The Book Nympho: Delilah S. Dawson

Help me welcome the lady with the twisted imagination that brought you blood sucking bunnies and the sexy vampire Gypsy, Ms. Delilah S. Dawson to The Book Nympho today.

Thanks so much for having me! I am prepared for peen this time. Not like on Twitter. :)

I’m going to just throw this out there…..Where the feck did you come up with the idea for Sang?

I know it's a horrible cliché, but... it came from a dream. I was watching a lot of Buffy the Vampire Slayer at the time and listening to the album Like Vines by The Hush Sound. And I had this dream that I woke up naked on a slab of rock in a forest, and suddenly there was this painfully hot dude standing there in a top hat and tailcoat. He opened his mouth, and it was like Spike from Buffy and Captain Jack Sparrow had merged. That was Criminy Stain, and I had to come up with a reason to write about him. The entire world of Sang revolved around him-- why he was a blood drinker but not a vampire, why he was out in the forest, what kind of magic he had used to bring a girl from another world. I built the entire world just so Criminy would keep talking.

The clockwork animals are wonderfully creepy. Why did you pick the animals that you did and not some of the other “normal” circus type animals?

Thanks! The thought process behind the clockwork animals at the caravan was that if you could build any animal you wished, wouldn't you choose the weird ones? The polanda bear was the first one I thought of, because I couldn't decide between a polar bear and a panda bear and my fingers decided for me; I just knew he juggled and rose a unicycle. Then I tried to think of animals that would be strange and exotic and figure out what they could be programmed to do to entertain city folk. Honestly, I was just trying to make it as magical and bizarre as possible!

I must admit the first thing that drawled me to reading Wicked as They Come, was the bludbunnies. Do you have issues with bunnies like Anya from Buffy the Vampire Slayer?

Nope! I love bunnies. I used to have a dwarf Himalayan who liked to play my electric keyboard, and in college, I ran the small animal room of a pet shop. But I was also a huge fan of Bunnicula and Monty Python, and Watership Down was my favorite book for years. I love the idea of something that seems sweet and innocent suddenly biting your face off. During release week last year, a fan actually hand-crocheted a beautiful bludbunny with fangs for me. Scared the crap out of me when I opened the box!

Funny you mention Bunnicula, when I was reading Wicked as They Come I told my husband about the bludbunnies and he said that they reminded him of Bunnicula. I'll have to check the book from my library one day.

Speaking of Buffy…when I mentioned on Twitter that I picture Criminy as looking like Jack Sparrow with a top hat you said that he was a mix of Jack and Spike. Can you go into more detail about that pairing?

Ha! I did that in the first question! GREAT MINDS THINK ALIKE! I love the combination of swagger and whimsy and power, that a guy can be so thoroughly capable and confident that he can be foppish and beautiful and strange and just not give a crap. My favorite Spike moment is when he's in his crypt painting his nails black, and Buffy shows up unexpectedly and makes fun of him, and he's totally SHRUG/COME AT ME, BRO. The Captain Jack bit is where the swagger and fun come in. As a Bludman, Criminy is long-lived and hard to kill, so he had a sense of humor about life and yet is very dangerous and in touch with his feelings. So, basically, to me, a perfect guy.

Do you have a character/celebrity mix for Tish?

When I was writing her, I thought of her as Jennifer Garner or Ashley Judd, but age-wise, I would now go with Ginnifer Goodwin. To be honest, I was still trying to write an “everywoman” when I wrote her, someone who wasn't amazingly gorgeous, who didn't stand out. Since then, I've paid much closer attention to crafting unique heroines.

What tidbits can you give us on this month’s release, Wicked as She Wants?

Wicked as She Wants is my attempt to make Casper (from Wicked as They Come) the most attractive man in the world... and to counter Tish with a feisty, kick-ass heroine who blazes through her story. It started with the premise that Princess Anastasia Romanov was a Bludman and grew from there. It's an adventure/journey like Wicked as They Come and includes the same mix of danger and wacky hijinks. There's an airship bordello, a fight with unexpected blud animals, and a masquerade ball. And I kicked the sex scenes up a notch, too!

You also mentioned that if the Blud series ends with book 3, that you might Kickstart or Self-Pub the rest of the series. How many books do you have planned for the series? Do you have a working title for book 3?

Book 3 will be WICKED AFTER MIDNIGHT and follows a bludded contortionist from Criminy's caravan to the cabarets of Paris. If someone wanted three more books, I could keep sending my characters to different places in Sang-- Almanica, Australia, and Egypt would be tons of fun! The idea to Kickstart or self-pub a Blud book came from the fact that I purposefully left Wicked as They Come the tiniest bit open; it was a happily ever after... but not completely. It's one of the biggest complaints I get from my readers, actually. I have a story arc for Crim and Tish in my mind and would love to write it to make the series feel complete, for the readers and for myself.

How excited you are about AADSAV?! I went to AADNOLA last August and it was a blast. Do you have any site seeing planned while you’re in Savannah? I’ve never been so I’m looking for things to do.

Very excited! I've never been to Authors After Dark, but the authors I know rave about it. My husband is from Savannah, and my YA paranormal SERVANTS OF THE STORM is set there, so we go at least once a year. My brother in law is the Dread Pirate Robert, a Savannah pirate who gives tours in a horse-drawn carriage, and my favorite thing in Savannah is to go for a ride downtown. He even stops for cupcakes and Starbucks for us. I also like exploring River Street and eating fried crab claws, which are a favorite food from my childhood.

Thanks for stopping by to chat and I can’t wait to crack open Wicked as She Wants! See ya at AADSAV in August.

Thanks so much for letting me stop by!

Every month the Cocktail Society Book Club (on Goodreads) selects a read a book to review and discuss on the first Wednesday of each month. The host choses a cocktail that compliments the book, wither it's her favorite adult drink or one that is featured in the book.

Cocktail of the Month:

Since out heroine enjoys a few classes of red wine, I thought the best cocktail would be your favorite red wine. I'm not a huge wine drinker but I do enjoy a class of Merlot from Little Black Dress.

Classic and Timeless...

If you're passionate about Merlot, make Little Black Dress your "go to" red. This wine is rich with aromas of ripe black cherry, cranberry, and warm herb, complemented by hints of vanilla and toasted oak. This medium-bodied Merlot can seduce even the most experienced of palates with its nice lingering finish.

Wine Pairing: Excellent with meats or hearty foods.

Book of the Month:

This month's book is Wicked as They Come by Delilah S. Dawson, and it is the first book in the Blud series. It's truly a one of a kind story with Alice in Wonderland elements and blood thirsty bunnies.

Wicked as They Come

by Delilah S. Dawson

Blud #1

First in a steampunk-tinged paranormal romance series in which a woman is transported to a world filled with vampires and magic.

When nurse Tish Everett forced open the pesky but lovely locket she found at an estate sale, she had no idea she was answering the call of Criminy Stain, from the far off land of Sang. He’d cast a spell for her, but when she’s transported right to him, she’s not so sure she’s ready to be under the spell of another man. (It didn’t go so well last time with controlling, abusive, domineering Jeff.) If only Criminy wasn’t so deliciously rakish….

Half the inhabitants of Sang are Pinkies—human—and the other half are Bludmen, who in Tish’s world would be called vampires. But they don’t mess with any of the bat/coffin/no sunlight nonsense. They’re rather like you and me, just more fabulous, long living, and mostly indestructible. (They're also very good kissers.) But when the evil Mayor of Manchester (formerly Bludchester) redoubles his efforts to rid Sang of the Bludmen once and for all, stealing Tish’s locket in hopes of traveling back to her world himself for reinforcements, Criminy and Tish must battle ghosts, sea monsters, wayward submarines, a secret cabal, and thundering Bludmares to get the locket back and allow Tish to return home…but has she found love with Criminy? Could she stay in Sang forever?

Much like Tish I found myself thinking of Sang and Criminy during the day at work and wanting to get home at night so I can see him again. Dawson does an excellent job of creating a wonderfully bizarre world that brings to mind Alice in Wonderland and the Wizard of Oz with her own unique elements.

Just think if Alice instead of falling down a hole she fell asleep with a magical locket around her neck and woke up in a world where vampires are real but not as we know them. The vampire, or bludman in question is Criminy, the master of a traveling circus.

Wicked as They Come may not be everyone's cup of tea. Some might think it's a little to weird but I found it refreshingly different and was hooked from the beginning. The heroine is totally relatable and the hero is darkly delicious. The way Dawson wrote the world, Sang is easily a third man character of the book. Sang is much like our world but in a bizarro fantastical way. With it's cities named similar to the real world and then their the blud animals, like the bludbunnies, bludrats and bludmares.

Also liked the fact that Wicked as They Come ended with a happily ever after, for now. There's still some story left in Tish and Criminy's relationship and after speaking with Dawson in an interview she hopes to revisit them in the future to give us that ending they deserve.

“I would burn down the world for you," he whispered fiercely. "Your world or my own. I would rip down the entire city with my bare hands without a second thought. I don't need to taste anything else, I don't need a comparison.”

I recommend Wicked as They Come to anyone in the mood for something a little different from the norm in the PNR world and it's a great introduction for me into the steampunk genre.

To sum up Wicked as They Come: wonderfully weird romance.