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Michelle Deerwester-Dalrymple Samples Maiden of the Storm

Katherine Grant: [00:00:00] Welcome to the Historical Romance Sampler Podcast. The place for you to find new historical romance books and authors to fan over. I'm award winning historical romance author Katherine Grant, and each week I'm inviting fellow authors to come on and share a little bit of their work and themselves.

They'll read a sample of one of their books, and then I'm going to ask them a bunch of questions. By the end of the episode, you'll have a sense of what they write and who they are. Hopefully, you and I both will have something new to read. So what are we waiting for? Let's get into this week's episode.

 I'm really excited to be here with Michelle Deerwester Dalrymple, an award winning author of historical romance of many varieties, Scottish, highlanders and ancient.

Recently, she has started writing a historical fairytale villain retelling series that is very successful. [00:01:00] She also writes contemporary romance as MD Dalrymple, which is military and campus romances, and she writes Paranormal Romance. She writes paranormal romances as strawberry chase. Michelle is also a wife, mother, and college writing professor.

So, she does it all. Welcome, Michelle.

Michelle Deerwester-Dalrymple: Hi, thank you for having me. I'm

appreciative

to be here today.

Katherine Grant: Yeah, I'm so excited to have you. You write so many things. What are you sharing with us today?

Michelle Deerwester-Dalrymple: So today I'm going to be reading from my Celtic Highland Maiden series. I'm holding up the book right here. It's book one in the series titled Maiden of the Storm.

And this is my ancient Celtic, my ancient historical Highlanders series during the time of the Roman invasion of Britannia, where they made it. all the way up to Antoine's Wall, not even Hadrian's Wall. They went further north and this was their kind of last stand that they couldn't breach. And in the book you have the Celtic tribe, the Caldoni [00:02:00] tribe, that kind of manages to stop the Romans.

So it's right there on the line with the Romans at the wall and the Caldoni tribe right on the other side of it. And it's features Riana. She is the daughter of a tribal chieftain who's right there. Her tribe's right there on the wall and the enslaved person that they stole when he kind of got lost on the other side of the wall.

And so there's a Roman that they're using for labor in there in there. tribe. So their tribal village. So that's the kind of premise of where this story begins. So it's definitely an enemies to lovers ancient Celtic, ancient Roman Druids references, all that kind of great stuff.

Katherine Grant: Awesome. It sounds exciting.

Michelle Deerwester-Dalrymple: Thank you. All right. So we'll read an excerpt from it. Okay. So during the scene, Horatio is hard at work. Horatio is the Roman that was kind of abducted and brought in as an enslaved person and he's having to, [00:03:00] to work and it's not going so hot for him. Horatio was sweating later that day, a surprising heat that made him grateful for the lack of a tunic.

The leather straps that left blisters on his chest, however, garnered no appreciation. Village farmers wanted furrows for their early summer plantings and there weren't enough horses to complete the job, or they didn't want to use the healthy animals for such low work. His blonde Caledonian guard, the one named Niall, had offered up Horatio as a substitute, the bastard.

The blisters popped and peeled and blood began to run under them, yet he still dug his feet into the fresh earth, pulling the broad blade plow as a fat village farmer followed, balancing it with wooden handles. The villager made sure to give Horatio several ladles of water throughout the day, but his skin gaped and his muscles ached with every step.

Marching miles upon miles had nothing on being part of the working end of a plow. When the sun finally settled low in the sky, Horatio slowed, trying to accommodate his blisters while finishing the row for the villager. Squinting into the dusky late sunlight, Horatio didn't notice the hand that smacked the back of his head until he was reeling on the ground.[00:04:00]

He shaded his eyes against the sun to see the hairy blonde giant, Niall, standing over him. "What ails you, Roman? Do you think to be idle before your work is done?" Niall kicked him in the belly to punctuate his question, an unexpected forceful kick that bruised his stomach and expelled every last bit of air from his lungs.

Horatio rolled on his side and supported his weight with his elbow, trying to catch his breath before rising. "What's wrong with you, Niall?" A second, familiar voice echoed across the farmland. No lass, do not come to my aid, Horatio thought. Any interference would only cast shadows of doubt and accusations upon Riana.

"He was working. Do you not see his chest? The bloody mess it is? He does not need your heavy hand to make it worse." "Don't tell me how to guard my quarry, Riana." Niall's voice was tight and level. Her intervention struck a deep chord in his waim, and he wasn't about to let her irritate him or anger him in front of the Romans.

"If you make it worse, he'll no be able to work, you fool," she screeched in a high pitched tone. Riana's ire was beyond elevated. It flew to the sky with the birds. "Why do you care, Riana?" Niall caught her arm, not softly or out of concern, but strong, as if reminding [00:05:00] her of his power. "Tis unnatural how you mind the slave."

Riana yanked her arm from his grip. Her hair seemed to stand on end, making her look larger than the man she confronted. This time, she wasn't going to prevent Niall to abuse Horatio. "If he's injured, he cannot work, you fool. 'Tis a matter of basic respect of one's nature, of nature's creatures.

I cannot abide by such punishments for one of nature's own." "Didn't it give me good goddess reason?" Niall smirked at her. He smirked. Riana clenched her jaw at him. The horned god himself would cast Niall out for all his insults. "Slaves are lower than any of nature's creatures," Niall continued. "He must know his place."

This time when Niall grabbed her arm, it hurt. "It is best you knows yours, Riana." His last statement was ominous, but Riana dismissed it as he walked away. She rushed to Horatio, who sat mutely in the dirt. He didn't want to imagine Niall's reaction if he had tried to intervene. The portly farmer crouched down with Riana, another ladle of water in his hand.

"Tis fine, lassie," the farmer told her as he handed Horatio the cup. "We are quite finished. I'll have the Roman return to his hut." Riana nodded, turning her attention to [00:06:00] Horatio. Her eyes narrowed at the bloody blisters. "Isla will accompany me then when I tend you this eve. Your wounds need to be treated."

Horatio gasped as he tried to drink and breathe at the same time. Then he cut his eyes to Riana. "It would be best if you didn't bring my meal tonight. Send Isla alone. I will not be much for conversation and I don't think we should give your blonde man any more reason for suspicion or violence."

Riana's skin bristled. "He's not my blonde man," she spit out. Horatio finished his water and handed the ladle back to the farmer, nodding his thanks. "You better tell him that," he told her before struggling to his feet. The farmer and Riana both reached out a hand to Horatio. Horatio turned his back to Riana and was led away by the fat villager.

Her mind was a jumble of confusion. Niall was perfectly acceptable handsome young man of her tribe. He was everything she should want in a man, yet she felt nothing for him. Nothing more than the friendship they shared. And his youthful rash behavior today only confirmed it. So was it her fault if his heart pined for her?

Her father granted Riana the right to pick her husband. But what if she waited too long? How long would her father's patient last? Might she end up wed to the young Niall out of [00:07:00] necessity? She tossed and turned in her furs, trying to remedy her lack of affection for Niall with the over affection she felt for the Roman.

It's because he's new to the tribe. Different, she told herself. Like having a new leon or bronze twerk. And she pitied his status. Twas the reason for his interest. At least that's what she told herself. But she was lying. And the gods and goddesses knew it. Throwing her arm over her eyes, she tried to block out the flickering light of the hearth, just as she wanted to block out the unbidden sensations that rose in her body whenever the Roman came to her thoughts.

Why did the Roman consume her thoughts so? Her sister and Niall both noticed, and if they decided to share their suspicions with her father, Well, she didn't want to begin to think on that. And who knew what her father would do? She didn't want to find out. Riana sought to harden her emotions against Horatio, view him the same way that the rest of the Caldoni did, but the more she tried to ignore him and not think about his sun kissed skin, his rough hands touched her gently, his lips, shivers danced across her breasts and to her lower belly.

Stop. The murmuring noises of the roundhouse had drifted off to rustling and [00:08:00] snoring. The sounds of the night were broken only by natterjack toads calling to each other in the fields and loons calling their the same song her heart thrummed in her palate of furs. Her body called for a partner to chase the loneliness away, to become one with her, share her life, and though she knew it was wrong, the image of a dark man who spoke broken Gaelic came to her mind.

That night when she slept, she dreamed of Roman heralds and bronze skin.

Katherine Grant: Ooh, how tense. And I love the forbidden lovers feeling.

Michelle Deerwester-Dalrymple: Exactly. It's one of my favorites. Enemies to lovers is one of my favorites.

Katherine Grant: Yeah, it's fantastic. Well, I have a lot of questions for you, but first we're going to take a break for our sponsors.

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Katherine Grant: We are back with Michelle Deerwester Dalrymple, who just read a sample from The Maiden of the Storm, which is book one in which series? The Celtic Highland Maiden series. Celtic Highland Maiden series. And one of the things that stood out to [00:09:00] me, even as you were setting it up, is how It's obviously based on real history and there are a lot of details in there.

Like you told us about how it's, you know, they got up to Antony's wall. The hero is a slave who is Roman and, you know, there were references in there to the roundhouse and gods and goddesses and all these little details. So first of all, I'd love to know, how do you research such an ancient time when we don't have as many written records?

Michelle Deerwester-Dalrymple: That's a really great question because I've had to rely on very weird, like references. So some of it was written by the Romans. So you have to take that with a grain of salt. Fortunately archaeologists in Scotland have done some really great excavations of like iron age and bronze age peoples.

And so they're written records that I've been able to access. I won't lie. It's helpful that I'm a college professor because I have access to things that are a lot of times behind a paywall. So me being able to access those [00:10:00] has helped a little bit with the research. And then so I just kind of piece it together with, like, There's a good chance would have happened what we know from the history of that point in general, like in Europe or in the world in a larger sense.

And then I take things that were already kind of familiar. So there are some references to things like, I don't know if they would have, how they would have referred to their clothing. I don't know, you know, I'm, I'm kind of piecing together the language that they think they would have spoken. I saw a really great BBC production on, I think it's on YouTube.

It's a 12 video series, and it's about the ancient Celts and how the insular Celts of Scotland and how they differ from the continental Celts of like Germania and the like. So, you know, I was able to access a lot of that type of material, but it's really piecing it together with like, what's more common or understood or familiar, and then just kind of trying to embed that ancient element into it.

So it's not perfect. I'm not a historian, but I [00:11:00] kind of try to do the best with what I have available to me.

Katherine Grant: Yeah. But then you also write multiple eras in historical romance. So how do you keep track or stay on top of researching for all of the areas that interest you?

Michelle Deerwester-Dalrymple: So a lot of notes, a lot of bookmarks.

 For my different book series, I'll have like whole sheets of paper of like the clothing they wear and where things are located and little maps, but I'm not, I'm, I'm horribly organized. I will be the first to admit I'm severely ADHD and so like, I struggle with some of that executive function for keeping things organized.

Michelle Deerwester-Dalrymple: I try the notebooks and the planners and all that good stuff. But at the end of the day, I just have like giant sheets of paper, like tacked to my corkboard above my, for whatever book series I'm working on. I did finally get my act together and on my most recent book series it's actually published through spiteful books.

It's not through like my indie publishing house. It's called a Highlanders Dawn and there's eventually I've finished book two that's in production and then book three is I'm finishing it right now. That series [00:12:00] we had to do a lot of medieval research and everything else. And I actually finally

got like a notebook and I made like an omnibus of who the characters were in the places they've been and what we were focusing on and, and that's helped quite a bit when I remember to get it out. So the most part just lots of, lots of post it notes, lots of random pieces of paper tacked to the corkboard, lots of notes in notebooks, and then lots of bookmarked tabs on, on my computer.

Katherine Grant: Yeah. And are you drawn to different eras based on like you're doing research or you're reading something and then you're like, Oh, I want to write that story. Or do you intentionally go to these different eras?

Michelle Deerwester-Dalrymple: That I, I don't really have a good answer for. I've always been like entranced with the historical Highlander when I first discovered the bodice rippers of like the 1980s and early nineties, I tried to, I, I kind of gravitated more towards the Highlander ones, but there were so many different random ones like and

the reason I started writing the ancient series is that I had had a good foothold on my primary, my flagship series with To Dance in the Glen [00:13:00] as my that was my, my flagship book. And that was medieval Robert the Bruce, William Wallace, all that kind of stuff. So, but I had read a book when I was in college and it was an ancient Roman in Britannia, they were in Londonium.

So it was, you know, definitely more of a Southern but I loved it. I loved it. He had to come to her aid at the end when she was going to be punished because she was enslaved. And like, it was like, Oh, is he going to stay the Roman centurion and not come to her aid? Or is he going to do the right thing?

And I was enthralled with this book. I've never read another book like it. I searched. I read so many historical romances trying to find that vibe, but it stuck with me. I don't know the name of the book. I don't know the author. I can't tell you anything more to the book, but I started really seeking out ones that talked about like the ancient Celtic tribes.

And that is what got my interest in my Celtic Highland Maiden series. So that's kind of how I got the interest for that series. My other ones were just ones where I do have one that's in the late 1600s. And it's kind of gotten a little bit of an outlander flair due [00:14:00] to the time period.

It's the events that predate what leads up to the battle at Clodmore. So that's kind of how that book, but that's actually based on someone I'm tangentially related to through marriage. Like that's the name. Dalrymple plays a role in the book, like one of the biggest villains in history

for the Scottish people was a Dalrymple. And so because of that connection, that's what kind of, you know, started getting where I was doing more research just into Scottish history in the name. So that's kind of what all that worked together to figure out like what series I was going to write and how and what research I was doing.

So it was more just the general interest in Scottish history. And then I just picked pieces and parts for what struck my fancy.

Katherine Grant: Well, that's so interesting. My family does a lot of genealogy and they're always telling me, like, write a story about our ancestors. And I'm like, I don't know if you really want me to do a romance about our ancestors.

Michelle Deerwester-Dalrymple: Lord John, John Dalrymple, the Earl Stare, he basically got that name. He got that title. He got those titles because he was the one who helped orchestrate [00:15:00] the Glencoe massacre in 1692, which is basically like a Scottish version of a Trojan horse type of thing. So yeah, that's where, that's where that kinda kinda came from.

And because of that and because of that history, I was like, I have to write a book series about this, but I didn't know where I was gonna go or what I was gonna do. In the course of my study of like research and trying to find stuff, I found out something about William who came in the handover, and King who came in after King James abdicated the throne, and I found out something,

a rumor about him, a good juicy rumor. And I'm like, I have it. I have the story and it's gonna be based on a letter that, and so the first three books get you to the letter. And then I'm working on book four where you learn about what the letter is. So yeah. So in the course of the research, I find like a nugget and I'm like, Ooh, okay.

I'm putting that nugget to the side for later. So that's how a lot of this came to be. My nugget for my Maiden of the Storm and the Celtic maiden series though, was that book that I had read like 20 years prior that just stuck with me.

Katherine Grant: Yeah. Well listeners, if you know [00:16:00] what book she's talking about, let us know.

Michelle Deerwester-Dalrymple: Let me know. So it came out in the late eighties, early nineties. I think there was a, the woman was wearing red on the cover. It's the Roman invasion of Britannia. There was a Londonium, I think is the print. Yeah. Londonium is how you would have pronounced it. And at the end, she's been captured like as a spy and a slave, and he's got to decide if he's going to rescue her or not.

So if you know it. Please link it to me because I loved it, and I can't find

it.

Katherine Grant: So you know, you mentioned that she's captured, she's enslaved. In your story, there's an enslaved person.

There are different levels of like modernity in these different historical eras. So how do you think about approaching stories that have, for lack of a better term, I'm going to say like more like barbaric sort of like social mores for modern readers?

Michelle Deerwester-Dalrymple: So one thing I do tell all my readers is that because you're reading historical, especially because anything really prior to like The Enlightenment is really going to be dark and rough.

[00:17:00] You're just the nature of the kind of, like you said, the cultural mores, the what's accepted by society, just how you had to live and survive in those time periods, what was going on politically what was going on with you know, conflicting like clans and, you know, tribal loyalties and all that type of stuff.

It was just a darker era. You know, we just... like torture was just a thing. Like it's, it's so, it was very, it's, very complicating, but I try to make sure that my readers know like, Hey, this is accurate for the time period. So when you're going in, you know, it's at the bottom of a lot of my book excerpts is like, it reflects real historical, you know, aspects of the time period, which might be, you know, which, which tend to be darker.

And then on my webpage, I do have like a list of like some of the different triggers, which admittedly does need to be updated. I've written a couple of books that need to update it, but I let my readers know there are darker elements that do directly reflect the history so if you're familiar with like these types of things, if you've seen Spartacus, you have an [00:18:00] idea of how dark that can get.

And so I do think it's important because a lot of times historical readers will think, Oh, it's like a rom com or like I've seen Bridgerton. So I know all about historical romance and it's like, you know. Not, not so much. You know, we've tried to get rid of some of the more problematic, especially with regards to consent and everything, but dealing with stuff like issues of slavery and, you know, that was the norm for many cultures, many places, you know, through most of history, that's just, that's just an un, you know, unappreciable fact, but it also kind of helps that we're dealing with the Romans and the way the Romans did, you know, kind of their enslaved peoples was

very different from how we understand it today. So I think the space of time, that distance of time and the structure of how that was done, like, you know, you had these, you know, people that were that were colonized that were these defeated peoples that they had, you know what's the word I'm looking for? These [00:19:00] people that they have, yeah, the, that they had managed to subjugate because they they conquered them in battle. I think that's got a whole different like presentation, which makes it, I want to say easier to deal with it, any such image, but just gives you that time and that distance and that space where it's, it's problematic and you can address how it's problematic, but also show how it's just a reflection of what the daily culture was.

Katherine Grant: Yeah. Well, and I think readers have different levels of tolerance and interest and it can be something that someone's looking for. Especially, you know, I know Celeste Barclay, who you mentioned before we started recording, is a connection. You know, like the dark mafia romance and other sorts of dark romance, like those contemporary readers might find something very interesting in the historical romances that do take us back to this type of dynamic.

Michelle Deerwester-Dalrymple: That's one thing I do mention to people. Like if you are a dark romance fan, if you're into like the mafia romances, if you're into like the, you know which [00:20:00] I think like the haunting Adeline, if you're into some of those, the MC biker, right? Like if you're into those ones that are edgier and darker, definitely pick up a historical romance.

That's like renaissance, medieval, earlier because you will get a lot of those things because that's just how society and culture and and and norms were and it was just a weird unfortunate facet of history, but it's It also, I think, makes it more, like, immersive, like, you're able to kind of, because sometimes with dark romance, people are like, oh, that's so problematic today, you know, whereas if it seemed like, well, that was normal for that society in the Middle Ages, like, it makes it more immersive.

Maybe less like triggering or problematic for some people because they can understand like why it's there as opposed to something where it's 2024 and you're reading it like right.

Katherine Grant: It's less of like, I'm endorsing this by reading it. It's more like

Michelle Deerwester-Dalrymple: a really great way. Like, okay. I'm just seeing like what the world was like at that time period.

And it's a good thing we don't do that anymore. I can read it in a historical, but I [00:21:00] struggle with it in a contemporary book. Because that's not the world we live in anymore, or it seems like I'm advocating or endorsing something problematic.

And you're not. You can read what you want. Like, I'm not going to yuck anyone's yum. Like you read what you want to read. It's obviously not reality. It readings an escape for a reason. But some people still struggle with that. And so historical romance is a way to kind of do an end run around maybe some of those more problematic issues that we wouldn't want to read about in contemporary romance.

Katherine Grant: Yeah, absolutely. So you mentioned that you are currently writing fairy tale villain retellings, and I'm curious, they're fairy tale historicals so do you feel that you're, because they're fairy tales, are you dealing with different like reader expectations or reader reception on this historical setting?

Michelle Deerwester-Dalrymple: A little bit. So the larger focus of the story is that they're the villain retellings. And so I'm just taking the villain and then I'm just putting them in whatever historical time period that the fairy tale [00:22:00] like initiated or took place in. And I'm just creating a story about a character that when you're done, essentially they could be that, that villain.

So it's kind of far removed from the fairy tale itself. Some like run right up against where the fairy tale begins right where my story kind of ends, but it is a the character themselves. They're not like the villain that you see in the fairy tale itself. It's a completely different crafted character.

You know, it's a story. It's not like a, you know, like Disney fan fiction or anything, but it's, you know, it's this character. It's the story. But the historical comes in is that I'm Try to make sure that the world that I build for that fairy tale villain retelling is in a very historical sense. So like in my Cinderella

retelling, Before the Glass Slipper, it's in kind of around like late 16 early. I'm really kind of vague with the time. Cause to me, that's a little less important, but late 16, early 1700s France kind of more rural France, you know, not necessarily near Paris or anything. And so I kind of set up [00:23:00] the time period and the setting and I, I paint the scene with that.

The most recent book that I released for that is Before the Emerald Crown, which was actually took Disney's Brave and the Witch in the Woods archetype, which is one of my favorite literary archetypes. And I love that archetype. And I'm like, really, you have this old woman living by herself in the woods and she's automatically a witch.

How is that? Like, why is that always the case? And so that's the question I actually address in the book. And so I took that witch character from Brave and I just used it as like the launching point of how I found the character. And then I put her back a hundred years. So we're talking like, 800, 900 Scottish Highlands and you have like like clan conflict and you have clan rivalries and it actually ends up very badly for her family and so she has to kind of go stay with a family friend and the family friend teaches her like what people think like people leave you alone in the woods because they think you're like this crazy witch lady and so it delves into those issues and then her trying to figure out like who she is and why she has magic.

The biggest difference is that with my fairy tales [00:24:00] most of them have this magical element to them of course Before the glass slipper, not so much. There's a suggestion that the the governess is maybe like the fairy godmother. But other than that, there's not a whole lot of magic leading into that one.

But all the rest of them do. They, and magic isn't something that's really, you know, in the Maiden of the Storm, we have like druids and there's references, but it's very down to earth, very kind of nature oriented. Whereas this is actual real magic. And so if you're a historical romance reading, you don't love like magic or romanticy, obviously that's going to be an issue.

If you want higher steam, if you want the romance to be the focus of the story, that's going to be an issue. But a lot of people like the historicals, my historical is not for, they're like, I'll still read these, even though they're low steam, they do have romance in them. So I have had some transition.

They've been shockingly popular with the booktok community. So the, the romantasy elements is really big over there. Yeah. Romantic and kind of dark romance are really big over there. [00:25:00] So I've had a lot of people really kind of like the books and You know, ask about the books and reach out about the books over there, which was unexpected.

It was unexpected.

Katherine Grant: That's great though. Do you think there's a villain that you wouldn't want to redeem in a story?

Michelle Deerwester-Dalrymple: So at the end of the day, so the kind of the way I described the books is that it's basically young person experiences, trauma, young person tries to overcome trauma or is, is or, or overcomes the trauma.

Young person finds agency. Young person is now the villain. Like that's the structure. And then as you're reading it, like you're, the readers telling themselves, we would have done the same thing. I would have responded the same way. I would have had the same reaction. And then by the end of the book, they're like, I would have been the villain.

Like, so I don't want to say this late, the redeemable, because I kind of take them out of that villain structure and I just make them a person. But I, I do have my list of, and there's some words, like, I don't know if I'm going to get to that one. That was going to be low down on my list. For any number of reasons, reasons like like Aladdin with Jafar.

Like I can see how his story would unfold, but [00:26:00] there was a lot of kind of weird darkness there. It's also Middle Eastern and I'm not like overly fluent with like their social structures and their culture. And there would be a lot of like sensitivity reading and beta reading going on with that. That's outside of my normal purview.

I don't write Middle Eastern, you know? And so I want to make sure I did it correctly and I wouldn't want to like do the like vilification. At the end in the wrong way or anything like that. So once like that, where I'm like, I am not familiar with that culture, that's going to take a lot of extra steps for me to get there.

I don't want to create a villain. And then suddenly we have, you know, a, an issue that I didn't do it well. So something like that, I'm, I'm more hesitant towards, but I still have a whole story for Jafar.

So yeah, like it's

there, the notes written out. So so that's the only thing that would really be

like stopping me and then the tagline for those ones are villains aren't born, they're created to kind of, you know, get to the idea of, because [00:27:00] at the end of the book, I mean, and the other thing with the fairy tales is they are not happy ever after. Like there's kind of a happy ending, but it's like, you then know what happens next.

And so it's not the happy ending, the happily ever after that we're used to or expect with historical romance or romance in general. So that is something to keep in mind. I tell my readers straight up, this is not a happy, happily ever after like what you're used to with romances. So if that's important to you, keep that in mind as you're rolling into these books.

Katherine Grant: Yeah. Well, that's so interesting. And it's great that you've been able to explore these two different creative avenues from different historical romance eras to different romance subgenres to now these fairy tale retellings that aren't necessarily romances and don't necessarily have those same, they have a different sort of story that they're delivering.

Michelle Deerwester-Dalrymple: Yeah, definitely. Definitely.

Katherine Grant: Well, I think that makes it a good time to take our test, love it or leave it to find out how much of a romance rue follower are you?

[00:28:00]

Katherine Grant: So, love it or leave it, protagonists meet in the first 10 percent of the book.

Michelle Deerwester-Dalrymple: I kind of prefer it, but it's not it's not required for me.

My, I think I'm okay if it's a little bit longer, but I think I prefer it.

Katherine Grant: Love it or leave it, dual point of view narration.

Michelle Deerwester-Dalrymple: Again, midline on that one. I don't think I prefer it. I think I, I could leave that behind. If I had to leave one behind, I don't need dual, dual point of view. I'm okay with the one perspective point of view.

Katherine Grant: All right. Love it or leave it. Third person, past tense.

Michelle Deerwester-Dalrymple: I love third person, past tense.

I love it. I love it. Love it. That's one of my favorites.

Katherine Grant: Nice. Love it or leave it. Third act breakup or dark moment.

Michelle Deerwester-Dalrymple: I am a fan of it, but I don't like it when it's because of just some basic miscommunication sort of thing. Like to me, I like to have the, where it's to me, the darker, the better for that, that third act sort of, is this going to happen or not type of thing.

 As long as it's not something [00:29:00] like a pat sort of, oh, we had this weird miscommunication, which is funny because I literally wrote a miscommunication trope book. But one of my books, but I tried to make it like valid for why it happened. Like, it wasn't just like he realized right away, this was a stupid miscommunication.

Like I tried to redeem it a bit, but yeah, I'm I'm, I love it. I'll take it. I'll take a third act.

Katherine Grant: Okay love it or leave it, always end with an epilogue.

Michelle Deerwester-Dalrymple: I can leave that. I don't need an epilogue. It's funny because like when I watch movies, sometimes I'll be like, oh, but what happened after that? But not always.

Like, I'm okay with like, this is just, this is where this story ends and maybe there's going to be a whole other book afterwards. Maybe not. I'm okay with the story ending here. A lot of my readers don't like that though. They're like, I want the epilogue. And I'm like, okay, I'll give you an epilogue.

Katherine Grant: Love it or leave it, share research in your author's note.

Michelle Deerwester-Dalrymple: I do. I share a lot of my research, like where I found the ideas, where I'm coming from with it, the type of research I did. Some notes are more detailed than others, but a lot of times I try to, like, give at least a nod of where some of these ideas come from or what the [00:30:00] history is.

Katherine Grant: Awesome. Are there any other romance rules that you think you break or play with in your romance books?

Michelle Deerwester-Dalrymple: In my romance books. Okay. So I am a big fan of the kidnapping trope and the forced marriage. So like, I have to work to not put those into my books. Like so many of my books are like, and then one of the things that I do in my books are two things I should say that I didn't realize was a thing was one, I have tall girl representation.

I'm almost six feet tall. And so to me in my head, when I'm picturing a, like a heroine, she's almost as tall as the, as the male main character. And unless I specifically say she was tiny or petite, like in my head, those characters are at least five, seven. And so a lot of times people are like, wow, they're the same height almost.

I'm like, yeah. Okay. So there's, there's me and myself insert hardcore. Because that's the way I see the world is from way up high where I'm the same height or almost as tall or taller. Yeah than most of the male characters in my life. So

that

just, [00:31:00] and then the other kind of self insert I do is, and again, just the way I experienced the world is a lot of my female main characters are as ADHD as I am.

I actually leaned into it with one of my contemporaries. I'm like, you know what, we're just going to make her where she's, she's, wasn't diagnosed because she was assigned female at birth. And then, but she knows she's, she's been, you know, working with the doctor. She's not Medicaid. So she's just kind of that adult woman who's never been diagnosed and this is where she's at.

So I leaned into it pretty heavily. So I do have some kind of interesting, and then I do try to have some good disability representation. One of my kids has some pretty significant disabilities. So I try to be very kind of have that be very like forthright and have it be an option that I'm never really afraid of.

So if I do have disability, I try to get disability representation in there.

Katherine Grant: That's awesome. Do you ever... going back to the tall girl thing? Do you ever find yourself, Oh, I'm writing a short character. Now I have to figure out what are the physics and like, let me act out. How do they kiss?

Michelle Deerwester-Dalrymple: Yeah, I have.

Well, [00:32:00] fortunately, a lot of my friends are shorter and one friend in particular, I'm going to give a shout out to my friend Dawn. She's a tiny, tiny thing. And I just love her so much. And so she'll like make all these jokes. And so I always go to her jokes that she makes about my height. And I'm like, I invert them.

I'm like, okay, she said this, then it must be like this for her to, or she made a comment about this with her clothes. So I actually go back to like, and then my sister, one of my sisters is also very short. And so like, Whenever we're in pictures together, she's always like wearing high, super high heels and jumping to like, try to be as tall as us.

So again, I use her reflections on things that she said or references she's made to kind of be like, okay, would it be like this? But yeah, it is hard for me to see the world when, I mean, last night I wore heels and we were sitting down at a table and I stood up and I felt like a giraffe all of a sudden, I just.

It is. I did jumping jacks in a Zumba class once and it looked like Mothra was in the room. It is not. It is not. So yeah, it is kind of interesting to be able to say, okay, so this person is like, where would the door handle be? Like if she's [00:33:00] reaching for a door handle or if she's, Getting like, she's having to put something up on a shelf.

Like, okay. She's not just, just to reach over her head. Like I like those,

Katherine Grant: she might even need a stepstool.

Michelle Deerwester-Dalrymple: Yeah. I have, I have forgotten many a stepstool. So I guess my girls would just jump in. I think I have like three, maybe four books where the 60 that I have where I can honestly say it was actually someone who was on the shorter side, not a tall girl, all the rest of them.

Probably on the taller side.

Katherine Grant: That's hilarious. Well, Michelle, I really appreciate you taking the time to come talk to me today. Before we wrap up, where can our listeners find you and your books?

Michelle Deerwester-Dalrymple: Well, I'm on pretty much all social media, of course. I do have a link tree. It's the I think it's MD Dalrymple link tree is the, the name of it.

It's linked on all my social media sites. And so I'm on, you know, I'm on the gram I'm on, I'm on YouTube. I'm on, you know, Facebook. I have a couple of different Facebook pages for my different pen names. And then I [00:34:00] also have my. My book talk on TikTok. So I try to do all of those different variations.

You can find my books at, of course, Amazon. You can find them at Barnes and Nobles. You can find them at, like, Waterstones, Smash Smashwords, all those types of places. I also sell, I have my book boxes. One thing I've started doing that have been wildly popular is I've Book boxes I designed myself and sell for each series and they're like a mini book of the month club type of thing for my, my book series.

So through my own personal websites, like I have my own you can go to my website. It's sort of this whole dot org or wixsite. org and then backslash Michelle D Dalrymple and that has the links to all of the places where I sell my books directly. You can get eBooks directly from me.

You can get book books directly from me. You can get just signed books directly from me. So that's all available through either my link tree or my website, wherever people or any of my social media, wherever people want to find me.

Katherine Grant: Awesome. Well, I'll make sure to put those links in the show notes.

So listeners can find us. Yeah. Well, [00:35:00] thank you so much. I've really had fun talking to you.

Michelle Deerwester-Dalrymple: It was a pleasure. I was, you know, I was so excited because I'd seen your, like I said, I had seen your Instagram and those videos pop up. I had seen all the clips and I was like, this is such a cool thing. So I was really glad that I got to be a part of it.

Katherine Grant: Yeah. Thank you.

That's it for this week. Check out the show notes where I put links for my guests, myself, and the podcast. Until next week, happy reading.