.#Review Guest Post The Peculiar Pets Of Miss Pleasance by @DelilahSDawson @Pocket_Books

The Peculiar Pets of Miss Pleasance (Blud #1.6)

by Delilah S. Dawson
ebook, 100pgs.
Published April 1st, 2013 by Pocket Star 
Copy provided by pub.

A lady with a penchant for pets meets a sexy fireman in this magical and saucy steampunk eNovella from the author of Wicked as They Come.
In a world ruled by blood, live pets are rare and kindness rarer still. London pet shop owner Frannie Pleasance has a mysterious way with animals and keeps her charges (and heart) locked in a veritable Eden. She thinks Casper Sterling is just another stray…until she takes in the troublesome lodger (and unwelcome suitor) and becomes the victim of a series of strange and dangerous occurrences.
When an unexplained fire threatens to destroy Frannie's carefully guarded world, firefighter Thom Maccallan is there to extinguish the blaze and help gather the lost creatures. The heat between Frannie and Thom begins to burn, but someone's still after the lady. Could it be Casper himself, or is Frannie’s new lodger just another victim of fate? Will they be able to figure out who's pursuing Frannie—and stop them—before she loses everything?

The Blud Series:

Wicked As They Come (Blud #1)
The Mysterious Madam Morpho (Blud, #1.5) 
  The Peculiar Pets of Miss Pleasance (Blud, #1.6) 
 Wicked as She Wants (Blud, #2) 
The Damsel and the Daggerman (Blud, #2.5)  
 Wicked After Midnight (Blud, #3)               



      

From Seed to Story: It Started with Thor

Here's a confession: THE PECULIAR PETS OF MISS PLEASANCE started from one thought.

Thor in a kilt.

It was that simple. Imagine Chris Hemsworth as Thor, with his longish hair and beard stubble and muscles and combination of sweetness and do-goodery. Now put him in a kilt and give him a Scottish accent. I named him Thom Macallan and decided that I wanted to spend about 150 pages with him, and that was the beginning of the latest e-novella in my Blud series for Pocket.

The hero of my first book, WICKED AS THEY COME, is a darkly handsome circus ringmaster, a blood drinker, thief, and cold-blooded killer with his own code of ethics. The hero of my e-novella THE MYSTERIOUS MADAM MORPHO is a hermetic inventor, an intelligent and blunt man of passion and humor. The hero of my second book, WICKED AS SHE WANTS, is a debauched Southern gentleman with a dark side. And so, for me, Thom Macallan is a different sort of male lead. Kinder, gentler, sweeter, but with a core of steel and a tragic past. Yummy.

The next step in storycraft was to find the perfect woman to compliment Thom, and that's how Frannie Pleasance was born. I have a tendency to write damaged women, and Frannie is a soft-hearted pet shop owner in a gritty part of London, scraping by alone in her little Eden and guarding her heart as well as her animals. When she takes in a debauched but famous musician as a lodger, a series of unexplainable events threaten her life. Thom is the perfect hero to rush in in his fireman's gear and win Frannie's heart.

While WICKED AS THEY COME and THE MYSTERIOUS MADAM MORPHO take place in a traveling circus, I wanted to set this e-novella in London and explore the everyday life in Sang that Criminy and his caravan have rejected. Frannie's corner of London abuts the daimon district, and the reader gets an introduction to the colorful and magical creatures that inhabit Paris and star in my third book, WICKED AFTER MIDNIGHT.

Although my world is predicated on Bludmen, the blood drinking quasi-vampires and vampiric animals that strike fear into the hearts of humans, PECULIAR PETS is a very human story with a very human heart. Still, there's enough danger and magic to appeal to earlier fans, and hopefully enough hook to drag new readers into the rest of the series.

So if you like excitement, sweet romance, hidden gardens, bloodthirsty fuzzballs, colorful magic, steamy sex, and, yes, 150 pages of THOR IN A KILT, I hope you'll check it out. Thom can't wait to meet you!

Thanks so much for the chance to visit! And if you like the Blud world and artisan perfumes, be sure to check out the character-based perfumes ans soaps from Villainess Soaps (http://www.villainess.net/wicked/). Seven new scents will debut this April to cover both books and novellas.

About The Author:

Delilah S. Dawson comes from a long line of Roswell, GA natives. WICKED AS THEY COME is the first in her Blud series for Pocket/S&S, and a creepy paranormal YA, SERVANTS OF THE STORM, will be out with Simon Pulse in 2014. Delilah is a member of the Romance Writers of America and the Georgia Romance Writers. She is also an Associate Editor at www.CoolMomPicks.com and www.CoolMomTech.com, where she is given the more eccentric and geeky products to cover. Delilah lives with her husband, two small children, and two cats in Atlanta. Find out more at www.delilahsdawson.com.

No matter what the circumstances, one thing is for certain,

Delilah Dawson delivers once again in the next novella of the Blud series.

 

In this next installment to the Blud world, we as readers get another introduction to Casper Sterling. Casper made a brief, but vital introduction in the first book, Wicked As They Come, and as we gear up with excitement, over his soon to be released book, Wicked As She Wants, we get a brief look at his life in Paris as a famous musician, and the unlikely heroin who saves him and takes him into her home. Although Casper is part of this story, this story is less about him and more about the quiet, but cunning female lead, Frannie.

Frannie is a lovely pet shop owner, catering to the mostly rich people of Paris. She leads a quiet life and mostly keeps to herself and her animals, but all that changes within days, as she meets not one, but two men who vie for her attention. Casper is one of those men, as she stumbles across him one day, laying in the street, nearly dead. She rescues him, and offers him a place to stay. Next, to enter her life is the hulking, uber sexy Scottish, kilt wearing fireman (can you picture him, no? then see above!) Sweet and gentle, he is the complete opposite of the crass Casper, but let me clear one thing up for you, this really isn't a love triangle. Frannie has her favorite, as the sparks are inevitable, but that doesn't stop either one of them from trying to persuade her, and win her over, but life for Frannie becomes more, and more dangerous and her life is in danger since these two have walked into her life. One must wonder if it's because of her letting these men into her life, or if there is a sinister man from her past who has come back to enact revenge.

I really enjoyed the first two books in the series, Wicked As They Come and The Mysterious Madam Morpho, as they were set in the magical world of Sang and the traveling circus, and although this one was different from those two, I equally enjoyed Miss Dawson's creative spin to the world of Sang in Paris, but I did miss some of the excitement of the blud creatures, and missed the quirky characters of the circus. One thing I can give credit too, is the writing style of Miss Dawson's and how she can write a novella and have me flipping through the pages, holding my attention to the very last page, although this isn't my favorite from the series, it is a good addition to her series. Will I look forward to more from this author? Of course, and I will be reading the next book in this series, very soon.

4/5