mostly indestructible. (They’re also very good kissers.)
Delilah S. Dawson’s darkly tempting debut drops her unsuspecting heroine into a strange faraway land for a romantic adventure that’s part paranormal, part steampunk . . . and completely irresistible.
When Tish Everett forces open the ruby locket she finds at an estate sale, she has no idea that a deliciously rakish Bludman has cast a spell just for her. She wakes up in a surreal world, where Criminy Stain, the dashing proprietor of a magical traveling circus, curiously awaits. At Criminy’s electric touch, Tish glimpses a tantalizing future, but she also foresees her ultimate doom. Before she can decide whether to risk her fate with the charming daredevil, the locket disappears, and with it, her only chance to return home. Tish and Criminy battle roaring sea monsters and thundering bludmares, vengeful ghosts and crooked Coppers in a treacherous race to recover the necklace from the evil Blud-hating Magistrate. But if they succeed, will Tish forsake her fanged suitor and return to her normal life, or will she take a chance on an unpredictable but dangerous destiny with the Bludman she’s coming to love?
About Delilah
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Woah! This cover- it just caught my attention right away! I literally stopped what I was doing to read the blurb and get this book onto my TBR list, ASAP! It sounds really interesting and different. I can't wait to get my hands on a copy of this!
ReplyDeleteits on my wishlist/ can't wait 2 read it
ReplyDeleteWow, Wicked As They Come sounds awesome and that cover is fabulous.
ReplyDeleteThis sounds like a good one. It's on my wish list, too.
ReplyDeleteTracey D
I'm so looking forward to reading this book. I pre-ordered it ages ago when I first ran across the blurb.
ReplyDeleteThis book sounds great. The awesome cover art drew me in, but the story holds the interest.
ReplyDeleteThanks so much, y'all! I hope you like it!
ReplyDelete