Today we have the awesome Jenniffer Wardell and her latest baby, er, release, Dreamless.
Jennifer is a woman after my own, overly sarcastic taste. Her writing is both clever and fun. Dreamless is an imaginative retelling of Sleeping Beauty, only Elena's not asleep yet, and she's not about to go under without a fight. Cam is her fun, handsome bodyguard turned admirer, and he's ready to help in any way he can. Punching stuff is his specialty.
I put Jenniffer through my random interview questions. This is what she came up with:
If your enemies banished you to Hell, what
breakfast food would you be forced to eat every morning?
Black pudding, AKA blood sausage. I tried it
recently on a trip to Ireland, before I realized what was in it, and it takes
like the ghost of long-departed sausage, now haunting the husk of a burned-out
barn in the dead of night.
Valentine's Day, romance or horror?
Action, actually. I always want my sprays of
blood to come with epic sword swings, punches and explosions.
If you had a Darth Vader head stress ball,
would you actually squish it?
So much. And I would yell at Anakin as I did
it for screwing up three generations of people with his issues.
Could Cam from Dreamless beat Mr. Darcy from
Pride and Prejudice and Zombies in a fight?
If it was just a "look at how tough"
we are fight, I'm not sure – Mr. Darcy is terrifying, but he's forgotten how to
fight for fun. Cam is less intense, but he's been practicing with his siblings
for years.
If it was a fight to the death, Cam would win
because he'd cheat. And if that didn't look like it was going to work, Elena
would use magic to cheat for him.
Let's say you have to rewrite Dreamless as a
horror, give us a 3-5 sentence summary. Feel free to be gory.
The darkness has stalked Elena all her life,
the curse of a vengeful aunt who sees her entire existence as a betrayal. Now
that the clock is ticking down, she can feel the cold black claws of her fate
inch closer. Will she finally succeed in defeating it, or will the darkness
consume her completely?
What is your favorite moment of Dreamless?
That you can talk about.
I don’t know if I can pick an absolute
favorite moment, but one I really loved is when we see Elena sneak out of the
castle to go flying. Up until that point she’s seemed very reserved and
controlled in everything she does, but the flying scene is a chance for her to
let her more playful side come out where she doesn’t think anyone else can see
her. I liked Elena before that, but it was while I was writing that scene for
the first time that she really endeared herself to me.
What character would you want to spend the
day with? What would you do?
I’d love to have Elena teach me magic, or Cam
teach me swordfighting, but I’d also love to spend even a half-hour with Braith
(the undead wraith who’s like an uncle to Elena). I’d get to see a wraith,
which is cool, and I’d also get the magical discussion and see what kind of
gossip an undead magic user who’s been alive for centuries has up his sleeve.
Gloat. Why your book? What makes it awesome?
One, I don’t think there are enough fairy
tales out there that manage to be funny without turning into parodies, so I
feel like “Dreamless” and my other books fill in a nice little gap on people’s
bookshelves. Two, this is a version of “Sleeping Beauty” that really gives the
power back to the titular princess. In a lot of versions someone else has to
rescue her, but in “Dreamless” it ends up being Elena’s job to rescue herself.
She has people who love her and want to help, but in the end the real decision
is in her hands.
See! She's awesome. And her books are fantastic. Go read them, you'll laugh.
If you'd like to follow Jenniffer, start at her blog
You can find all the avenues of stalking her there.
