Please welcome Isabel Cooper, whose brand new
Sourcebooks Casablanca paranormal romance series starts this month with LEGEND
OF THE HIGHLAND DRAGON! In today’s post, she shares with us what has inspired
her the most in her writing…
I started playing Dungeons
and Dragons when I was eleven.
I’d already been kind of a
geek before that: read the Lord of the Rings series a bunch of times, played a
whole lot of video games, and had a
taste for the weird and supernatural in my fiction. (Also horse books. So many
horse books, until I learned to ride and realized that actual horses were not
your friends, tried to step on your toes pretty constantly, and had the same,
er, biological output as any other animal.) But my geekdom didn’t really
crystalize until I hit eleven.
Then, facing my fifth
strabismus surgery and inspired by the example of the boy down the road, who
got a Sega Genesis when he had to have an operation on his back, I demanded a
bribe in order to go quietly into that brightly-lit OR. My parents agreed: I could pick out whatever
I wanted at the UCLA bookstore.
Yes, I demanded books as a
bribe for putting up with eye surgery.
No, I didn’t see a problem with this at the time. Yes, I went on to
major in English, and not a subject that involved logic.
So, having heard a little
about D&D from friends’ obnoxious-but-kinda-cute older brothers, and
spotting the starter set on one of the shelves, I picked out my bribe. Two weeks
later, once I could see again, I
gleefully immersed myself in character classes, spell categories, and
descriptions of any number of fantastic creatures.
Given the name, dragons
obviously played a large part in the game’s bestiary. I’d seen them featured in cartoons before,
and in my reading material, and even picked up a couple books where they were
more than just big monsters guarding treasure or fair maidens. But it wasn’t until I started with D&D
that I really got interested.
D&D has—and especially
when I was a kid, had—more types of dragon than you could shake a Stick +5
at. They came in different sizes,
different colors, and different attitudes toward people. Some of them,
specifically the shiny metallic-colored ones, were good sorts, helping the fair
maidens and bold knights rather than trying to eat them. Some of them could
even change shape, look like people, and even make friends with the squishy
humanoids.
Some of them went further.
Not that there was ever anything really explicit, but half-dragons did exist,
and there were the usual stories of Epic Doomed Love, especially in the
Dragonlance books, which I loved as a teenager to the point that I can still
recite poetry from them now. (And yet I somehow had dates in high school. The
world truly is a strange and mysterious place.)
So, when I was thinking about
shapeshifters to feature in a romance novel, dragons were the first thing to
come to mind. That wasn’t where my eleven-year-old self thought I’d end up,
when I picked that one particular bribe from my parents, but I think she’d be
pretty pleased with the outcome.
Izzy’s a geek girl after my own heart! To enter to win
1 of 2 copies of Legend of the Highland
Dragon, please tell us one of your geekiest/nerdiest/dorkiest moments. Please
be sure to leave an email address so we can contact you easily. Open to US and
Canada only, winners will be chosen on Wednesday, 12/18.
LEGEND
OF THE HIGHLAND DRAGON BY ISABEL COOPER – IN STORES DECEMBER 2013
He Guards a Ferocious Secret…
In Victorian
England, gossip is often as precious as gold. But the Highlanders are a more
mysterious bunch. And if anyone found out that Stephen MacAlasdair really was,
he'd be hunted down, murdered, his clan wiped out. As he's called to London on
business, he'll have to be extra vigilant—especially between sunset and the
appearance of the first evening star.
Mina just wanted to find out more about the arrogant man who
showed up in her employer's office. Some might say it was part of her job. She
never thought the stranger would turn into a dragon right in front of her. Or
that he'd then offer her an outrageous sum of money to serve as his personal
secretary. Working together night and day to track a dangerous enemy, Mina
comes to see a man in love is more powerful and determined than any dragon.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Isabel Cooper is the author
paranormal historical romances No Proper
Lady, a Publishers Weekly and a Library Journal book of the year in
2011, and Lessons After Dark. Both
titles were also nominated in the RT Book
Reviews Reviewers Choice Awards. During the day, Isabel maintains her guise
as a mild-mannered project manager working in legal publishing outside of
Boston. For more, visit www.isabelcooper.org.
Congrats on your release, and welcome Isabel!
ReplyDeleteHey, Isabel! Haven't seen you since the booksigning we did in Sharon, MA. It looks like you're doing well. Guess what? We were probably both writing dragons for SB at the same time! My dragon book How to Date a Dragon just came out in Sept. But, you can never have too many dragons, right?
ReplyDeleteGeekiest moment was (trying to ) act in musicals in middle school. I think I was pretty bad!
ReplyDeleteThanks!
ReplyDeleteAshlyn: So true! I hope things are going well at your end too!
mk: Hee! I was a dancing present in a church Christmas pageant. Thankfully, I don't think there's video.
Highlanders and dragons - two of my favorites!! I belonged to all the geeky clubs in school - too many to count and held positions in a lot of them too lol. i.e. manager of the school year book or class counselor or office assistant etc.
ReplyDeletecatslady5@aol.com
Congrats on the release! I tend to be a nerd anyway but I learned that people think you are a little weird when you tell them that the only thing you watch on tv regularly is Jeopardy (this was a few years ago, lol) or that you use several rounds of word games to wake up instead of a cup of coffee!
ReplyDeletecleaning my bookshelves
ReplyDeletebn100candg at hotmail dot com
I've always been a bit of a nerd. Was part of the debate team, student council, always at a library or with a book in my hand and was in a brain bowl. But my most nerdy was probably the World of Warcraft competition I was in at a Con. :)
ReplyDeleteLove the premise of the book and features my two favorite things, dragons and sexy men, hehe.
fsteph55(at)yahoo(dot)com
I have always been a bit of a nerd. I was the one sitting around reading when my friends were going out and stuff. I love all the Star Wars movies and LOTR too. My cousin taught me how to play D&D when I was younger
ReplyDeleteEmail is sheryll1974@netscape.net
ReplyDeleteI can't think of any nerdy moments, but I'm probably a big nerd!! I love reading about dragons, and no you can't have to many. This one sounds awesome and is going on the to buy list!
ReplyDeletemlawson17 at Hotmail dot com
Probably when I typed LOL into my phone and it auto-corrected it to LOKI and I yelled out LOKI'D! And nobody got it. ;-)
ReplyDeletejustforswag(AT)yahoo(DOT)com
Oh my, there have been plenty of those geeky/dorky/nerdy moments. Probably I'm at my most nerdy when I'm talking books and everything to do with books to people who don't understand how I can be so obsessed with them.
ReplyDeleteForgot this: Barbed1951 at aol dot com
ReplyDeleteCongratulations on your new release!
ReplyDeleteHello! Our winners are
ReplyDeleteSteph F.
and
Sheryl
I'll email you both shortly!
Danielle