Taking a Consumptive Courtesan into the 21st Century

Fallen—my most recent book—is a retelling of Verdi's La Traviata. But it is also a retelling of the original story on which the opera was based: La Dame aux camélias [The Lady of the Camellias] by Alexandre Dumas, fils.

The story is timeless, which explains why it's been adapted and retold in countless versions and multiple forms & languages, even by the author himself. Opera, ballet, film, stage, and yes, prose—all captivated by this tragic love. The movie Moulin Rouge! is one such retelling, and according to Wikipedia, there are 9 film adaptations entitled Camille, including the 1936 movie featuring Greta Garbo, not to mention the many film adaptations with other titles.

There were many challenges in trying to live up to the poignancy of the original, and of the retellings. (I'm anxious to know if I succeeded, which is to say, to see what readers think.) But one of the first was deciding how to make consumption (tuberculosis) into something relevant for modern-day Manhattan since, thankfully, TB isn't common in New York nowadays.

As I thought about the story I wanted to tell, already knowing I wanted to give more weight to the heroine's journey, I wanted to retain some of the key elements relating to consumption. The heroine's illness had to be life-threatening, and it needed to impact the lungs.

The rest of this post is up on Patreon, and in the interest of not doubling up content, click below to:

Keep Reading

And don't forget to grab your copy of Fallen—or read now in Kindle Unlimited!

Fallen is Officially Available!

I'm still struggling to believe it but:

4 years and 4 months—to the day!—since I first started writing it,

🎉 Fallen is officially available! 🎉

I realized fairly recently that I actually started writing this book before any of my others were published. My first novel (Mending Heartstrings) was originally published by a small press in December of 2014—almost 5 months after the first words of Fallen were written. It still blows my mind to think about it in those terms. Just a quick reminder about this story:

 Violetta Dorée wrings every drop of pleasure from her life, and Manhattan’s social elite are happy to help, pampering their darling with endless luxuries. And why not? She deserves a little fun before she dies.

But there are pleasures money can’t buy. When Adrian Thompson with his box-store khakis and overly concerned eyes insists that Vi’s missing out, her curiosity is piqued. What else can she do but indulge it?

Fans of Moulin Rouge! and Me Before You will love this contemporary retelling of Verdi’s La Traviata.

It's been quite an experience writing this retelling, which you can read about in these posts:

• A Lists of Firsts with Fallen
• The Story Behind Fallen
• Taking a Consumptive Courtesan into the 21st Century
• Psst. Through 11/6, there's a giveaway happening over on this post to celebrate the release!

Start Reading Fallen Here or Grab Your Copy!

A Halloween Treat: Mortal Musings and Murder

You may have seen a post circulating around social media (for a couple years now, on and off) that asserts any book's first line can be improved by making the second line:

"And then the murders began."

I tried it with a few of my own first lines, and the results are pretty fun. One I particularly liked was the one from Mortal Musings, partially because Brett is a mystery writer. So I wrote a quick (dark!) flash story set in an Alternative Universe of Mortal Musings, mixed with murder. My Halloween treat for you. 😉

 ---

Writer’s block had walled him in. Again. And then the murders began. 

A football player strung up to bleed out on the goal posts, found at early-morning practice.

The stay-at-home mom injected with a fatal paralytic then positioned at her kitchen counter, prepping the ingredients for that night’s stew. Toppled by her four-year-old’s hungry nudge.

The garbage man chopped into pieces and scattered around neighborhood compost bins.

Gruesome, senseless death. And as far as the police could tell, unconnected. 

Brett scoured the news, glued to any live updates, all saying the same thing: No one knew anything. Not one clue had been found.

On the fourth night, Brett woke, heart pounding from nightmares of wielding a long blade, eviscerating a trio of restaurant servers before trussing them up in the freezer. 

Unable to face the darkness, he staggered to the light switch then landed in front of his computer. His hands came to the keys.

The authorities might not be able to catch the killer, but Brett’s detective could. Piecing together the puzzle behind grisly deaths was what Pete lived for—why he’d been created. And now, Brett knew what puzzle Pete would solve.

As the dark turned to a timid morning gray, red and blue lights flashed outside Brett’s window—a new ineffective patrol. He shook his head and blinked the grit from his eyes. The blurry lines of text on his screen came to 6,863 new words.

Brett sighed and leaned back in his chair. A rustle in the silence spun him around.

Formidable and fearsome, his hallucination stood wiping blood off a broadsword. Her gleaming red hair fell smoothly to her waist, miraculously avoiding the myriad weapons secured to her curves.

“Well?” she asked, her blade catching the light as it wove deftly through the air. The tip landed beneath Brett’s chin, tilting his face up to meet the challenge in the apparition’s astoundingly green eyes. “Aren’t you going to thank me?”

Save the Date!

Fallen will be published on November 13th, 2018! 

Just 4 years and 4 months (to the day) after I started writing it.😂 In fact, I realized recently that I actually wrote the first words of Fallen before my first novel was published, which is mind-blowing. 

It also makes me extra-nervous to release this story out into the world, since so much time, energy, and emotion has gone into writing it. Fallen has been a departure in so many ways, since it's a retelling, is not a romance, and demanded to be written in first-person present, which I still believe is the hardest mode. But I hope you'll love it—and tell me even if you don't. 💕

Want to start reading now? Check out a sneak preview on Patreon!

About Fallen:

Violetta Dorée wrings every drop of pleasure from her life, and Manhattan's social elite are happy to help, pampering their darling with endless luxuries. And why not? She deserves a little fun before she dies.

But there are pleasures money can't buy. When Adrian Thompson with his box-store khakis and overly concerned eyes insists that Vi's missing out, her curiosity is piqued. What else can she do but indulge it?

Fans of Moulin Rouge! and Me Before You will love this contemporary retelling of Verdi's La Traviata.

Preorder your copy!

The Story Behind Fallen

I never thought I'd write a retelling. Oh sure, we can argue that every story comes down to one of a few basic plot lines, which is why we see all those graphics comparing hero journeys like Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings and Star Wars. But with plenty of ideas in my mind for characters I'd like to visit and get to know, a retelling was never the plan.

And yet... July 13th, 2014, I got to attend the San Francisco Opera's performance of Verdi's La Traviata. The first lines of my retelling, Fallen, wrote themselves in my mind even as I was trying to focus on the performance. 

Of course, this wasn't actually my first exposure to this story. An adaptation of the same story will be familiar to many of you: ever heard of the movie Moulin Rouge!? The first time I saw it, the tragic ending destroyed me. (Is it any wonder I usually write romances—i.e. stories with happily ever afters?) By the time I saw the opera, I was a bit more in control of my emotions. But still, the story latched on and wouldn't let go. 

Of course, Verdi's opera is not the original version of this story either. After jotting down the words that hit me while still in the opera house, I decided to read the original source material: La Dame aux camélias [The Lady of the Camellias] by Alexandre Dumas, fils. The story has been adapted numerous times for the stage—as an opera, and multiple ballets and plays—and many times for the screen, including the 1936 film Camille, starring Greta Garbo, and the aforementioned Moulin Rouge!. Clearly, it is a story that resonates with many.

One thing that hit me in both Moulin Rouge! and La Traviata, the only two I'd seen when I started writing*, is that the story is framed around the hero—a young man, naive about the world, who falls in love with a fatally ill courtesan and is transformed by the experience. Unsurprising, as it turned out the original story is told almost entirely from the hero's perspective, recounted after the fact to an interested party (remember how Christian "writes their story" in the end? A direct reference to the original framework).

*Wanting to preserve my own perspective on these characters, I decided not to explore any other adaptations while writing, beyond the ones I had already seen and the original story. (I actually celebrated finishing the first draft by watching John Neumeier's ballet, which led me to discover the extensive list of adaptations.)

The heroine's perspective in the original is relegated to a letter at the end, explaining the pieces the hero didn't know. Both the opera and 2001 film gave a bit more depth to the heroine, exploring her perspective on the notion of love, but still primarily used her as a learning experience for their heroes. Perhaps this is because in all three versions, the heroine is a woman who sells herself first, and becomes sick second.

Not so in Fallen, where I wanted to focus more on the heroine, on what drives the choices she makes, as well as the reasons behind them. On how a fatal illness shapes her life, her decisions, and of course her relationships.

Still, I was presented with the challenge of bringing a consumptive courtesan's tragic love story into the 21st century. Hopefully, by the time the story is ready for publication, I will have succeeded.

Meanwhile, you can add it on Goodreads and check out the first chapters on Patreon!

Introducing My Brand New Patreon Page!

As many of you know, the last year and a half or so have been a pretty spectacular mess for me, which of course in turn derailed my writing and publishing plans. I'm still trying to recover from all that and find a new "normal." The limited time & energy I can use for work has been necessarily dedicated to the "day" job—work that earns me money.

I'd love to continue creating stories and putting them out there for readers, so I've been trying to figure out a way to make writing a viable option. To that end, I've created a brand new Patreon page, which I hope will end up being an integral part of the solution. 

The basic idea behind Patreon is that Patrons (like you!) offer support in different tiers ($1, $3, etc.), primarily to help Creators (authors, musicians, etc.) continue creating their works. In exchange, Patrons receive rewards, including exclusive content. Patron rewards can be just about anything, and mine currently include first looks at my works-in-progress, behind-the-scenes access, some book-specific goodies, and more. You can check out all the rewards directly on my Patreon page, with absolutely no commitment. Right now, all Patrons will instantly have access to the first three chapters of Fallen!

Any finished stories will continue to be published and available for purchase through retailers, of course, but if you want to be among the first to read them, to see how they come into being, and generally to give me a chance to keep writing them, I hope you'll consider becoming a Patron. Hopefully then, the stories in my head can finally make it onto the page—and out into the world. 💕

I completely understand that not everyone has the ability to lend financial support by becoming a Patron. So I also wanted to include a reminder of some absolutely free ways you can help me keep writing:

1. Leave honest reviews of my books everywhere you can (on retailers like Amazon, on Goodreads, on your own website if appropriate, etc.).
2. If you enjoyed a book, tell your friends!
3. Add my books on Goodreads, including to your TBR list if you haven't had a chance to read yet.
4. Share my books—or my Patreon page—on your social media, for example by sharing a photo of yourself with the book.
• Don't have a print copy? Take a photo with your kindle open to the book's cover!
5. Ask your local library to stock my books (digital or print), then borrow, read, and do #1–4.
6. Engage with my social media posts so that algorithms help them be seen by more readers.

Bonus (note that this isn't a free method): check out everything available in my Zazzle store, and find your favorite new bookish goodies!

However you support my writing, thank you. I couldn't do this without you. 💕