Dreams and Nightmares and Midsummer Night.

Ill met by moonlight ?

Fellow Choclit author Alison May's latest book came out in ebook last Friday. One of her Twentieth Century Bard series, it's a modern reworking of the Shakespeare play, A Midsummer Night's Dream. Called, appropriately, Midsummer Dreams. As part of the launch celebration a number of fellow authors blogged about dreams and nightmares, and that got me thinking about the fact that both are the stuff of romantic suspense.

Extreme emotions are the bedrock of the genre - fear and love. How often have you heard it said that a painful experience in the waking world was 'a nightmare'. And, of course, love is so often linked to hopes and dreams. Really, when you think about it, this has to be day dreams, as sleeping dreams usually don't make sense. At least, mine don't.

Nightmares don't make sense either, but the emotion they usually provoke, of fear, is real. And that's where I come in, turning those emotions into a story. (Pause for evil laughter.) Why are we, as readers, so interested in crime and mayhem? No wants it in real life, but between the pages of a book - that's different. And, of course, love and romance turn up the heat too. Crime and romance are two of the most popular genres of fiction. Plenty to get your heart beating faster in both of them!

As I say frequently, it is very much easier to turn up the heat between hero and heroine when they are facing some external threat together. Nothing like fighting for your life to persuade you that the guy/girl fighting next to you just might be 'The One'. But first the writer has to decide on the threat. Nightmares are not much good for plot, the writer has to provide that, but they are great for the scary stuff - claustrophobia, being chased, being thrust into a situation that you are totally unprepared for. Anxiety dreams - but all the ingredients of a romantic suspense hair raiser, right there, in your own comfy bed.

Alison's book is in a much lighter vein, but if it follows the Shakespeare play, it has it's dark moments too. I'm looking forward to finding out how she has handled the supernatural elements of the play. Are the lovers going to be held under the spell of a mysterious love potion? And it all has to work out in the span of one night, The seasonal dates on the calendar have always had a certain resonance - the summer and winter solstices, midsummer, Halloween, points where supernatural realms are mean to be much closer to the regular human ones. Time when you can believe in magic. And dreams?

About Alison May's Midsummer Dreams

Four people. Four messy lives. One party that changes everything … Emily is obsessed with ending her father’s new relationship – but is blind to the fact that her own is far from perfect. Dominic has spent so long making other people happy that he’s hardly noticed he’s not happy himself. Helen has loved the same man, unrequitedly, for ten years. Now she may have to face up to the fact that he will never be hers. Alex has always played the field. But when he finally meets a girl he wants to commit to, she is just out of his reach. At a midsummer wedding party, the bonds that tie the four friends together begin to unravel and show them that, sometimes, the sensible choice is not always the right one.

You can download the kindle edition of Midsummer Dreams HERE

The nine men's morris is filled up with mud ...

Crosser than a wet hen. That was me, last Wednesday, caught in a downpour on Sloper Road, on my way to the Archives. Too far along to go back to my favourite bus stop – the one I always shelter in when I get caught in a downpour on the way to the Archives (Can you see a pattern here?) I waded on, and arrived Very Wet Indeed.  


Then on Saturday/Sunday night, with the wind howling round the house and things falling over on the back yard, my writer’s imagination began to work overtime about what exactly was making that ominous crashing sound. In the daylight? Nothing I could see. Obviously not in my back yard. 


Then yesterday, on a quick train trip to London, seeing new ponds in the middle of fields – despite the drought.  


Weather is looming large in my mind – and I’m sure I’m not the only one. 


The waterlogged fields brought up that quotation from Midsummer Night’s Dream. It’s part of a complex speech from Titania, claiming that the problems with the weather arise from a falling out between herself and Oberon, the fairy king. After the wettest UK April on record, and with the predictions for May not much better, I’m beginning to wonder if they are still arguing. What exactly is a Nine Man’s Morris? My ancient Signet version of the play confidently asserts that it is squares cut in turf for a game, played with nine counters, but I’ve heard that folklore experts cannot identify any such game ever being played. I don’t know what is right, but it is one of those quotations that always sums up horribly wet weather in my mind. I can just see the squares in the turf, slowly filling up, and oozing …

I seem to be a bit obsessed with Midsummer Night’s Dream at the moment, possibly because I am already beginning to be afraid that this is going to be yet another year when we don’t get a summer – although actually that is not true – we had that week. In March.

I know my dislike of cold and wet influences my writing – and reading – habits. I’ve just abandoned a book because the setting was unrelenting snow – the descriptions were excellent and it was making me too cold to read it. One of the pieces of advice sometimes given to writers is to make your characters uncomfortable. It’s supposed to make a book edgy, to have your protagonists physically miserable. I can’t do that. I’d much rather make them emotionally miserable, while the sun shines on them. I get more fun out of that, and keep my feet dry. Although I did give my hero, Devlin, his own personal rain cloud after he walked out on Kaz. (Bad decision, good reasons – at least he thought so.) It followed him around for quite a few chapters. I think of my books as holiday reading – which is why I like to set them in beautiful places, where the sun shines.

So – if you want something dark and sinister, to read on the beach …