Night and Day by Rowan Speedwell Guest Post!

Rowan Speedwell - Night and Day Banner 1

Hiya guys we have Rowan Speedwell stopping by today with a guest post for her upcoming re-release Night and Day, so enjoy the post! <3 ~Pixie~

Rowan Speedwell - Night and Day Cover

Night and Day

by

Rowan Speedwell

Nate Pederowski is about as far down as he can go when he’s tipped to a job as a singer in a speakeasy. Dishonorably discharged for being queer, broke and homeless during the Great Depression, Nate is embittered and lonely. The club’s handsome owner, Rick Bellevue, and his sister Corinna are wowed by Nate’s voice and offer him the job.

But the Starlight Lounge is much more than an ordinary supper club, and Rick and his sister much more than just the owners. It’s not ’til Nate gets caught up in a gangster’s plot that he discovers just what secrets they’re hiding. Nate’s life is going to change in ways he can scarcely imagine, let alone believe.

First Edition published by Dreamspinner Press, 2010, in the Myths and Magic: Legends of Love anthology.

Release date: 9th March 2016 

Rowan Speedwell - Night and Day Banner s

Rowan Speedwell & Night and Day!

I have to say that I am more delighted than you can imagine that Dreamspinner has decided to rerelease my story Night and Day as a standalone. It was originally published in their Myths and Magic: Legends of Love anthology back in 2010, but anthologies are sort of the red-headed stepchildren of the publishing industry, and don’t get no love, nohow.

And I love my little story. That’s saying a lot, because I am my own worst enemy when it comes to my stories. I’m so close to them that I see all the little flaws, the mistakes, the blunders in narration that I let slip before publication and wish I could fix. It floors me when a reader tells me how much they loved them, or leaves a good review. (Even if it devastates me when I get a bad one!) But this time, I was able to go in and fix the flaws, add a little bit, clean up the potentially actionable phrasing that skirted a little too close to copyright infringement (it is HARD to write a story about music when you can’t quote lyrics!) and in general, make it a little better than it was before.

Night and Day was probably the easiest thing I’ve ever written. Someone once said that writers are people for whom writing is harder than it is for other people, and it’s certainly true in my case. Writing is hard. There’s characters who won’t do what you want, plot points that slither away just as you’re trying to pin them down, and then continuity. Ugh. Continuity. And that’s just the basics. There are days—nay, months, sometimes—when the words just won’t come.

But Night and Day was just… joyful. My narrator, Nate, has been battered, but he still has dreams. He still has hope. He’s sad, but he’s still open. Sometimes what life hands him is weird, but he accepts it. And Rick, for all his power and strength, finds that openness, that simplicity, irresistible.

And I couldn’t resist playing with the other characters. There are gods, and monsters, and maenads, and even a high priestess or two, and if you have any familiarity with Greek mythology, you might recognize a few. It takes Nate a while to figure things out, but he’s a smart cookie.

I had so much fun writing Night and Day. I hope everyone has fun reading it.

Rowan Speedwell author pic

About Rowan

Rowan Speedwell bookmark_7b1An unrepentant biblioholic, Rowan Speedwell spends half her time pretending to be a law librarian, half her time pretending to be a database manager, half her time pretending to be a fifteenth-century Aragonese noblewoman, half her time… wait a minute… hmm. Well, one thing she doesn’t pretend to be is good at math. She is good at pretending, though.

In her copious spare time (hah) she does needlework, calligraphy and illumination, and makes jewelry. She has a master’s degree in history from the University of Chicago, is a member of the Society for Creative Anachronism, and lives in a Chicago suburb with way too many books.

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