Please join us in welcoming her as she talks about her upcoming book, The Merchant's Daughter.
Melanie says:
Who doesn’t love a good Beauty and the Beast story?
I’ve always been fascinated with the traditional Beauty and the Beast fairy tale. I even wrote my own short-story version when I was still in high school. I found it last weekend when I was visiting my mother. She made me go through some old boxes of stuff that had been shoved under my bed for the past twen—okay, we won’t say exactly how many years. A lot. Anyway, there was my Beauty and the Beast story, along with a cover letter in an envelope, addressed to a magazine editor. Yep, I was already trying to get published way back then. Too bad I gave up writing right after that, for about fifteen years. Who knows how many books I’d have out right now if I hadn’t quit? Oh well.
As I was saying, Beauty and the Beast has always been a favorite story. I love its themes of inner beauty overcoming the shallowness of external beauty, of character being more important than wealth, and love overcoming evil. And those are some of the themes that surfaced in my version of the story. (I don’t add themes deliberately to my stories. They just seem to show up.)
When I was, ah-hem, quite young, my favorite TV show was Beauty and the Beast, with Ron Perlman and Linda Hamilton. And Disney came out with a great version of the story.
I have also read a few novels that are wonderful versions of the story. A great YA version is Beauty by Robin McKinley. In fact, when I read it I didn’t think I would ever be able to write a Beauty and the Beast story because hers was so good. But mine is completely different in that it is strictly a Medieval romance, no magic, just straight historical romance. Beastly by Alex Flinn is a more recent, contemporary version, also now a movie.
So my book is in good company, I guess. I am always interested in how other authors tweak this classic story. I love taking a classic fairy tale, a few of its basic elements, and expanding on them and making my own romantic story out of them.
So, if you read The Merchant’s Daughter, I hope you like it. I would love for you to friend me on facebook, or visit me on my website ( http://www.melaniedickerson.com/ ) and check out the trailers for both my books, The Healer’s Apprentice and The Merchant’s Daughter. The guy who does my covers did the trailers, and they are wonderful.
Please leave a comment and let me know what you think of Beauty and the Beast, if you’ve read any good Beauty and the Beast stories, and, if you are a writer, how you deal with themes in your books.
