Plural titles can be tricky, because the correct phrasing will sound wrong if the listener doesn’t know it’s a title. But, to the point, a new book is out!
D-Dames is a collection of short stories about women with elemental magic in World War 2. These stories were written originally and separately for the elemental anthology series from Tyche Books and edited by Rhonda Parrish, but now they are collected for easy enjoyment together. And I’ve also added, through the power of ebook expansion, annotated versions!
(Ebooks are cool, because they’re kind of little Bags of Holding, able to hold a great deal more without increasing your shelf footprint or carrying weight.)
First, read the stories just as they are. They are set in London, a farm in Northern Ireland, Snowdonia in Wales, and the firth off Edinburgh. Each follows a young woman as she discovers her power of fire, earth, air, or water. One (“Eryri”) won the 2021 Realm Award for Best Short Story.
Then you can read again with the annotations about real life history (yes, there were women firefighters doing incredibly dangerous things during the Blitz, and precious pieces of art were indeed smuggled around in Cadbury chocolate trucks) and why I made the author’s choice to make the Nazis the bad guys (aside from the obvious reasons! as originally there were additional historically accurate story possibilities). I talk about the Third Reich occultist conspiracy theory that wanted into a story but didn’t make it and a real life theater I love that inspired a horrific scene.
In all, the book is about 50,000 words. For now D-Dames is available exclusively on my site. Don’t worry — you don’t need to be a tech wizard to access it! Download this ebook into a free, fully-featured e-reader app, or use the app to easily load it into another e-reader of your choice (Kindle, Nook, other).
