Tales from the Orc Den

Dalwick Demon by Ashley Bennett and The Monsters in Love Anthology

• Monster Romance Reviews • Season 3 • Episode 2

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Let’s get into our first “book report” to talk about The Dalwick Demon by Ashley Bennett and the book it first appeared in, the second volume of the Monsters in Love Anthology.


EJ explains why The Dalwick Demon stood out for her. Amy and Stacy then join her in discussing the significance of The Dalwick Demon and the Monsters in Love anthologies to the Monster Romance genre. We also have a small art critic corner because it is easy to go from talking about your favorite indie authors to your favorite indie artists.


Books Mentioned:


Visual Artists Mentioned:


Music is called "Undead Bride" by Pagefire https://soundcloud.com/nerdymetalhead202/undead-bride 

EJ

And I have already said I am willing to go first on this. Throw yourself on that sword. Throw myself on that sword. Mine is, the Dalek Demon by Ashley Bennett, and this was one that originally came from, it was actually published first in fall 2022, and it was the second volume of the Monsters in Love anthology. Dry, actually, it was darkness themed and lost in the dark and most of the Stories were demons and for some reason most of them felt dry. No offense. That's just how it felt like for me it was also the sophomore offering

Stacy

and you know A lot of times the sophomore

EJ

offering of anything can be like doesn't quite live up to the hype of the original

Amy

there were some favorites in there for me, but

EJ

Most of

Amy

them, unfortunately, have not been self released again.

EJ

I'm like, that makes me sad. Oh, we'll get into that, Amy. Don't worry. We'll get into that. I've got that. I've got that. I got you, girl. I got you. And most of my favorites, actually, were not demon related. Ashley's was stood out though. For some reason, Ashley, she pulled out the Dalek Demon, and I'm like, in a sea of demons that I don't like, this one I like. I'm going to attempt a summary of the Dalek Demon. We have a female main character, her name is Iris. Cool. She's young. She's also a sex worker. And that makes her popular in like the absolute worst ways, right? Because she is in a hollow repressed town. So one day because she is no longer useful to the men in charge, essentially they convict her of stuff. Doesn't really freaking matter because, She was a scapegoat for them. Anyway, she is sentenced to death by being thrown into the mouth of the IC cave, and she ends up, this is supposed to be like she gets thrown in, she gets eaten by the demon and she does meet the demon, but he's hot as fuck. and imp pre, like he rescues her. He brings her through this crazy cave system. They have really hot sex. He's got two dicks, which is nice. I liked that. I'm a fan of

Stacy

that. Yes. Forgot about

EJ

that. I was like, oh, this was unexpected. I like it. For some reason, we don't try to have more fun with demons. I feel like it, we don't have enough fun with demons in monster romance. I'm like, they're demons. You can do whatever the fuck they want. But anyway, so it also ends up being very sweet. They definitely they have a shit ton of lust for each other. He brings her to a safe village where she starts a new life and a good chunk of their story is really just reconciling like, yeah, we've got a lot of lust for each other. We also love each other as well.

Stacy

The thing that's cool about that village too is it's it's not the repressed nightmare that the village she left behind. Like this village and cottage sound like super fucking cool and people are magic users and it's like going from I don't know, like It reminds me of how in The Corpse Bride, the living world is Oh, yeah! impressive. Yes. And then when you die the afterlife is colorful and musical and great. You have that kind of a vibe. Yeah

EJ

and I think it's just, it's actually really sweet and honestly, like what made this book stand out to me from the others was that she had already hinted at in the short story and got really into it with the expanded standalone, this emotional evolution of the female main character of the book. being someone who is a very sexual person and feeling a lot of shame about it and eventually like coming to own her sexuality and also realizing, hey, I'm also capable of very sincere love as well and being able to have a sincere loving relationship with someone else too. I just, I loved that. I loved that for them. I love that. And

Stacy

I like too, that And this is just apropos of nothing, but I like that with the advent of indie publishing and stuff like that we have main female characters who are sex workers, we have, main characters, or main male characters who are sex workers, and, I like that we have main characters who are Paraplegic, quadriplegic, people who are missing limbs or have been disfigured in accidents. Like, all of this is nothing that would have happened in the world of trad publishing. Like, when the indie push finally broke through, trad publishing was just barely, and fucking barely, starting to do black romance.

EJ

So many of them are white and upper middle class and stuck in Manhattan.

Stacy

It doesn't

EJ

really make for great storytelling to stay in one bubble.

Stacy

You sure as hell weren't going to get interracial relationships, which is much more common now with indie romance. You weren't going to get, you sure as hell weren't going to get alien romance because that's interracial romance, but even worse in the eyes of these fucking

EJ

bigots.

Stacy

Again. Because we have such a broad cross section of everything that's going on, like you said, an anthology is a great way to figure out where your tastes lie. Anyway, go ahead. You were talking about the Dalek Demon, and I totally interrupted, and I apologize.

EJ

So good. One of my questions for more sales besides, actually my follow up question was what made this stand out? So I already told you that like it was the emotional journey and that's my weakness for all stories. It's the thing that makes me keep on recommending stories again and again is if I feel like there is an emotional journey like we've had Character development and inner journey as much as an outer one. You're going to get recommendations out the wazoo from me. that's so there, that's my weakness. I do love me some like big emotions in a story. Agreed. Yeah. It's a thing and you can still have a crap ton of horniness in it, too. I don't see it taking away from it. Again, in this book, they have sex almost very soon after they first meet. I, it does not take away from that emotional journey at all. And actually, I think as far as I asked myself are there any like cultural contexts within this anthology that add depth to the book? Honestly, I think the thing that adds depth into this book is my own. I. But, and also I suspect Ashley and a lot of other folks in our reader community deals has dealt with this too in some way. It's purity culture, man. Oh yeah, seriously. Straight up purity culture like in some ways like because you I grew up in, the American evangelical world I was teenager during like peak purity rings. Oh yeah, everything like I lived in that evangelical space and. It is practically self care when I get to

Stacy

read books like this. My mother decided that she wanted to be a Southern Baptist when I was

EJ

12. So

Stacy

we went for no religion. Pure fucking heathen upbringing. Then we moved to God's Asshole, aka Alexandria, Louisiana. And if you're from Alexandria, I'm not going to apologize because you know I'm not fucking kidding. In 1989, and mom found a megachurch. And now suddenly we were Southern Baptists and it was just like time to find some way to mutilate myself to keep from going to church this weekend, cutting off my toes. Sounds like a great idea. It keeps me out of

EJ

that fucking Sunday school. So I would actually be curious if there's anything that Ashley herself pulls from on this. That's the same thing. It reads well. It really reads well. Very well. Without going smashy into your face too much. And also, it's properly dark. I appreciate that it helps make things metaphorically dark, because, that's the theme of the anthology, into the darkness. And then throw into, you got the literal, they're in a freaking cave.

Stacy

That's one thing I have to give her for this. And like, when Ruby Dixon wrote, I can't remember the name of it, but it's the second one of the Corsairs books.

EJ

The first

Stacy

original four with Kat and Tarek cause Kat was a trafficked human who was forced into sex work. And the our heroine at the beginning of the Dalek Demon and Kat both have this in common. I forgot the heroine's name in Dalek Demon. Remind me.

EJ

Iris. Iris. Iris.

Stacy

Thank you. Both of them are rough when they are... Thrust into their fate at the very beginning of it. Cat is actively dying because she's been used so hard, repeatedly. And Iris, I remember, is not in a good place physically either. She is fucked up by the time they throw her into the cave. And I res I have a lot of respect for authors who it's like, If we're gonna mention sex work It's not going to be something that's been glamorized in movies a la escort work or something, even though God knows that carries its own dangers as well. For sure. But but these are people who life has not been kind to them from, day one, and this is basically they're at their nadir. I like that because then the... The main male character who finds them is also what helps to bring them back up out of their own personal darkness to find their own personal light again, which grant, a lot of people are going to be like that's real nice that a man saved him, but fuck you. You're reading a romance novel. And, sometimes we all fucking need some help to find our way out of the dark and there's

EJ

nothing wrong with that. I think that's actually a really good point. A lot of these I can definitely say Iris does a lot of self work in this, but I think it helps that she got that boost. Yes. Yeah. No, for real. And there is no shame in that in either fiction. Or real life. So tell people who are like, we don't like that. Another question I have that I'm just, saying as part of a nice preview for what I'm going to throw at you ladies later is how did, how does your chosen book contribute to the series genre or style diversity? And how I got a thought. on this. So Ashley Bennett is damn good at fluff. When I think of Ashley Bennett, I think that we are in for the hallmark movies of monster romance. That's

Stacy

what she's really great at, and Honey Phillips is really great at, too. It's you're gonna get this super sweet, wonderful, like you say almost like a hallmark movie, and then it's gonna have just some raunchy sex, and I'm like, oh yeah, I like that combination. I like super sweet and fluffy, and then just, yeah, we're gonna have butt sex. You know what I mean? Something where it's not just, yeah, we did it missionary style, on a cloud, and we used all of these euphemisms. No tongues are going into things, fingers are going into things, absolutely. Many orgasms are had, perhaps on surfaces that weren't designed for that.

EJ

We're going to get a proper fucking here.

Stacy

Exactly. Chef's fucking kiss. Sometimes you want to fuck in a bakery on a counter. Why not? And I really commend authors, because a lot of times, if I want like really raunchy sex, which I'm not going to lie, it's most of the time it's usually like you have to go to darker romances for that. And so I really respect an author who can be like... Yes, we're light and we're fluffy and we love each other and he pounds me until I see God. You know what I mean? And so I really respect that

EJ

in an author. And this is still sweet. I would still say this is sweet, but it's probably her darkest stuff. And I think where it's, this particular book deserves a recognized place in the, greater monster romance world is one, it's well written, but also I think she is playing around with like, how can you be dark and fluffy at the same time? And I think that's a fun exercise. Literally, like the starting thing you can't help but be dark when you're like, Sparking action at the start of the story is she's about to die by execution.

Stacy

Yes, and there's literally you've got to have some kind of a what's the word? How do I

EJ

want to verbalize this?

Stacy

There has to be. Risk. I love, everybody loves the idea of I just want to read something that's cozy and fluffy with no risk. And it's every once in a while, something like that is great. But, at the same time, most of the time, a story, you've got to have, I'm sorry if I keep hitting your nose. If you don't want me to hit your nose, quit putting it by my hand. The dog is under the covers curled around my back. And I keep accidentally booping him on the snout, but he keeps jamming it where my hand is, not booping the

EJ

snoot! Yeah, You

Stacy

wanna see? There he is, look at him. Oh, it's so hard, it's so hard being a tiny old man chihuahua. Anyway my steaks,

Amy

er, the steaks.

EJ

Yeah, we need steaks! There's gotta be

Stacy

something on the line! That's just it, exactly. We need steaks, basically. And especially if it's something where you're gonna start with Yasha's about to be fucking fed to a demon that's a pretty fucking high stake, and so with that, in that story structure, we can just climb up, which is nice, and then from there on in, most of the threats are emotional threats, not Particularly physical threats,

EJ

we can take a break now that we're, like, hanging out in the hot springs of the cave. Now it's the emotional stakes. Yes.

Stacy

Oh, he's picking glass out of her feet. And I had a point I wanted to make and then my dog distracted me and so I'm going to blend the dog. Anyway, a story can't be one note. It's what I'm saying, like it can't all be one level we gotta have peaks and valleys or the story it's not going to feed the story,

EJ

basically. You're going to tire out your readers. It's going to be a rough one. So

Stacy

yeah, there's no investment on the part of the reader if it's all one note

EJ

like that. I want to finally bring up that Some of the other stories in that anthology, because as much as I freaking love the Dalek Demon, I... There were some others in that anthology. Amy, I'm calling upon you because I know we happen to have a Venn diagram of our favorites in there.

Stacy

I'm gonna

Amy

bring up my, my, story graph with the thing.

Stacy

Do it. Do it.

EJ

If I had to choose one story from Monsters and Love Volume two, I, if I had to choose one that hasn't yet been published, that I would like published, it would probably, Be that one from D. St. Home. Hold My Heart. I don't think I read that one. It is so It has such a Victorian Gothic vibe. I got such Edgar Allen Poe vibes out of it. Dig it. We think of the Haunted Mansion. Actually, yeah, very Haunted Mansion, but way more stakes. Blue Beard. Very Blue Beard. You love, if you are fascinated by Bluebeard, you love you some like Edgar Allen Poe vibes, but you want a fucking happy ending. This is it.

Stacy

They did it. It was

Amy

great. I love that one. I'm upset that I can't, that it's nowhere else. No, it's not even on D. St. Holmes. webpage

Stacy

or anything and I'm just like please

Amy

D bring this to everyone because it's a great

Stacy

story.

EJ

It would be fucking cool. It'd be a great Halloween release.

Stacy

Oh, definitely. Contact the author. See if she, you never know, it could be something where she thinks there was no real interest in it, so there's no point in me putting any more work into it, but if people contact her, she might be like, fuck it, let's do a release. Maybe both of us can bother her,

EJ

EJ. I, that is true. I,

Stacy

technically. Oh, I just like bothering people.

EJ

Technically, in some ways, by releasing this podcast episode, we are starting the bothering. Yes, we are.

Stacy

That's going to be the name of my my, my autobiography is The Bothering.

EJ

Okay,

Amy

now in that same vein, EJ, there's actually a longer list of this one of favorites that I had and this one that I did in the first of the Monsters in Love Anthology, but I will touch on just two others in addition to Hold My Heart. The first one is Dark Dream by Vivian Hart, and that's because the main male character is a nightmare. He is a nightmare. The nightmare king.

Stacy

Oh, cool. The great thing about that is that

Amy

it sets up the verse for havens havens Hollow. So

Stacy

each of the, there's a stories. The Kelpie in the current one, right? That's the same world, the one with the Kelpie in the current anthology? Gotcha, gotcha. Is he a Kelpie? Is he a Kelpie? I haven't gotten to that story yet. Oh surprise, he's a Kelpie. His name's Wick. Yep, that's it. Okay. Sorry, I thought you had read it already. Okay.

Amy

That takes away the Mysterium, but that's okay. I'm still gonna read

Stacy

it, because I liked it. Glad I could read it for you, I'm so sorry.

Amy

I like Dark Dream, I like Dark Storm, and I'm gonna whatever this one's called. I forget what it's called. But anyways that one and then the other one kind of in the same vein as Dalek Demon Camping Trip by Cassie Alexander and I will say this one's also vastly different because Our two, there are two main male characters who are of course together. They are werewolves that are In their human form, but the female main character starts off also like Iris did, basically at rock bottom. She discovered that she has a severe, intense form of cancer, her boyfriend has pretty much abandoned her and is cheating on her, so she steals his car and pretty much drives it as far away as she possibly can, and where she crashes it. Where she crashes the car, these two, they look, they, their description reads as but

Stacy

they're like the best kind of redneck. Okay. But basically

Amy

they find her and they want to help her and everything, but oh my goodness, they, the main one, I

Stacy

forget

EJ

what they're Redneck werewolves. I love that. It's

Stacy

right. You got Josiah and I am totally blanked here. Please tell me it's Hezekiah. Please tell me it's Hezekiah. No, it is not. God, that's it. I'll

Amy

have to look it

Stacy

up, but anyways. Come, Hez. Hey, Hez. You see that? Look at that girl over yon. Anyways,

Amy

but he calls her lamb because the shirt that she's wearing is from a friend of hers and it has a

Stacy

lamb on it. Okay. That's cute. That's a cute nickname,

EJ

I like that.

Amy

The way that they go about it is Joe and whatever the heck his name is.

Stacy

He, no, we're not calling him Hezekiah. We're calling him Hezekiah. Calling Hank. We'd call him. Heck, for sure. But

Amy

anyways, basically, the idea is, what's what you do with one of them, you have to do for the other one. Of

Stacy

course. Yeah.

EJ

They're a pack.

Stacy

They share. It was a fabulous hot read. That sounds pretty hot.

Amy

They were offering her, it's we got a way to solve this whole cancer problem, babe. All you gotta do is let me

Stacy

bite ya. Ooh. And I'd be like I thought the biting was gonna happen regardless, oh, yes. Let's go. They

EJ

gotta wait till the

Stacy

full moon,

Amy

though, Stacey,

Stacy

but... We'll make you practice before then. I'm

Amy

really hoping that Cassie Alexander does bring that one out, because it's great. It is awesome. I absolutely loved that one a lot. And they're not transformed werewolves. And that is saying something, considering how much I am more of a, monster lover.

EJ

Sure. Yep. That does

Stacy

not mean they don't have their knots. Yeah. That was like One Night in Gowru Reeve. Did you ever read that one? Which one? One Night in Gowru Reeve. I have not read that one. The whole series. Hang on. Let me look up the author really quick. Holy shit. You want to talk about high emotional stakes? That fucking book. It's... It is so fucking good. Hang on.

EJ

One night in, there it is. One night in Garou

Stacy

Rive. Cause it's Garou Rive, so it's Wolf's Dream in French. It's by L. M. Drew. And... It's a similar premise where you get the main female character is, again, at just the low point in her life because she's small, she's plus size, she has Picos, which I thought was a cool addition to the story. And she's just broken up with her long term boyfriend, they were living together, turns out he'd been cheating on her the entire fucking time. She has, she's driving back to Chicago from Texas where she had gone to be a bridesmaid in a friend's wedding, and then She's really wondering, like, how close are am I to these friends because they spent the entire time, like, making fun of her. And she ends up stopping for the night in this little town in the middle of fucking nowhere that she's never heard of before called Gowery Reef. And she ends up hooking up with this hottest fuck bartender. And they don't come right out and say it because I think the entire book is through her perspective. But it's an entire town full of werewolves, but it's got a real Brigadoon kind of vibe where the town shows up when you need it, and sometimes you can't leave the town if the town decides that you're to be a member. Interesting. But the main character, the main male character that she hooks up with is the... Alpha of the pack, basically, but it's really cool because he's not like a swingin dick alpha, it's more one of those things where it's like he is genuinely concerned about everybody in his city, and he's genuinely concerned about her, so like at one point, cause she leaves and she comes back, And her period shows up and she's fucking great because her piece of shit boyfriend had made her period a problem the entire time that they were together. And instead, he spends the whole time he's got her in bed, he's babying her, he goes out and buys menstrual products, he brings her snacks, he buys her chocolate he buys her every painkiller he can find because he's not sure which one is the best one for her, he acts like somebody. It's so good. But at the same time, there's a lot of the heroine coming to terms with like her own feelings of insecurity because like her parents sucked and her boyfriend sucks and, and it turns out like her friends suck and she's just lost her fucking job, which sucked. And so the whole thing is, there's a big like pull between what she feels like what she like, I cannot recommend this book fucking enough because it is so fucking hot. It's hot, but it's also just again you cry along with the heroine because she's coming to terms with all of her personal sort of self loathing and the fallout from the, the, just the insecurities that society has inbuilt into her. And so it's just, it's so fucking good. It's so good.

Amy

It's funny, the title now, because I have discovered Hezekiah's

Stacy

real name. Okay, yes. It's Hezekiah, isn't it? It's Reeve. Oh my god. Oh, that's funny. That's fucking hilarious. I was really afraid I was really afraid you were gonna say Gary and I was gonna be like, fuck you, he's Hezekiah, but No, that I feel like I'll take Reeve.

EJ

Reeve's pretty hot. Reeve's pretty hot. That's that's, someone that's the name of a man whose maw is in a holler somewhere.

Stacy

So I can appreciate that. But it's not like goofy like Hubert or something like that. But it's like, Country werewolves. Yeah yeah, these are it's, These are good old boys. I can appreciate that. But it's not like Bubba where you're going to be like, oh

EJ

shit. Oh damn.

Stacy

No. Oh lord, he coming. Exactly. Pretty much. Oh, Bubba's out state pen, I see.

EJ

Oh man. I

Amy

really do hope that she does decide to release that one again, because that was a great

Stacy

story. Like I said, email the author. Because start with a story. What the hell was the, there was a series that just came out, it wasn't, it's not Monsters Alone 4, but Nancy Cummings, who's one of my favorite writers, as you guys have all heard me shriek hang on, I gotta look up the name of this

EJ

anthology

Stacy

she did a story in it and, let's see which one is

EJ

it, Bloop, bloop, bloop. Wasn't claimed among the stars because that was one of the Modfell stories. Sorry, she's a super vellum.

Stacy

That's what it was, super vellum. The spooky one that a bunch of authors participated in. Oh yeah, I remember. I checked it out because you recommended it. Yeah. I

Amy

haven't started it yet

Stacy

though. We're too busy with other stuff. But she has a, it's a great, it's great for Halloween because it's designed to be like spooky

EJ

spook reads. But her book is, God damn it, that is not what

Stacy

I meant to do. Her book, her story in it is, let's see the chapters, blah blah blah, Honey Phillips has a book in it, Iona Strom, Ivy Knox, Cassie Keegan has a story in it. I really need to

Amy

read this because it expands my authors.

Stacy

I have read Michelle

Amy

Mills, but I haven't read a lot

Stacy

of the others. Olivia Riley, she has one in it called Bride of the Hallow King, which was also really fucking hot. Devil in the Details by Nancy Cummings, and it's really cool because they're an alien species, but they're like demons, where A, they're very demonoid looking, or, demonoid? Why not? I like demon. Why not? I go with demon. Why not demon shit? Demon

EJ

whatever.

Stacy

Her story is it's the kind of thing where you make a deal with them, but they're very good at being very tricky with their Contracts. And so you have to it's basically you're basically advised just don't fucking make a deal with them. It's not worth it. You're not going to get the upper hand. They're going to get the upper hand. And you're going to be left in more trouble than you were in to begin with. And now you're going to owe them something. But so she's desperate. She ends up doing it. And it turns out really good, but it ends it feels more like part of a story. Like it ends in a good place, but it doesn't feel like the whole story is wrapped. And so I just straight up asked her on Facebook, I'm like, please tell me that you're planning on expanding this. And she goes, oh yeah, I'm totally going to expand that because it basically felt like the end of chapter one. And I was like, fuck, yeah. And so I think, but I think anytime like you ask an author, A, you're going to basically be telling the author, hey, I love your stuff. And B, like they need that encouragement. If they don't know that you're enjoying it, they don't know to expand it, and they think nobody's gonna read it. The worst thing that's gonna happen is they're gonna say, Nah, the story just didn't grab me very much, so I think I'm just gonna leave it where it's laying. But I don't, I think, I really feel like most authors aren't going to say that.

EJ

That's fair. You know what I mean? It's actually a really good point. And then also they get to do fun art stuff because this is my segue and I'm going to talk about book cover art because I feel like, yeah, I feel like at least in this particular case, the monsters in love anthology versus what Ashley did for the Dalek demon is a very good example of like different ways to communicate. This is what you're in for. Most of the, in fact, I would say all of the Monsters in Love anthologies have highly detailed, very dramatic covers. And part of that is to play into This is Romance and Spicy

Stacy

and I am laughing that everybody like now suddenly the push is for the super duper romantic clinch covers when like when I was reading Smut in the 80s and 90s it was like you always carried a piece of paper with you to put over the cover so like nobody would fucking hassle you when you were trying to read your fucking Laura Kinsale book. In the middle of goddamn geogra or geology, or geometry. Sorry, too many schools subject start with the same Too many Gs. Too many Gs. Too many Geos. But you're in fucking geometry and you just want to read your fucking Victorian smut that fucking Brian, three rows over, thinks it's real fucking funny to make fun of the fucking setback with a hot hero. And Brian's on the bowling team. Shut the fuck up, Brian. You don't know what the fuck you're talking about. Yeah,

EJ

Brian. Jelly beans.

Amy

Someone's jelly beans.

EJ

Yeah, like the Monsters in Love covers, I feel like really, they try to harken back to that old school cover. You got the big male who's all hulking and huge. And then you've got the enthralled human female who's about to have a really good time. You know

Stacy

it. Whether she wants it or not. The covers

Amy

have been really on par. I have

Stacy

absolutely loved all of them. And I would like to point out too these covers are 3D 3D rendered covers. But I think they're using, what, Poser? Is that the name of that program? I have no clue what they're using. Not sure. The 3D. But! It is not. Fucking AI. That is

EJ

true. They do not use AI. So there are no accidental three arms anywhere. Yeah. So that's awesome.

Stacy

Unless they're supposed to

Amy

be a three armed

EJ

monster. I think that it's also worth noting that not every single story is going to have that vibe. And I think by actually does a great job, I think, dealing with the interesting gray area that the Dalek Demon is in. It's sweet with stakes. If she had made a cover that was as detailed as that anthology, I feel like that would have been a real mismatch of the story. Also, her brand. Her brand is Fluff. And Fluff means, essentially, I don't mean this in a derogatory way, this in a total art aesthetic way. Cartoons! You want clean lines, you want more abstract forms. Essentially, you want cartoons. And so she still has that whole, this is a drawn out doodle esque by a very professional doodle look. But she really leans into the dark, muted colors. You've got a lot of grays, blues, and instead Purple. And instead of doing like the more detailed this is what the Dalek Demon looks like, she has a shadow of him.

Stacy

It almost reminds me of a cameo.

EJ

Yeah, it's very cameo esque. It reminds me of the Welcome to Night Vale logo. Yeah, I can see that. Yeah. Because once again, it's sweet with some kind of stakes in behind there, because I still don't know what the hell's going on with Welcome to Night Vale, but it's very calming at the same

Stacy

time. You're not supposed to know what's going on with Welcome to Night Vale. That's half the fun of Welcome to Night Vale.

EJ

So I just, as someone who really, who also appreciates visual art almost as much as I love written art. I loved that choice of hers and the compare contrast between what Monsters In Love anthology tends to have for their vibe versus what Ashley decided for hers. I just think it makes sense. And good for all of you authors. Who put in thought and time into your brand. I don't, by the way, I don't think you ever have to pay a shit ton of money. I think it just has to be good. Yes.

Stacy

And that's the other thing too. Again, the contrast between indie publishing now and. studio publishing like in the 90s is that the authors had no say so on their author or their cover art. Because I've heard a lot of authors like Julia Quinn and who was the other one? I think Lisa Kleypas had both made comments in the past about, Oh, I really liked that cover, but I saw it the same time you guys did basically. And that, I think that's part of the reason why. in the nineties in particular? More going into the two thousands where the CO we got away from the clinch covers. A lot of the, and this is pure speculation on my part, like if somebody actually knows, feel free to correct me, but I think that the reason why we started going from the clinch covers to the generic an English manor house in the snow with some flowers, which is totally fine, I'm not criticizing it, but I think the reason why they started going to the sort of more nondescript covers was because I think a lot of authors were like, this doesn't look fucking anything like my characters, What the fuck did you do to my book, basically. And so if you just go to something that's more generic like that, then A, more, that's the word I'm looking for, maybe readers who aren't as open about their interests in reading, because let's be honest, women's sexuality has never been. Anything that's been particularly welcomed by society at large. It was easier for them to feel comfortable reading it because it just looked like, Oh, it's flowery. And it's about feelings. And we don't have to talk about the fact that, the Earl has. The naive entrepreneur writing his face at one point. But, now, but like you're saying now with indie publishing, we can see more of the writer's personal tastes, because in some cases, it can be a cover they did themselves. Some of those covers were hilariously bad, which I fucking loved. And it was all like, my friend has Photoshop and we just made it work. And there's nothing fucking wrong with that. And then you get people, as they get more established, like Tiffany Roberts is going back and they're reskinning all of their books. And so they've got... Authors, or artists who are very, Memori and Bloodbrit and Sam Griffin is a really popular one. And a whole lot of Inked Alpha, like a whole bunch of really talented authors, like they're going back and having them. Do their covers for them and it looks fucking amazing. But that's not something that like somebody who's like the first person out the gate, I'm not gonna be able to drop however much it's going to cost to commission somebody and pay for the rights because paying for the commission and paying for the rights are two different things which is fair to the author and I'm not criticizing. And most Because most of the artists that people are using are independent artists and so they're going to be pretty reasonable versus if you use, try to use like a company or something. So Vimori for example, I commissioned Vimori a couple years ago and she helped design a character from one of the books that I'm working on. And it's this beautiful fucking full color picture of Aragoth. It's hot as hell. And she sold me the rights on top of it. So I think I paid, I think I paid 80 bucks for the commission. And then she only charged me like another, like 50 for the rights or something like that. Which was, so I own that image. So hell yes. Hell yes. It was very fucking nice of her. And and I totally want, she does, she also does NSFW commissions and dear God, I'm so going to commission her to draw something just absolutely fucking filthy. She did the cover for Yearning for Her by Tiffany Roberts. She did the paperback cover, the hardback cover is a different artist whose name I can't remember right now off the top of my head. Both covers are beautiful, but the picture of him leaning over her. And she's in the little nightie. That's Vamori. In fact, if you look close, you can see the waistband of his underpants peeking out of his pants and it says Vamori on the the waistband. And That's a great way to, to sign your work. But I also love this because, granted, like I said, this isn't something that's necessarily available to every author out there and every author out there shouldn't feel like they, it has to be. But I also like that in supporting independent writers, we're also supporting independent artists. Correct. And none of this is going through... It's a whole damn ecosystem. There's no middle man and there's no middle man that's taking a huge bite out of the middle of everybody's profits, basically.

EJ

It's lovely. It's

Stacy

absolutely lovely. I also think that's part of the reason why a lot of indie authors now and indie artists are doing Etsy shops.

EJ

Oh, yeah, no, that makes total sense.

Stacy

Because I know Nancy Cummings has an Etsy shop. I know Tiffany Roberts has an Etsy shop. Naomi, I know there Harpy. Yeah. Naomi Lucas has an Etsy shop. Harpy Alexander. Thank you. Harpy Alexander has an Etsy shop. And the cool thing is. The other thing that's really cool is a lot of times The, I think the artists and the authors work something out where the artists and the authors can sell the images that the artists are coming up with of the characters. So Vamori, the way I found out about Vamori was because she was doing Ice Planet Barbarians fanart. And Ruby has been great about letting people sell their own artwork of her stuff. And so I have a whole bunch of dirty pictures of Bechtel railing Georgie and I got some keychains and stuff like that. And and then when the time came and I had a little extra cash, I was able to commission her myself.

Amy

When it comes to covers. It's, especially in traditional publishing it's actually fascinating to see the trends. In YA covers as well, because for the

Stacy

longest time I saw that, I noticed that after Twilight for the longest time,

Amy

yes, you had the abstract there, but then after that there was the surge

Stacy

of pretty

Amy

Girls in ball gowns, even though not all the stories involved

Stacy

a ball And I'm just like, why? And it was always the, there's a woman in this. It was always the cut from like the chin down whitewashing.

EJ

Yes. Oh yeah. Always chin down. And then

Amy

whitewashing also, because yes, there were so many of those covers, and it's like they finally fi, they, some of the authors finally were like, yo, my character is not white. My character is black, or my character is Latina.

Stacy

Do not, or My character is mixed race and has dark skin. Yes. Or

Amy

my character is not blonde.

Stacy

Yeah. Or my character is blonde. I don't know.

Amy

They're putting a raven haired person on there and it's no, this is

Stacy

yeah. But that's part of the infuriating thing about traditional publishing for me is the whole fact of we don't give a flying fuck of what your story's about. We don't give a flying fuck about the work that you put into. Crafting these characters. We give a fuck about so and so published a book, like Twilight, published a book with a hand holding an apple, so now everybody has to have a hand holding something. As if that's supposed to

EJ

do anything, really.

Stacy

Because the apple in context with Twilight, I don't know why I constantly bring up Twilight on the show, but I do. And I love Twilight, and fuck you, I'm not going to apologize for it. Like the hand holding the apple, it made fucking sense because the whole first book was about temptation. Yeah. And so the apple thing makes sense. It's a metaphor! Exactly! But then, three book series later that have nothing fucking to do with it, but we got that hand and we got that apple and it's what the shit does this have to do with this? I don't know. The Hunger Games didn't do that, but we'll just use that as an example. What the shit would that have to do with The Hunger Games? You know what I mean? Where it's you're stealing symbolism that works for one story, and because that story was popular, you somehow decided it was because of the cover? Or you want to fool people into thinking that this is related to that series? Which is,

EJ

again, it's That's what they did, though. It's derivative at best. There were

Stacy

so many covers that were also black.

Amy

All the covers were dark, and I'm like, why are all these covers

Stacy

dark? My god, can't we have some variety? And a black background with a stark image. That's

Amy

why Maggie Stiefvater's Wolves of Mercy Falls trilogy stood out, because it was this beautiful white background with blue in the first one, green in the second one, and then red in the third one,

Stacy

ambiguous ending. And Hunger Games did its own thing too, because they had the Mockingjay pendant on one of them, and, each of them had its own, but it was something that tied directly into the story, and the Hunger Games is a grim story, so it makes sense that it would have a, Very clean, crisp, not terribly busy covers because, this is a world of privation, and it's the haves have it all and the have nots have nothing, basically. So it makes sense that there would be an almost what's the word, almost like utilitarian kind of vibe to it. But I have more respect for, I don't have any respect for traditional publishing, but I have more respect for publishers who listen to what the story is fucking about and take that into consideration when they build their book. Now, when we get into the indie publishing, I do like to laugh my ass off because like I said so I started reading Ruby Dixon in, I think, 2019. And I was just like, oh my god, sci fi romance is a thing, I've never even thought of this before! And so I jumped in with both feet, and it was just like, shitty Photoshop as far as the eyes can see. And I, like I said, I missed that, so now, if I, like I, I tried to read this book, not too long... I'm going, I'm not going to name the author because I'm, I'm not going to shame anybody, but the Photoshop on the cover was terrible. It was supposed to be a Kraken a la, what's like Tiffany Roberts writes where it's the humanoid upper and then the tentacles instead of legs. And I had to quit reading it because it was supposedly intelligent people. Doing things that are so goddamn stupid that it defies description. I wrote it as, time of death, now, cause of death, too stupid to remember how to breathe. This is the kind of shit that they were doing. Cause it was supposed to be, like, they capture this creature and they put it in a zoo and they're like, He almost seems intelligent. It's he walks. A human would walk if we had tentacles. He has a humanoid face. He has five fingers with opposable thumbs. There's a fucking reason our heads are shaped the way they are, you fucking morons. And so finally I was just like, Oh, okay, but you went to school for eight years for xenobiology and, me who has a degree in fucking history, so no shit all about biology, has enough IQ to parse together that, Oh, maybe we should try talking to it. But no, please, by all means, and then later on when you fuck it, you can make peace with the fact that you have committed bestiality, because granted, he's not committing bestiality maybe he is committing bestiality, because obviously she's too goddamn dumb to be capable of upper thought, but it was, like, the story was what turned me off of it, not the shitty Photoshop on the cover, when I saw the shitty Photoshop on the cover, I was honestly excited hoping I found another treasure, but no, I just found poop. Alas. Alas. Alas.

EJ

I, one of the questions I also have for me is, and I will also have for you too, is, if you had the opportunity to discuss your book with the author, what would be one question you would ask them? For me I have this question for Ashley Bennett. What other dark shit are you hiding in your brain, Ashley? And can we have more of it? Because I, while I do recognize that in some ways, I would not be surprised if Fluff sells more than Dark in many ways. Oh, probably. I respect that she has made quite a career already off of Fluff. You go pay your bills, girl. That's great. But I'm over here sweet with steaks. I feel like that could be a good and authors always have to constantly evolve their personas. They sometimes even get new pun names. And I honestly think that Dalwick Demon proved that, to me anyway as a reader, that Ashley is capable of exploring dark. I totally respect that sweet's her thing. Sweet pays bills. Awesome. But I do think sweet with stakes would be a worthy area for her to continue to explore. We all need to explore new stuff in the indie world. Stay, we're like sharks.

Stacy

Within reason, don't push yourself past. You don't want to push yourself. You have to read everything.

EJ

You don't have to push yourself, but it was sharps. You got to swim forward in some way or you will die. There we go. And I would argue that's a similar way with any of us who are actively living life, constant evolution.

Amy

Y'all have heard about me talk about Momolady from Tumblr, correct? Yeah. And y'all, I don't know if y'all have read Osrin's story?

Stacy

No, I don't think so. Which one is that? Okay,

Amy

he's the basically the main character, the female main character has run away from her horrible family, which has treated her like crap. And Osrin is this orc in Obrash, which is part of the fantasy world that Momo has created. And he's a, he owns the lumber mill in this town, and he's, captivated by her. And it started off as just a three part story on Tumblr. She has since been expanding it into a novel. She's finished. She's finished. That's so cool! And it, honestly, EJ, it encompasses... The idea of sweet with steaks. Perfectly.

Stacy

And that's, but that's Honey Phillips, too. Her her, basically, her alien Seven Brides for Seven Brothers it was the same thing,

EJ

yeah. Just watch me. I'm going to make that a phrase now in my reviews. Sweet with steaks. No,

Stacy

sweet with steaks. And I'm sorry for getting just so excited beforehand and just wait a minute, I

Amy

haven't told them about Momo's!

Stacy

No, I think that's exciting as

EJ

hell. I honestly like the thing that I love about Tumblr is one of the reasons I'm on Tumblr is because you do get some gems out there. If you take the time to look through Tumblr, you're going to come across some baby writers who could easily like just pop up and Be amazing. Jan Reidly great example. I think she

Stacy

is showing up. Nescasta,

EJ

too. She did a cover. Yeah, CM Nescasta. Was also an OG Tumblr er. And

Stacy

Illustrianne, who's another one of those crazy talented artists out there. She did the covers for Girls Weekend, Parties. And a couple of other CM Nescastas. Some other stuff that

Amy

CM Nescasta has coming up.

Stacy

And she does. Oh shit. That's Noman. That's Noman at Noman. That's it. At Noman. Yeah. Yeah. But oh, and her patron, I'm not on it right now, but it's really cheap. It's three bucks a month. Yes. It's great. Good stuff. And you get to see all of the demon gargoyle dong that you have wanted to see, which is all of it, by the way. He's ever, he's fuzzy. Yes, he is. And I appreciate that about him. We need to stop with this. That's one thing I would like to see less of is the, and he had no body hair and it's no body hair's. Okay let's have body hair, which is fine. Yeah. I like, if it's something that like, so like for example, the story I'm gonna talk about, they're hyoid, so they're fish based, so they're not the million, they wouldn't have body hair. Makes sense. Fair enough. And I'm not gonna shit on Ruby Dixon because the sec or the Sakui. Come on, Stacy. Not the well, the Sakui, but they're part of them. It's the Oh, okay. They're modified Misaka. That's the word I was looking for. Oh, there we go. Okay. I hate it when my recall is this slow. But the Misaka don't have body hair and but they also they have their own she built them to be a separate Species. They're not just humans who are blue, they've also got really, really fucking weird feet and they've got all the platting and like that kinda shit. They

EJ

essentially have like rabbit vibrators for dicks and Yes bless. Except for the vibrator part, but, but

Stacy

that's okay. We don't need, you ain't gotta get the lily first working just fine. They're working just fine. And, oh, and another artist that's done a lot of RWBY, and she does the covers for Ashley Bennett, is

EJ

Bonki. Oh, Bonki's so much

Stacy

fun. I fucking love Bonki. I love Bonki. I have the first run of the Sukui stickers that she did, and I really want to get the rest of them. I have a

EJ

bunch of Bonki stickers. Yeah, I do too. It's also on Patreon. Absolutely worth it. And if you can afford it, but yeah.

Stacy

That's the thing that makes me so sad about this. I'm not gonna fault an indie author trying to make their bills, but everybody's got a fucking Patreon now, and it's I can't afford. I, I am. Yeah. I can't afford any. Patreon right now because my new job is a fucking joke when it comes to a paycheck. And

EJ

I think you're not the exception there, honestly. I think you're more of like

Stacy

the rule. Yeah, and it just makes me sad because Alexis B Osborne, I would love to be on her Patreon, but her Patreon that like the tier I would want to be on is outside of my price range. It just is. And it makes me sad because I would, A, I would fucking love to support her because I love her as a writer, but it's just I can't give every writer I like 25, 50 a month. No. Unfortunately. And so it's like no matter where you, how you slice it, you lose.

EJ

I figure as long as you're not pirating their stuff, whatever. Enjoy them as you

Stacy

can. Yeah. And and it's what I've, just leaned into is I'm doing what I can with what I've got, but it's harder and harder when what you've got is shit.

EJ

Fair enough. Fair enough. But that's what I've got for Dalek Demon. We've got two others. So we gotta get into

Stacy

those. Look, this is a podcast about books. If you're able to do a quick podcast about books, you didn't read the fucking book. No, you're right. You're

EJ

correct.

Stacy

That is true. Books are worth taking your time to discuss, so I am not going to apologize. For having a lot to say about a story that made me happy.

EJ

This is a damn good podcast to do your crafts to. Heaven knows I am podcasting while doing crafts. I am with you crafting listeners.

Stacy

I am podcasting while doing what remains of my poor shattered nails.

EJ

Cheers. the big question is, Who's next? Amy.

Stacy

Ducks is back. You were a second too late. Oh!

EJ

Y'all, I was just going on, but I got questions for you. I got questions. Amy's gonna talk. Okay. In a moment.

Amy

I will be right back.

EJ

Okay. After

Stacy

these

EJ

messages. We'll be

Stacy

right

EJ

back. Brought to you by Good Hygiene Practices.