Nenia Campbell's Blog, page 5
January 27, 2024
Little Deaths and Female Rage
Warning, this little essay will have SPOILERS for the book if you haven't read LITTLE DEATHS already!!
I got the idea for this book when I read about the 1985 Austrian diethylene glycol wine scandal. Originally, it was going to be set on a winery and be mafia-related and the hero was going to be the younger brother of the heroine's husband, instead of her stepson. (But I thought it would be more fun-- and also nastier-- if it was the stepson.) But I had just written a mafia book about cocaine smuggling (hi, FBI handler reading this, just casually confirming that all that sus research I did was for FICTION and not for usage IRL, xoxo), and didn't want to do ANOTHER drug smuggling book because that felt like it would be too derivative.
Then I thought gothic. And then I thought pulp horror.
I am a huge horror wuss but I love gothic and pulp horror, especially if it's not too violent. One of the things that fascinates me is the concept of the scream queen and the final girl. In a lot of classic horror movies, there's a lot of male gaze and (possibly unintentional) sexism rooted in the films: the girls who sleep around get killed off, they're often filmed running in terror while scantily clad, the girls who scream loudest and most prettily get to be the stars, etc. When it comes to who survives in a horror movie, the rules aren't always very feminist, and shocking displays of often sexually-charged violence against women is a huge part of the horror aspect.
LITTLE DEATHS pays homage to everything I love about horror while also challenging some of the less palatable elements of it. The heroine is a washed-up scream queen who has been horribly used by the people who were in charge of her career, and she has been reduced to a sex symbol and has-been, trotted out to do Halloween promotions and ogled by men who got off to her movies when they were young. At one point the hero describes her as a cross between "Wednesday Addams and Zsa Zsa Gabor," which I think sums up her character perfectly.
I've always wanted to write a super girly, super feminine character who was a little bit morally gray and a whole lot more than what everyone thought of her. This book has one of my favorite endings that I've ever written because everyone assumes that she's a helpless bimbo, just like the ones that she played on the big screen. But the secret of this terrible actress is that she is actually a very good actress: and she might have just fooled everyone, after all. ♥
I got the idea for this book when I read about the 1985 Austrian diethylene glycol wine scandal. Originally, it was going to be set on a winery and be mafia-related and the hero was going to be the younger brother of the heroine's husband, instead of her stepson. (But I thought it would be more fun-- and also nastier-- if it was the stepson.) But I had just written a mafia book about cocaine smuggling (hi, FBI handler reading this, just casually confirming that all that sus research I did was for FICTION and not for usage IRL, xoxo), and didn't want to do ANOTHER drug smuggling book because that felt like it would be too derivative.
Then I thought gothic. And then I thought pulp horror.
I am a huge horror wuss but I love gothic and pulp horror, especially if it's not too violent. One of the things that fascinates me is the concept of the scream queen and the final girl. In a lot of classic horror movies, there's a lot of male gaze and (possibly unintentional) sexism rooted in the films: the girls who sleep around get killed off, they're often filmed running in terror while scantily clad, the girls who scream loudest and most prettily get to be the stars, etc. When it comes to who survives in a horror movie, the rules aren't always very feminist, and shocking displays of often sexually-charged violence against women is a huge part of the horror aspect.
LITTLE DEATHS pays homage to everything I love about horror while also challenging some of the less palatable elements of it. The heroine is a washed-up scream queen who has been horribly used by the people who were in charge of her career, and she has been reduced to a sex symbol and has-been, trotted out to do Halloween promotions and ogled by men who got off to her movies when they were young. At one point the hero describes her as a cross between "Wednesday Addams and Zsa Zsa Gabor," which I think sums up her character perfectly.
I've always wanted to write a super girly, super feminine character who was a little bit morally gray and a whole lot more than what everyone thought of her. This book has one of my favorite endings that I've ever written because everyone assumes that she's a helpless bimbo, just like the ones that she played on the big screen. But the secret of this terrible actress is that she is actually a very good actress: and she might have just fooled everyone, after all. ♥
January 13, 2024
5 IRL Things That Inspired My Books
Since I have quite the backlist now, I thought it would be fun to discuss five topics in my books and the real life events that inspired them. :)
1. Chess in the Horrorscape series. I actually play chess. I used to be fairly good at it-- and have played against national masters-- but I was way better at the antichess variant, in which the goal is to lose all of your pieces first in a series of forced captures. (In fact, I once beat one of said NMs at antichess!) I thought it would be creepy if someone took that one level further and built a series of killings around an imaginary game of chess! And boom-- that inspired the serial killer in the book. :)
2. Pulp horror in Little Deaths. To research for the book, I read a lot of books about trash cinema and Roger Corman (seriously, his movies are pretty wild!). I wanted to write about an actress who was in movies that people loved but didn't take seriously as "real" art. There's a mini documentary on Vox about The Room where the host talks about "Z-films," which become cult classics but don't necessarily do well commercially. People who appreciate Z-films and trash cinema are often correlated with having higher intelligence because, as with the appeal of foreign or art house films, these are movies that are often avant-garde and challenge the status quo. The direct-to-VHS boom was so freeing when it came to output and creativity, but for someone like Donni, I felt like it could lead to type-casting and an inability to see her beyond "just another scream queen."
3. Medieval literature/history in Batter My Heart. For reasons I won't be getting into, I ended up taking a medieval lit class during my first year of college. It wasn't relevant to my studies-- I just needed the credits-- and I used to joke at how useless it was, and how I'd never use that knowledge for anything. Then over a decade later, I crammed all of that knowledge into BMH by making the hero a medieval lit scholar who is also working on a dense and literary romance novel as his thesis. Before the heroine convinces him to give it a happy ending, the story he writes is loosely based on the story of Pedro and Ines of Portugal. Look it up. It's Game of Thrones dark and does NOT have an HEA.
4. Food allergies in Raise the Blood. I haven't seen a lot of books that have characters with food sensitivities/allergies, outside of mystery novels. I gave the heroine mine because I am an advocate for food allergy/sensitivity awareness. Food is a central and unavoidable part of our lives and if you have dietary restrictions that you need to follow for the sake of your health, it can be very invasive and stressful to deal with. I can't dine out spontaneously, and I have to read the ingredients labels of everything I consume that isn't a single ingredient (like an apple). Characters with food allergies often get killed off in mysteries, so I thought it would be fun to write one where the poor allergy/sensitivity-laden person doesn't die; they just get put out of commission for a while.
5. Video rentals in Rent Girl. While watching a documentary about the last functional Blockbuster video store, I couldn't stop thinking about those cassettes and what a perfect vehicle they would make for smuggling hidden items. Especially when the people being interviewed talked about some of the things the people left in the cassettes by mistake. (Or shall we say, "mistake"?) It made me think, Why not drugs? And the bare bones of this story were formed. Also, I just think video stores are incredibly nostalgic. If you've ever been in one, you can INSTANTLY recall the smell, just like that (old popcorn and carpet cleaner). I wanted Rent Girl to feel like a sleazy, low-budget crimesploitation story that you could actually FIND at a video rental store back in the day, so it ended up becoming a very meta work.
I hope this was interesting to some of you. LMK if you'd like to see more posts like this sometime. :)
1. Chess in the Horrorscape series. I actually play chess. I used to be fairly good at it-- and have played against national masters-- but I was way better at the antichess variant, in which the goal is to lose all of your pieces first in a series of forced captures. (In fact, I once beat one of said NMs at antichess!) I thought it would be creepy if someone took that one level further and built a series of killings around an imaginary game of chess! And boom-- that inspired the serial killer in the book. :)
2. Pulp horror in Little Deaths. To research for the book, I read a lot of books about trash cinema and Roger Corman (seriously, his movies are pretty wild!). I wanted to write about an actress who was in movies that people loved but didn't take seriously as "real" art. There's a mini documentary on Vox about The Room where the host talks about "Z-films," which become cult classics but don't necessarily do well commercially. People who appreciate Z-films and trash cinema are often correlated with having higher intelligence because, as with the appeal of foreign or art house films, these are movies that are often avant-garde and challenge the status quo. The direct-to-VHS boom was so freeing when it came to output and creativity, but for someone like Donni, I felt like it could lead to type-casting and an inability to see her beyond "just another scream queen."
3. Medieval literature/history in Batter My Heart. For reasons I won't be getting into, I ended up taking a medieval lit class during my first year of college. It wasn't relevant to my studies-- I just needed the credits-- and I used to joke at how useless it was, and how I'd never use that knowledge for anything. Then over a decade later, I crammed all of that knowledge into BMH by making the hero a medieval lit scholar who is also working on a dense and literary romance novel as his thesis. Before the heroine convinces him to give it a happy ending, the story he writes is loosely based on the story of Pedro and Ines of Portugal. Look it up. It's Game of Thrones dark and does NOT have an HEA.
4. Food allergies in Raise the Blood. I haven't seen a lot of books that have characters with food sensitivities/allergies, outside of mystery novels. I gave the heroine mine because I am an advocate for food allergy/sensitivity awareness. Food is a central and unavoidable part of our lives and if you have dietary restrictions that you need to follow for the sake of your health, it can be very invasive and stressful to deal with. I can't dine out spontaneously, and I have to read the ingredients labels of everything I consume that isn't a single ingredient (like an apple). Characters with food allergies often get killed off in mysteries, so I thought it would be fun to write one where the poor allergy/sensitivity-laden person doesn't die; they just get put out of commission for a while.
5. Video rentals in Rent Girl. While watching a documentary about the last functional Blockbuster video store, I couldn't stop thinking about those cassettes and what a perfect vehicle they would make for smuggling hidden items. Especially when the people being interviewed talked about some of the things the people left in the cassettes by mistake. (Or shall we say, "mistake"?) It made me think, Why not drugs? And the bare bones of this story were formed. Also, I just think video stores are incredibly nostalgic. If you've ever been in one, you can INSTANTLY recall the smell, just like that (old popcorn and carpet cleaner). I wanted Rent Girl to feel like a sleazy, low-budget crimesploitation story that you could actually FIND at a video rental store back in the day, so it ended up becoming a very meta work.
I hope this was interesting to some of you. LMK if you'd like to see more posts like this sometime. :)
January 6, 2024
FREE TODAY ONLY: Little Deaths and Quid Pro Quo!
Hi all. As part of a promotion I'm involved with, I've made two of my books FREE for today only!
Quid Pro Quo and Little Deaths are both taboo reverse age-gap romances. QPQ is a dark stepbrother romance with dual timelines, dual POV, and a good girl/bad boy dynamic. LD is a dark stepmom/stepson romantic suspense novel where the hero might very well be the villain. Both the FMC and MMC are morally grey.
Quid Pro Quo: https://www.amazon.com/Quid-Pro-Quo-s...
Little Deaths: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0B...
Quid Pro Quo and Little Deaths are both taboo reverse age-gap romances. QPQ is a dark stepbrother romance with dual timelines, dual POV, and a good girl/bad boy dynamic. LD is a dark stepmom/stepson romantic suspense novel where the hero might very well be the villain. Both the FMC and MMC are morally grey.
Quid Pro Quo: https://www.amazon.com/Quid-Pro-Quo-s...
Little Deaths: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0B...
December 26, 2023
Batter My Heart is FREE for Stuff Your Kindle Day!
Hi all! I am lucky enough to be participating in Stuff Your Kindle Day and am offering my college bullymance, BATTER MY HEART, for FREE. You can get this book and hundreds of others by visiting romancebookworms.com.
December 7, 2023
I did a podcast interview!
Hey all! I did a podcast interview with Charity at the Booktrovert podcast :D
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=chJJa...
I'd be honored if you gave it a listen! We talk pretty in-depth about book reviewing and growth ♥
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=chJJa...
I'd be honored if you gave it a listen! We talk pretty in-depth about book reviewing and growth ♥
December 5, 2023
Writing update + what's next
Hey all! It's been a little while since I posted a writing update and I wanted to keep you all informed about what I've been up to.
I actually just got back from a vacation to LA, Hawaii, and Mexico, which is part of the reason I hadn't been posting a lot. I was also super depressed. YAY DEPRESSION VACATION. But also the vacation helped and I had a lot of fun, and I learned that I love Hawaii and also that LA was totally different from how I remembered it being as a kid (literally that was over twenty years ago, god I'm old). So in case you ever wondered why so many books I've written are set in LA... lol.
ANYWAY, the writing stuff!
I am currently serializing the sequel to Quid Pro Quo, which is called Sine Qua Non. While I was looking up a chapter for reference, I saw that it actually became a Top Faved story. So, that's kind of amazing. THANK YOU FOR DOING THAT. I cried a little and then I took a screenshot. It's canon now.
I am still working on Detraction and Wildscape, but in the case of Detraction, I actually plan on rewriting it and fixing up a lot of stuff. What this means is that I'm going to replace a lot of the chapters on Kindle Vella, so if you already paid for the chapters, I believe you'll be able to read the new replaced ones for free because I definitely did that with Raise the Blood when I was serializing that and nobody complained hahaha. I've already drafted up about 20,000 words of additional backstory, and what I want to change is significant enough that it will all probably feel like a whole new story.
Wildscape is taking a while because I'm having to continually reread and research the previous books and take notes. But I do want to update soon! It was very mean of me to end the last chapter with poor Sarah tied to a bed. Nobody tells you that writing sequels to your own work is basically like self-fanfiction.
I have other projects on the horizon as well. Darling, I'm Killed is one I've started working on already, which is going to be a very dark romantasy horror novel. The entire first arc is already drafted out. Love Every Thorn is going to be a gothic romance, like Raise the Blood, and then there's Adeane and Ravina, which is going to be a gothic stepsibling romance.
I've also outlined When You're Sleeping: A Spicy Holiday Stalker Romance, but I think I might actually go insane if I try to release that before the holidays. Watch me release it in May LOL.
I actually just got back from a vacation to LA, Hawaii, and Mexico, which is part of the reason I hadn't been posting a lot. I was also super depressed. YAY DEPRESSION VACATION. But also the vacation helped and I had a lot of fun, and I learned that I love Hawaii and also that LA was totally different from how I remembered it being as a kid (literally that was over twenty years ago, god I'm old). So in case you ever wondered why so many books I've written are set in LA... lol.
ANYWAY, the writing stuff!
I am currently serializing the sequel to Quid Pro Quo, which is called Sine Qua Non. While I was looking up a chapter for reference, I saw that it actually became a Top Faved story. So, that's kind of amazing. THANK YOU FOR DOING THAT. I cried a little and then I took a screenshot. It's canon now.
I am still working on Detraction and Wildscape, but in the case of Detraction, I actually plan on rewriting it and fixing up a lot of stuff. What this means is that I'm going to replace a lot of the chapters on Kindle Vella, so if you already paid for the chapters, I believe you'll be able to read the new replaced ones for free because I definitely did that with Raise the Blood when I was serializing that and nobody complained hahaha. I've already drafted up about 20,000 words of additional backstory, and what I want to change is significant enough that it will all probably feel like a whole new story.
Wildscape is taking a while because I'm having to continually reread and research the previous books and take notes. But I do want to update soon! It was very mean of me to end the last chapter with poor Sarah tied to a bed. Nobody tells you that writing sequels to your own work is basically like self-fanfiction.
I have other projects on the horizon as well. Darling, I'm Killed is one I've started working on already, which is going to be a very dark romantasy horror novel. The entire first arc is already drafted out. Love Every Thorn is going to be a gothic romance, like Raise the Blood, and then there's Adeane and Ravina, which is going to be a gothic stepsibling romance.
I've also outlined When You're Sleeping: A Spicy Holiday Stalker Romance, but I think I might actually go insane if I try to release that before the holidays. Watch me release it in May LOL.
November 30, 2023
Sine Qua Non Playlist
1. Salvatore // Lana Del Rey
2. Lose Myself // SWIM
3. Bitter Almonds // Labyrinth Ear
4. Drawing Pins // Nothing But Thieves
5. Erode // TENDER
6. Bitter // Palace
7. Trouble // TENDER
8. Who Do You Want // Ex Habit
9. Faded // Crypto
10. Cities // Toby Mai, Two Feet
11. Die For You // The Weeknd
12. sine qua non // Johnny Rain
13. boys, bugs, and men // Paris Paloma
14. Daddy Issues // The Neighbourhood
15. abuse me // Ex Habit
16. Violet City // Mansionair
17. Lips On You // Maroon 5
18. We Could Leave // Mansionair
19. Dangerous Hands // Austin Giorgio
20. You Were Mine // Tami Neilson
21. Secrets // OMIDO
22. Doesn’t Rain in Hell // Elvis Drew x AVIVIVAN
23. Unmade // Thom Yorke (end credits)
2. Lose Myself // SWIM
3. Bitter Almonds // Labyrinth Ear
4. Drawing Pins // Nothing But Thieves
5. Erode // TENDER
6. Bitter // Palace
7. Trouble // TENDER
8. Who Do You Want // Ex Habit
9. Faded // Crypto
10. Cities // Toby Mai, Two Feet
11. Die For You // The Weeknd
12. sine qua non // Johnny Rain
13. boys, bugs, and men // Paris Paloma
14. Daddy Issues // The Neighbourhood
15. abuse me // Ex Habit
16. Violet City // Mansionair
17. Lips On You // Maroon 5
18. We Could Leave // Mansionair
19. Dangerous Hands // Austin Giorgio
20. You Were Mine // Tami Neilson
21. Secrets // OMIDO
22. Doesn’t Rain in Hell // Elvis Drew x AVIVIVAN
23. Unmade // Thom Yorke (end credits)
November 29, 2023
Food as metaphor in R.F. Kuang's YELLOWFACE
I can't stop thinking about YELLOWFACE and wrote an essay about how food is a metaphor for how people selectively appropriate and consume other cultures:
https://readasaurus.blogspot.com/2023...
I'd be honored if you gave it a read! I had this thought while I was in the shower and didn't see anyone else talking about this use of motif in their reviews (although I'm sure I'm not the first), and I just thought it was so subtle and fascinating and interesting that I just had to share.
https://readasaurus.blogspot.com/2023...
I'd be honored if you gave it a read! I had this thought while I was in the shower and didn't see anyone else talking about this use of motif in their reviews (although I'm sure I'm not the first), and I just thought it was so subtle and fascinating and interesting that I just had to share.
November 24, 2023
RENT GIRL and QUID PRO QUO are only 99¢
Two of my books are on sale from Black Friday through Cyber Monday!
RENT GIRL is a dark interracial mafia romance with a morally black hero and kidnapping, second chance, touch her and die themes (he actually sticks someone's hand in a blender for touching the heroine).
https://www.amazon.com/Rent-Girl-inte...
QUID PRO QUO is a dark reverse-age gap stepbrother romance with a morally grey hero who blackmails the heroine into being his mistress. It's a good girl/bad boy romance that was inspired by my love of bodice-rippers.
https://www.amazon.com/Quid-Pro-Quo-s...
(I'm currently working on its sequel!)
I hope you enjoy them both! ♥
RENT GIRL is a dark interracial mafia romance with a morally black hero and kidnapping, second chance, touch her and die themes (he actually sticks someone's hand in a blender for touching the heroine).
https://www.amazon.com/Rent-Girl-inte...
QUID PRO QUO is a dark reverse-age gap stepbrother romance with a morally grey hero who blackmails the heroine into being his mistress. It's a good girl/bad boy romance that was inspired by my love of bodice-rippers.
https://www.amazon.com/Quid-Pro-Quo-s...
(I'm currently working on its sequel!)
I hope you enjoy them both! ♥
October 31, 2023
RAISE THE BLOOD is FREE today only!
Hey all, my newest book, RAISE THE BLOOD is FREE today for Halloween! (Happy Halloween!)
If you've been craving a dark gothic romance with a feral "let me chase you" type of hero and a rural California mountain setting, have I GOT THE BOOK FOR YOU.
It's pretty high spice and very creepy.
Here is the direct Amazon link: https://www.amazon.com/Raise-Blood-da...
I am doing this event in tandem with the folks at Horrorsmith Publishing and hundreds of other horror authors, and you can find my book and more for free by going to Terrify Your Tablet dot com.
If you've been craving a dark gothic romance with a feral "let me chase you" type of hero and a rural California mountain setting, have I GOT THE BOOK FOR YOU.
It's pretty high spice and very creepy.
Here is the direct Amazon link: https://www.amazon.com/Raise-Blood-da...
I am doing this event in tandem with the folks at Horrorsmith Publishing and hundreds of other horror authors, and you can find my book and more for free by going to Terrify Your Tablet dot com.
