2024 COVERS

2024 covers

Welcome to the Dark Side!

We are writers mainly from Australia and New Zealand who write speculative fiction with romantic elements. Be it fantasy, paranormal, dark urban fantasy, futuristic and everything in between.

Saturday 22 March 2014

Enchanted Orb with Danielle Belwater


Welcome to another Enchanted Orb with Danielle Belwater who shares with us her love of music and her muse.

Having been a West Coast Swing dancer and teacher in a former incantation of myself, music is in my soul. Every song has a story to tell if you listen hard enough.

One of my favourite games to play in the car is ‘story in a song’. (That’s not a real game, I made it up.) I’ll hear a song on the radio or iPhone and will make up characters and a plot to the suit the song. Some songs talk louder than others depending on the tone or words if they are particularly emotive. However; this has often resulted in having to pull over on the side of the road to scribble it down.

The song Wide Awake by Katy Perry provides such a rich fantastical tale. I wrote a short story of twelve year old Triny, who discovers the living marble statue of a woman in a field of bluebells, dressed in nothing but the pages of books. Triny finds that the words on the aging pages hold the story of her young but tragic life. To escape her menacing great aunt, Triny must navigate a labyrinth of danger and face her fears to find the key. The key unlocks a bookcase that holds the magical tome, in which she can alter her destiny.

The first book in my Japanese myth series that I’m currently writing came from the song Let Her Go, by Passenger. It tells the story of Michio Hunter who falls in love with the ghost, Reika. Reika is trapped, forever haunting the cherry blossom forest where her murdered body lays hidden. Michio is the only one who can save Reika’s soul from the clutches of the Underworld, but in doing so, she will be allowed into Heaven and he will lose her.

Which brings me to Of Fire & Roses. I had the song Never Let Me Go by Florence + The Machine on repeat. Hidden amongst its haunting lyrics and soulful melody were such detailed characters and a rich story.

Songs can be interpreted in many ways but this song to me, speaks of the cruel pain of separation where only death can bring relief. While the majority of romance novels are written from the heroine’s point of view, strangely enough it was Nate that was doing the talking. It was his pain that I was hearing throughout the words of the song. He was seeing his love from another place, another astral plane and it was his pain of being separated from Cora that called out.

Originally a stand alone, as I wrote, other characters appeared that shouted at me to tell their stories as well. So there are at least another two, possibly three books to come.

So that is where my muse hides, amongst the bars of a tune and the lilting hum of a melody.

BLURB

Nathaniel West’s mother is dead, his father a lost cause. Anger has become a way of life, until he meets and falls in love with Cora Ewell. Only Cora has a secret, one that could kill them both.

An age old dark magic resurfaces and it becomes a race against time for Cora and Nate to find the long buried secrets to saving everyone they love and each other.

After a near fatal accident leaves Nate in limbo, he must find a way to get through to Cora before time runs out and she is forced into life eternal with the evil wizard, Elias Stafford.

 
BUY OF FIRE & ROSES
 
 
Amazon US eBook
 
Amazon AUS ebook
 

About Danielle

Danielle Belwater adores the concept of true love and truly believes everyone has their Prince Charming or Snow White out there somewhere, even if they have to fight demons, ghosts, and wizards to find it.

Danielle has been having a love affair with words since she was young and in primary school, writing some rather imaginative tales. This love has followed her into adulthood. 

She lives in rural South Australia with her husband, young daughters and way too many animals to mention. She spends most of her time dreaming up characters, stories, ghostly tales, and watching Firefly re-runs. She also cooks the odd meal for her family to avoid them looking like skeletons at official author functions!

Danielle is passionate about reading and her interests include pretty much anything with words from rolling four volume epics to the daily newspaper.

Where to find Danielle
 
 
 
 
 
 
 









1 comment:

  1. Thanks for sharing this, Danielle, what a great post! All the best with your sales :)

    ReplyDelete

check out all our books on our dsdu-books shelf:
DarkSide DownUnder's book lists (dsdu-books shelf)